An Independent Patriots Blog
In case you missed any of the NFL action yesterday (perhaps you were watching the Patriots take on the Titans) but either way, Pats Propaganda has you covered. Here are the Sunday results for week 12!
| Bengals | 41 | Steelers | 10 |
| Dolphins | 33 | Panthers | 10 |
| Giants | 13 | Eagles | 7 |
| Patriots | 36 | Titans | 13 |
| Jaguars | 14 | Falcons | 21 |
| Colts | 31 | Bucs | 38 |
| Texans | 14 | Jets | 21 |
| Broncos | 28 | Chargers | 13 |
| 49ers | 34 | Vikings | 26 |
| Packers | 36 | LA Rams | 28 |
| Ravens | 16 | Browns | 10 |
With tummies still full of turkey, ham, pie, or whatever delights you chose for your Thanksgiving feast (if you do celebrate at all of course) we look forward towards the next Patriots game. The Titans are coming to town!
What many are penning as not an easy match up, the Titans and Patriots have their fair share of names on the injury reports.
At the time of writing this the Patriots have 12 players that did not participate in practice, or were of limited availability, on Thursday 25th November. The Titans presently reporting 8 did not participates, 7 limited availabilities and 1 full availability.
So, many, many names there to keep your sharp eyes on (as a very dear colleague and friend of mine likes to say).
But with the Titan’s running game in question this could be a very defense heavy game for the Patriots, cue Matt Judon. Awesomeness. But one man can not carry the team alone, and not to state the obvious, but this win will take a combined effort of the team to really show the Titans what the 2021 Patriots are all about.
So with that in mind, the Pats Prop crew have put forward their predictions.
Go Pats!
The Titans offense is in trouble right now, Adrian Peterson didn’t work out, nor the replacement for King Henry. I’ll be at the game on Sunday, and the Pats have always won with me in attendance (1-0). LFG!
Patriots 30 Titans 14
From Tom Shaw-Mellors (currently on location in Boston!)
The Titans are a very solid team but their offensive depletions can’t be ignored. If the Patriots continue to roll with the positive progress of the last few games, and the offense can beat out the Titans good defense, this should be another nice one for the win column.
Patriots 27 Titans 14
From Clare ‘clazzyclare’ Cooper (holding down the pats prop fort!)
There may not have been a Patriots game but there was plenty of crazy yesterday. So, instead of a recap this morning I have a little league wide sum up. Here are your Sunday scores from around the league…
The Colts spanked the Bills, KC found their feet, kinda, and beat the Cowboys, WFT beat the Bucs last week and the Panthers this week, and in the last few moments the Vikings stole the game from the Packers.
Talk about up is down and down is up right now, oh and the Houston Texans beat the Tennessee Titans (yep you read that correctly folks).
So the scores on the doors for Sunday were:
| Bears | 13 | Ravens | 16 |
| Vikings | 34 | Packers | 31 |
| Bills | 15 | Colts | 41 |
| Browns | 13 | Lions | 10 |
| Panthers | 21 | WFT | 27 |
| Titans | 13 | Texans | 22 |
| Jags | 10 | 49ers | 30 |
| Eagles | 40 | Saints | 29 |
| Raiders | 13 | Bengals | 32 |
| KC Cheifs | 19 | Cowboys | 9 |
| Seahawks | 13 | Cardinals | 23 |
| LA Chargers | 41 | Steelers | 37 |
Hi there Patriots Nation, to all my fellow UK fans, I wish you oodles and oodles of coffee on this sleep deprived Friday!
So, another win against the Atlanta Falcons huh?
It wasn’t an easy, utterly clean game, there were a few blips on the radar with this one, but the defense was definitely bringing the nasty against the Falcons and Matt Ryan.
As well as the Patriots ran the ball, they went 4 for 12 on third down, and that’s not great when you compare it to last week particularly. But the Patriots defense still found a way to shut out the Falcons, and please excuse the colourful language here, spanked, a solid, veteran quarterback.
For the tight endage enthusiast, it was a little slim pickings this week. Hunter Henry played 32 of the snaps (50%) and was more often than not, heavily covered when running routes. When Nelson Agholor caught his touchdown, Hunter had three guys covering him. The Falcons cottoned on that he was a regular target of Mac Jones, his go-to tight end, and they kept him closed down. There was a beautiful, beautiful, catch towards the end of the third quarter, a nice li’l sweet treat for me, but this was undone by a throw from Mac towards Jonnu Smith for an interception. Boo.
Speaking of interceptions, the Patriots had, four. One for each of the Falcons quarterbacks and then a spare. Mr Interception himself, JC Jackson had one, well that’s becoming a given, right? Adrian Phillips and Devin McCourty didn’t want to be left out, and finally Kyle Van Noy, who took it for 35 yards, and a touchdown. Exactly what the word fabulousness was created for!
Matt Judon, a name to star on my game recap every week, stacked up another sack and that’s 10.5 for his New England Patriots season so far, SO FAR!
Kyle Dugger brought it again this week with six tackles and some glorious blocks. My favourite was towards the end of the third quarter where he just pancaked Isaiah Oliver to the floor, you could almost hear the ‘boom’.
Another name that I should create a shortcut for, as I am typing it every week, is Jakob Johnson. This guy is slapping the face of anyone who thinks a fullback isn’t important, and I love it! With the quality of his blocking, and his integration into plays a little more, I don’t think I’m remiss in saying he is having his best Patriots season so far.
