Archives for October 2016

Week 8 Scouting Report: Buffalo Bills

October 26, 2016 by Adam Magnacca

What a busy Tuesday in Pats Nation (or Bill’s Mafia as Doug Kyed penned) yesterday was. The Patriots dealt away TE AJ Derby, my training camp binky, to the Broncos for a 5th round pick in 2017, and traded for Lions LB Kyle Van Noy and a 7th rounder in exchange for a 6th rounder. We won’t get into draft/trade talk here, but just keep in mind BB might not be done wheeling and dealing just yet.

The Bills have slowly turned into a worthy adversary, being the only real contender in the AFC East. Sexy Rexy is notorious for throwing his best at Tom Brady and the Buffalo offense has come to life under an inspired running game. This will be a great challenge for Brady and Co.

Here is everything you need to know about The Buffalo Bills aka, “The Only Team to stop Jacoby Brissett”

Week 8 at Buffalo Bills

Sunday October 30

1 pm EST, CBS

Low 50’s 80% chance of rain, 16 mph winds

Opponent/Patriots Stats
Bills: 4-3

Notable Games: In Week 2 Rex Ryan fired then OC Greg Roman and since their Week 4 shut out win against NE, the Bills have turned it around and proved their worth.

Common Opponents: Arizona Cardinals (Both teams won), Miami Dolphins (Pats won, Bills lost).

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Patriots vs. Steelers Film Review: Defense Edition

October 26, 2016 by Mike Dussault

Diving in on the All-22 film of the Patriots’ defensive performance left me dazed and confused. I told myself after the game that a win is a win and really at this point there’s still time to work the kinks out, but the truth is that the defense is simply not winning one-on-one matchups up front enough.

Yes, it was a conservative gameplan, with the Pats rushing just three players on 22 of Landry Jones‘ 46 dropbacks. On those downs the Patriots were highly effective flooding the field with eight zone defenders. Jones had the most trouble on those snaps.

But when the Pats sent five or six rushers it barely ever affected Jones’ timing with his receivers and three of his eight completions of 10 yards or more came against the Pats five and six man rush.

So in today’s film review I’m going to look at one third down play in depth that best sum up the Patriots’ defensive problems.

Patriots Special Teams Report – Week 7 @ Pittsburgh Steelers

October 25, 2016 by Sam Hollister

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It was an ugly win, but a win nonetheless, and the Patriots now have a two game lead in the AFC East heading into their revenge game in Buffalo this Sunday. While the team is 6-1 and leading AFC overall, there is still room for improvement from a few noticeable areas, with the play of kicker Stephen Gostkowski near the top of that list.

So far in 2016, Gostkowski is tied for 24th in field goal accuracy, having made just 9 out of his 12 attempts. For comparison, three kickers are perfect so far in 2016: Justin Tucker, Greg Zuerlein, and our old friend Adam Vinatieri, who set the NFL record for consecutive field goals made at 43 yesterday (equaling his age), an astounding accomplishment for the 21-year pro. Six kickers have missed just one field goal, 10 have have missed two, nine (including Gostkowski) have missed three, and four have missed four or more.

Gostkowski’s career average is 86.9% (good for third all-time), which is a sharp contrast from his 75% average thus far this season. Last season, he hit 91.7% of his field goals, missed just three, was a first-team All-Pro and was named to the Pro Bowl for the third straight year. In 2014, his success rate was a career high 94.6% on field goals, missed just two, and setting his personal record for field goals made in one season with 38. In 2013, he hit 92.7% of his field goals, and missed just three. Gostkowski’s worst season of his career (not including his injury-shortened 2010 campaign that was cut short after just eight games) was his rookie season in 2006, in which he hit on just 76.9% of his field goals. While it is only a seven game sample size, Gostkowski’s 2016 season is on track to produce a career-low in field goal accuracy. Gostkowski is certainly not paid to perform like this (he received the second-most guaranteed money ever for a kicker in his newest contract), and a large faction of Patriot Nation is up in arms with the performance of their All-Pro kicker.

Notes on the Pats Re-Watch (and leftovers)

October 25, 2016 by Mike Dussault

legarrette blount Really wish the All-22 film was up on Mondays, it would make turning the page to the next game that much quicker and easier. Alas, the film review will have to wait until tomorrow. In the meantime I took a quick re-watch of the Pats-Steelers game.

Here are some notes and some leftovers to go with the extensive Posits post from yesterday, as well as some notes on the fallout around the league after Week 7.

