Archives for November 16, 2011

Good breakdown here from Greg Bedard, have to agree with his observations, especially where it comes to Brady and the offense. I don’t think anyone would’ve thought at halftime the Pats were going to dominate the second half like they did, especially given their second half history of late at the Jets homefield.

Couple nuggets of note:

It is no coincidence that Ninkovich has played his best ball of the season the past two games. He bottomed out against Pittsburgh and the coaches had to realize they were asking too much of the versatile backer to play in base and rush end in sub packages. Ninkovich played about 20 fewer snaps against the Giants and Jets each. He’s still in base, but now he’s in a rotation with Anderson and Deaderick as the sub rusher.

The Patriots had their best pass-blocking game of the season against a scheme that has given them fits since Ryan arrived. The Patriots allowed just nine quarterback pressures: no sacks, seven hurries, and two knockdowns (though the safety on which Sebastian Vollmer and Woodhead failed to make the block on Jamaal Westerman should be ruled a sack). The bad news is the unit had by far its worst run-blocking performance with 12 stuffed runs allowed.

It’s definitely too early to really think anything playoff-wise is set in stone yet, but this is a fun read nonetheless.

The “end-of-a-dynasty” theme became a hot topic as New England faced its first three-game skid in nine years entering last Sunday’s road game against the streaking the New York Jets.

If the Giants loss truly marked the end of a dynasty, it didn’t take long for a new one to have potentially sprung anew.

The Patriots (6-3) didn’t just rebound in a big way with a 37-16 rout of their AFC East archrival. Thanks to another inexcusable Baltimore loss to inferior opposition (Seattle) and the potentially serious foot injury suffered by Houston quarterback Matt Schaub against Tampa Bay, New England has moved back into the driver’s seat for the conference’s top playoff seed.