PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Archives for July 2013

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How good is Rob Gronkowski? His 2011 season with 459 receiving DYAR was not only the best tight end season in our database, it’s 100 DYAR ahead of any other season. Last year, he “only” had the tenth highest tight end DYAR in history, not bad for only 11 games. Gronkowski is the only tight end in the 22 years of DVOA stats to have at least 50 passes with a DVOA higher than 40% in three different seasons, pretty remarkable considering that his career only consists of three different seasons. (Ken Dilger and Brent Jones are the only other two tight ends to do it twice.) On top of all this, he’s one of the five best blockers among the league’s starting tight ends. In other words, if Gronkowski has further complications from offseason back and arm surgeries and misses significant time, the Patriots are in real trouble.

Football Outsiders 2013 Almanac

https://www.patspropaganda.com/how-good-is-rob-gronkowski-his-2011-season-with/

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There was a lot of talk last year about how the Patriots had finally found a running game to balance out their offense, but the Patriots have always had an efficient running game. They just happened to use it a little bit more last year than in years past. New England has now ranked in the top four for run offense DVOA in five of the last six seasons. (The exception was 2009, when they were ninth.) Ridley is now their bellcow, but he benefits from the same things as all the other recent Patriots running backs: defenses set up to stop the pass (the average box faced by the Patriots last year was 6.15, 29th in the league) and lots of shotgun spread formations that give him space to find holes. In fact, Ridley is particularly productive when he runs from shotgun; in his two NFL seasons combined, he’s run 43 times from shotgun for 281 yards, with a 67 percent Success Rate and 51.5% DVOA.

Football Outsiders 2013 Almanac

https://www.patspropaganda.com/there-was-a-lot-of-talk-last-year-about-how-the/

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Subjectively, it seems like Brady in the last couple years has started to struggle with stretches of inaccuracy, and that he’s taking more hits than in past seasons. Our stats seem to disagree. As you can see from the numbers above, Brady has been an efficient machine, even better than his standard numbers would indicate because the Patriots keep playing harder-than-average defensive schedules. The difference in his DVOA between plays with pressure and plays without is roughly equal to the league average. Between hits and sacks, he was knocked down on just 10.4 percent of pass plays, the fifth lowest rate in the league. And Brady’s completion rate would be even better if Patriots receivers didn’t drop 6.5 percent of passes (fifth highest in the league). At age 36, and with so much of his receiving corps turning over, you can expect a little bit of decline, but not much.

Football Outsiders 2013 Almanac

https://www.patspropaganda.com/subjectively-it-seems-like-brady-in-the-last/

ESPN Patriots Podcast

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ESPN Patriots Podcast

blogalicious:

Mike Reiss and Tedy Bruschi discuss the Patriots offseason from Aaron Hernandez to Alfonzo Dennard and what’s next for the Patriots as training camp is about to start.

I love that, with these podcasts, Patriots fans can get a sense of the calmness that Tedy can bring to ANY situation.

Must-listen as always…

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The Houston Texans announced Tuesday that there will be “themes” for every home game this year, ranging from “White Out” to “Hispanic Heritage Day.” The December 1 matchup against the New England Patriots is simply called “Homecoming.”

Houston Texans peg Patriots for ‘Homecoming’ game – NFL.com

I actually kind of like the idea of doing themes for games, and I really hope the Texans bust out the letterman jackets again for it.

This should be one of those defining games of the season just like it was last year when the two teams met in early December. That was when the Texans got steamrolled and fell from the top seed in the AFC, ultimately resulting in the divisional game being played in New England, and getting slightly-less steamrolled again.

Should be a good challenge for the Pats now having to go to Houston, but by that point we’ll know far more about both teams than we do now.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/the-houston-texans-announced-tuesday-that-there/

Some Pats nuggets from Football Outsiders’ 2013 Almanac

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One of my favorite days of the offseason is when Football Outsiders drop their almanac. There is not a better advanced statistical preview out there, and it always sheds a final bit of light on the previous season.

Here are some nuggets I took away that I hadn’t known beforehand…

– First, I love it when stats back up what I’ve been writing about all offseason. I touched on first down being a priority to fix for the defense, and I think they addressed it with the additions of Tommy Kelly and Adrian Wilson. FBO’s metrics back up my argument. Here are the DVOAs on each down for the defense last season (the lower the better, especially into the negative numbers):

  • 1st Down: 17.7% (31st in NFL)
  • 2nd Down: -19.7% (3rd in NFL)
  • 3rd Down: 1.7% (19th in NFL)

– Is Belichick losing his aggressive streak? He was in the top 6 for aggressiveness index from 2004-2010, but was 11th in 2011 and 23rd last year. This is a measure for going for it on 4th down.

– Pats went from 74% in 2-TE sets in 2011 to just 49% last year.

– Pats led NFL with 59 defensive penalties. Yikes! Didn’t realize that one.

– Patriots rushed 4 or 5 guys 87.9% of the time. Just 4% of their blitzes were by a DB (31st in NFL). Only rushed 6+ 5.3% (23rd in NFL).

Highly recommend you pick up the almanac at FootballOutsiders.com if you’re into this kind of stuff.