The Game Goat Thread: Wk.7 vs 49ers

SeoulSoxFan

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This is the first time since Brady took over that I feel there is no way out for a Patriots team, for the rest of the season.

There have been terrible losses before. It always felt like it was an aberration and felt confident they'll bounce back.

Not today. It was such a thorough beat down that the team was non-competitive on all phases of the game.

It also seems silly to talk about who is the game goat. Absolutely the worst performance in two decades. Finishing above .500 may be the goal now.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Everyone? I asked in the game thread, what do the Patriots do well right now? That looked like a bottom 5 performance.

Other than the Jets games where are the wins on the schedule?
 

Mystic Merlin

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They got obliterated by the Niners running game and Cam threw out a sub-NFL performance.

They were so bad defending the run that George Kittle was somehow rendered a marginal factor in the passing game because the passing game was relatively unimportant for SF.

Cam was routinely late on reads and inaccurate. You can’t start him next week.
 

Seels

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I'm probably a broken record at this point but I will never understand the Williams or Duggar picks.
 

Pandemonium67

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The Pats have had several losses in past years where they were thoroughly outplayed and we were mystified and demoralized, yet they came back to make the playoffs and win.

This year I don't see it.
 

Ed Hillel

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Honestly, this is kind of freeing. This roster wasn’t winning with Tom anyway, might as well suck as best we can and root for Tom to win 7. Nice stress free season for once

Cam and the wr are so bad, I can’t blame the defense because they must know there’s no point anyway.
 

Captaincoop

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Honestly, this is kind of freeing. This roster wasn’t winning with Tom anyway, might as well suck as best we can and root for Tom to win 7. Nice stress free season for once

Cam and the wr are so bad, I can’t blame the defense because they must know there’s no point anyway.
I guess I'm in the minority but I don't give a hoot what Tom Brady does for another team. It means nothing to me.
 

Ed Hillel

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I guess I'm in the minority but I don't give a hoot what Tom Brady does for another team. It means nothing to me.
Even ignoring the homerism, I love watching the dude as a football fan and an aging dude. To watch someone his age play at his level is awesome. Also, I kind of have stock in him in the form of a football card, so that makes it all the better to me.
 

E5 Yaz

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Meyers showed some spark. Harris ran well. Nantz might not be back in Foxboro this season.

That's all I got
 

Garshaparra

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I'm probably a broken record at this point but I will never understand the Williams or Duggar picks.
Joejuan Williams had 1 tackle today. Jakobi Meyers had 2 tackles today. Yeesh.

D Goats: Tackling by LBs and secondary. Just awful, with players bouncing out or pushing off of would-be tackles.
O Goats: Cam appears to be a shadow of his former self since his bout with COVID. WRs and TEs barely open even when he could target them.
 

genoasalami

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Nothing good comes out of mediocre. Just better off going 4-12 and hope to nail some draft picks. They need talent and they need a QB going forward. 8-8 crap gets you nowhere. After a 20 year run, we can live with a few down years.
 

Captaincoop

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Joejuan Williams had 1 tackle today. Jakobi Meyers had 2 tackles today. Yeesh.

D Goats: Tackling by LBs and secondary. Just awful, with players bouncing out or pushing off of would-be tackles.
O Goats: Cam appears to be a shadow of his former self since his bout with COVID. WRs and TEs barely open even when he could target them.
His "bout" with asymptomatic Covid that came right after his first terrible performance.
 

Seels

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Dugger has been terrific this year. Wasn't active today (not sure why) but he's been good.
Tee Higgins and Chase Claypool have been terrific this year. Justin Jefferson went 1 spot above them and is 5th in the league in yards. Safety was not nearly the need that WR was / is.

Joejuan Williams averages about 15-20% of defensive snaps per game, while Metcalf, Hardman, and AJ Brown were there for the picking.
 

E5 Yaz

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I think like a lot of people, I’m wondering what is going on w/ Chase Winovich. He barely played today, & in several of the failure plays, his typical woulda be a vast improvement, help. Obviously in a gap this wide, lot more going on than just that. But that one to me was v-odd.
 

rodderick

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His "bout" with asymptomatic Covid that came right after his first terrible performance.
Let's be honest, Cam has had exactly one half of good football throwing the ball for the Patriots: the second half against a horrific Seahawks secondary. That's it. His passing ranged from pedestrian to horrific in every other opportunity.
 

Ferm Sheller

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I think like a lot of people, I’m wondering what is going on w/ Chase Winovich. He barely played today, & in several of the failure plays, his typical woulda be a vast improvement, help. Obviously in a gap this wide, lot more going on than just that. But that one to me was v-odd.
Winovich may have been benched due to his PF penalty.
 

Garshaparra

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Typically, you don’t want your DB with many tackles...
You do want them to have more tackles than your wide receiver, especially with as much time as SF RBs spent in the secondary. To prove this out, the top tacklers for the team were entirely guys in the secondary: DMac, Jones, Phillips. JoeJuan's entire point was to be the replacement for Chung. That didn't work out.
 