— Gotta start with Chandler Jones, who is reportedly in negotiations with the Cardinals on an extension. Good for Chandler and way to move on it when it’s still October and he’s still playing great. Traditionally his play has fallen off a cliff later in the year, often due to injuries. Bertrand was acting like this trade was a huge mistake yesterday on the Sports Hub, which made me almost want to call in and yell at him.

First of all, you get Joe Thuney, who looks like he’ll start at left guard for the next decade. Then there’s Malcolm Mitchell who is the most under-the-radar rookie receiver in recent Patriots history. The fact that Mitchell is getting consistent snaps is a major positive sign, even if he’s not putting up much stats. The fact that Jonathan Cooper didn’t really work out doesn’t even affect my view at all.

It should be surprising Jones is doing well in an attacking defense. But he’d be doing different things in New England and I doubt he’d be of much help to a defense that really doesn’t need him. We should at least wait until December and maybe not until another year or two before truly deciding a verdict in this trade, but even as things sit today I’d still do it every time.

Pats Posits: You Can’t Complain About a Win in Pittsburgh

October 23, 2016 by Mike Dussault

A win over the Pittsburgh Steelers is a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. It wasn’t pretty at times, but it was an effective win on the road. The Patriots were sloppy, but it didn’t matter. The return of the “Bend-Don’t-Break” defense made sure the lead held up and now the Pats are 6-1, and hold a significant tie breaker in the race for homefield advantage.

Ultimately what matters most is that a) no one left the game with a significant injury, b) you can slow Brady-Gronk down, but it cannot be stopped for 60 minutes, and c) the Patriots now have a two-game lead over the Bills in the AFC East. The defense has, in the words of Mike Lombardi, “issues” but here in late October the Pats are positioned well atop the AFC and have time to iron those issues out.

But yup, the Patriots are running away with this thing early.

A Historical Look Back at Patriots’ Points Allowed, Third Down and Red Zone Defense

October 23, 2016 by Mike Dussault

Maybe this is a little too deep for a pregame read, but I dove into the long-term defensive stats of the Patriots under Bill Belichick and found the results really interesting.

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-2-07-02-pm Belichick has said in the past that the key stats for a defense are points, third down and red zone, with points being the most important. Entering today’s game, the Patriots are 2nd in points, 29th on third down and 27th in the red zone. The disparity is fascinating, and those stats are fueling the latest debates about how good the Patriots defense is or isn’t.

But when you look back since 2001, the picture that these stats paint isn’t much different than what we have today. In that time the Patriots have averaged 20th in third down defense, 17th in red zone defense, and 8th in points. As you can see from the charts, the third down defense is all over the map, while the points have been a model of consistency.

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-2-03-49-pm The media (and yours truly included) have been hammering the third down defense in recent weeks, but maybe it matters just a little bit less than we all think it does. The Super Bowl-winning Patriots teams weren’t always lock down on third down – 2001 (15th), 2003 (7th), 2004 (21st) and 2014 (16th).

When you compare those rankings to points allowed — 2001 (6th), 2003 (1st), 2004 (2nd), and 2014 (8th) — the latter seems far more important, even though the Patriots have only dropped out of the top-10 in points allowed in three seasons under Belichick (2002, 2005, 2011).

Obviously you always want to get off the field on third down and to prevent touchdowns in the red zone, but maybe we (I) should stop obsessing over those two stats like they’re the end-all, be-all of statistics.

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Best/Worst in Weekly Patriots Links – 10/22

October 22, 2016 by Nikolas Davos

“It smells like…victory.”

Early on it wasn’t pretty, but at the end of the day, Brady’s home debut ended how we thought it would: with a W. Staying in the AFC North on a road date with the Big Ben less Steelers this weekend, let’s throwback to the fallout after last season before we get into this weeks’ links.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of Mike Tomlin on the sideline hemorrhaging while Gronk is spiking a touchdown and ‘Zo is screaming with whatever voice he has left God knows what in his ear will absolutely never get old. For a “no-nonsense” team that prides themselves on not making excuses, all Pittsburgh seems to do is just that. Last season, it was league prepped headphones that cost them the game. This season? Well, Pittsburgh’s defensive coordinator Keith Butler has built in reasoning for the imminent embarrassment his unit very well could put forth tomorrow. In Kevin Duffy’s (Masslive) piece, the coach was quoted as saying:

“I don’t think they’re doing anything special. I think they do things outside the box sometimes, you know, that might be on the edge of being legal or not legal. They’ve done a couple of things in the past — putting an offensive tackle out as ineligible but he’s not really. Sometimes the emphasis by the NFL in terms of what they call and what they don’t call, (the Patriots) use that a little bit. They’ve been accused of doing a lot of things. But the thing we’ve got to do is ignore that and play.”