Archives for September 18, 2015

Ha! Love it. For a little flashback article about how very very bad I was at actual football check this out. And yes it includes pictures of me, possibly the worst tackle to ever play the game.

But if we can throw out my lack of speed and strength I always wanted to be a linebacker or fullback growing up. Probably because those are two positions you didn’t need great speed to play, so now in fantasy land I’d probably want to be a safety like McCourty. 

Would love making the calls, seeing the plays develop from the back end and coming up to deliver some big hits. I was a defensemen in hockey and I think this is probably the closest thing to that.

Check out today’s gameplan article for a lot more on this. But generally you do try to use their aggression against them with misdirection and screens, and a quick pace that doesn’t allow them to get into all their disguises. You can’t let them dictate, you must make them react to what you’re doing. Once they get on their heels it can be a long night for them.

I do think we see more of a “base” defense, and very possibly a 3-4 which is their run-stopping package. It’s similar to the Super Bowl gameplan and I think we’ll see more Brown-Siliga inside than someone like Grissom who is too light to be a DT in this game.

Put the game in Taylor’s hands and make him read coverage, go through progressions and execute without turning the ball over. Maybe he has that game in him again this weekend, but history tells us that he’ll likely make a critical mistake if the Pats play disciplined enough and shut down the run.

Stupid “look at me” hot takes like this, this and this.

I think he’s really about depth and protecting Edelman and Amendola in the return game. Highly doubt he plays a significant role unless someone gets dinged, but he has experience in what is a similar system and can back up multiple positions. He’ll stick around until LaFell comes back and then he’s likely gone unless he really makes some plays in whatever limited opportunities he gets.

I am very curious to see the answer to this question myself because it will tell us a lot about whether or not the Pats really plan on sticking to matchup defense like they did most of last year. The wild card is that man defense is a lot easier on quarterbacks to make reads and I don’t think they want to make anything easy on Tyrod Taylor. The easy answer is that it will be a constant mix of zone and man, but generally I don’t think we’ll see the corners following receivers around the entire game in man. They’ll want to throw a lot of disguise at Taylor, especially in the secondary.