E5 Yaz

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I know a Bill Belichick team would never intentionally try to lose, but as a fan, my hope/goal would be to NOT finish above .500 and actually get a decent pick for once.
After the Chargers finish off the Jaguars, there will be six 1-win teams ... not to mention the Jets. There are four other 2-win teams. Unless the wheels fall off completely, you're looking at the moment at 10-15 at the moment
 

BaseballJones

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After the Chargers finish off the Jaguars, there will be six 1-win teams ... not to mention the Jets. There are four other 2-win teams. Unless the wheels fall off completely, you're looking at the moment at 10-15 at the moment
Which would be SO much better than where they typically draft. Not as good as a top-5 pick, obviously, but still...a lot better (from a draft perspective) than where they are typically at.
 

E5 Yaz

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Which would be SO much better than where they typically draft. Not as good as a top-5 pick, obviously, but still...a lot better (from a draft perspective) than where they are typically at.
You know they'd trade down, regardless
 

timelysarcasm

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After the Chargers finish off the Jaguars, there will be six 1-win teams ... not to mention the Jets. There are four other 2-win teams. Unless the wheels fall off completely, you're looking at the moment at 10-15 at the moment
Right, which is better than 28 - 32, which I'm not complaining about. The team needs a talent infusion, and badly. A higher pick would also yield more in a trade down. Obviously we need to find a QB, but there are lots of holes that need to be filled.

There's absolutely no use in trying to limp to .500 or even push for the playoffs. The AFC has a lot of good teams, Patriots aren't one of them.
 

ifmanis5

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There will be a lot of these era defining type stats this year and the cliff will look like the cliff:
View: https://twitter.com/bostonsportsinf/status/1320510710472974336

Pats record thru 6 games 2020- (2-4) 2019- (6-0) 2018- (4-2) 2017- (4-2) 2016- (5-1) 2015- (6-0) 2014- (4-2) 2013- (5-1) 2012- (3-3) 2011- (5-1) 2010- (5-1) 2009- (4-2) 2008- (4-2) 2007- (6-0) 2006- (5-1) 2005- (3-3) 2004- (6-0) 2003- (4-2) 2002- (3-3) 2001- (3-3) 2000- (2-4)
 

ColonelMustard

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Stidham played a horrendous game but I remember reading Patriots DBs like Gilmore and McCourty say that he has an amazing arm and is a hard worker who is getting the game. Is that simply bluster or is there some hope?
 

BaseballJones

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Maybe it’s not cause and effect, but the Pats look like a different team since the COVID debacle.
Completely. Before Covid, they were 2-1 and a half yard away from being 3-0.

Then Covid hit, and they lost a hard-fought game to the defending champs without Newton, lost to a godawful Denver team when they had just 2 practices in 2 weeks, and then got annihilated in every way imaginable today to a good (but injury-depleted) 49er team.

They went from being a wisp away from being 3-0 and looking great, to suddenly being 2-4 and honestly looking like one of the worst teams in the entire league.
 

JokersWildJIMED

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Newton made some throws today so it doesn’t appear to be an injury with him. He’s simply playing extremely poorly. Team is 2-0 when JJ Taylor plays. I know they wanted to get Harris in there, but Taylor provided a real spark when he played.
 

DaveRoberts'Shoes

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Newton made some throws today so it doesn’t appear to be an injury with him. He’s simply playing extremely poorly. Team is 2-0 when JJ Taylor plays. I know they wanted to get Harris in there, but Taylor provided a real spark when he played.
Newton looks to me like a guy who had shoulder surgery, never got back his natural throwing motion, and is going to be inconstent from an accuracy standpoint moving forward. The type of surgery he had {(superior labrum) can help with pain but frequently comes at the cost of some motion. For an overhead athlete like Newton, losing even a few degrees of external rotation (the cock-back part of the throw) can be all it takes.

Maybe at this point D coordinators realize that the combination of his physical limitations combined with the poop sandwich that is the WR/TE group means that they don’t really have to respect the pass as much, so that makes his running prowess less effective.’

Yeah, I went there. Poop sandwich.
 

54thMA

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This team is void of talent outside of their offensive line and secondary; as far as the latter, Gilmore and McCourty looked totally disinterested to me today, Jones took a horrible route on one of the 49ers rushing TD's as well.

Their defensive line is getting shoved around, their linebackers can't cover anyone; how many wide open running backs are there going to be coming out of the backfield turning simple dump off passes into huge chunk plays. Not that it impacted the final outcome, but Bentley whiffing on that 3rd down tackle that led to the first San Francisco TD set the tone for the rest of the day. You HAVE to make that tackle in that spot.

Their WR's and TE's are hot garbage, their running backs are so so.

They just don't have a lot of talent to compete at a high level week in and week out.

I have no clue what the offensive game plan was last week or this week either, none.

It was an incredible 20 year run, what they did from 2001 through 2019 will probably never be matched in this league again; last year they finished 12-4 and people viewed it as a down year.

Considering I've been a fan since 1968 and in that time watched some pretty horrible teams (2-14 and 1-15 among others), I'm realistic and I go with what my eyes tell me.

They are just not a very good team.