And on the note of effective blocking, from the result of that, Damien Harris ran like a freight train. Sometimes he was so quick I almost lost him! This week showed an even split of runs between Rhamondre Stevenson (now officially to be referred to as ‘Mondre, hey, if it’s good enough for the beloved David Andrews, it’s definitely good enough for me!) and Damien Harris. ‘Mondre notching up 12 attempts for 69 yards, and Harris 10 attempts for 56 yards.
Okay, that’s enough of me for this week folks! I’m off to top up my coffee.
Go Pats!
Don’t forget to pick up your tight endage design t-shirts exclusively at Pats Propaganda!
As the Patriots notch up their second home win of the season against the Cleveland Browns, they move to the nail-biting 6 – 4 for week ten.
This morning (this afternoon, this evening, whenever you take the time to read this) Patriots fans are happy bunnies, of course! And I’m not known for my negativity, so you probably won’t find much in this recap today.
However, I did want to point out one thing, fortunately, it didn’t really impact the outcome of the win for the Patriots, but they still notched up six penalties at home. Pretty much the average for a game so far this season.
Okay, I think that brings a healthy balance of negatives so lets move it right along to the positives shall we folks?
Seriously, I’m almost lost as to where to start!
The Patriots defense against the run did have a little shaky start but they adjusted to what the Browns wanted to do and shut them down. Then the Patriots offense bullied their way through.
The good played great: Christian Barmore with constant pressure up the middle, forcing a number of errant passes, Jakob Johnson blocking like a darn wrecking ball, and Matt Judon, well, being Matt Judon! These names make my recap every single week, and to that point I apologise for being repetitive, but these guys deserve to be mentioned every darn week!
Kyle Dugger showed up and owned up this week being second on the defensive plays list with 5 tackles, 1 assist and an interception. Only to be bettered by Ja’Whaun Bentley with 6 tackles and 1 assist on the board.
The ‘old guys’, and I say that very tongue-in-cheek folks, played great. Kyle Van Noy, Devin McCourty and Dont’a Hightower showed us why old guys rule baby! If only Devin could have made that one handed catch for the interception early in the first quarter, the Browns might not have even racked up a touchdown! 45 -7 is great, 45 – 0, oh my!
N’Keal Harry is a slightly controversial topic in Patriots Nation, but he brought something to the game Sunday and may be making his mark as a very effective wide receiver blocker. Going into this match-up the name Myles Garrett was the one people were most concerned about, and well, Harry said “yeah, not in my house” and he shut that guy down!
Mike Onwenu looked to be an absent with the return and line up of Trent Brown but oh no, Belichick wouldn’t take out one of his best offensive linemen. Onwenu lined up as an eligible tight end and blocked the heck out of the Browns defense. I knew I liked that guy…
The Mac-attack had himself an awesome game, throwing the ball deep to prove there was a new gunslinger in town, and his name was McCorkle Jones. That’s Michael McCorkle Jones to you Cleveland.
I know I mention tight ends a plenty, but in my own defense, this year is a bit of a year for it on the Patriots. So, whilst keeping my excitement in check, I will simply touch upon the fact that Hunter Henry had four fabulous receptions, (they were all great catches so can easily be classed as fabulous). Of those 4 receptions, 50% were touchdowns, and 100% of his targets he caught. Just sayin’…
Finally, I can report Jakobi Meyers had his first receiving touchdown and it was thrown by Brian Hoyer. Not perfect, but you know what, I think the whole of Patriots Nation will take it. Pretty much the whole Patriots team celebrated it with him in the end zone.
And even though at this point in time I haven’t seen which players were given the game ball, mine would go to Rhamondre Stevenson. Not only did he have 4 receptions from 4 targets and 37 yards, but the kid had 20 rushing attempts for 100 yards and a total of 2 touchdowns. But, the numbers aren’t what did it for me, it was watching this guy play. Powerful, masterful and impressive! He ran through gaps that were made well by the Patriots o-line and also a few that didn’t even seem to be there! And as I can’t roll my r’s, I’ll stick with chanting STEVENSON thank you very much.
Go Pats!
And so here we are, another victory road game Monday. They may not be clean, and they may not be pretty, the wins that is, but this is a team with a first year quarterback and more new pieces than I can count. Scrappy ain’t so bad.
Once again the Patriots got into Sam Darnold’s head, and the poor kid threw 3 interceptions. Against the Patriots Darnold has now stacked up 1 touchdown, 9 interceptions, and zero wins.
But it wasn’t all on Darnold, the Patriots offense didn’t bring the best versions of themselves to Carolina. The penalties for the offensive line-up were a little concerning, with false start calls on Jakobi Meyers, Isaiah Wynn and Hunter Henry, and an offensive holding call against Ted Karras. Not ideal.
The passer protection wasn’t as good as it has been either, still a work in progress I guess.
But for yet another game I can compliment the blocking of Jakob Johnson and reiterate how I will forever be “in” on the fullback position.
The Patriots defense played great, and as Bill always says, defense wins games! The interceptions by JC Jackson were delicious! He saw Stephon Gilmore’s one interception and raised him one! Two for JC and one for Jamie Collins and there was even a tip or two of the ball by Kyle Van Noy. You get an interception, you get an interception, everyone gets an interception… Halloween came a little late this year with interceptions getting given out like candy, and poor Darnold may have been seeing a few ghosts again.
Now, every week I hail the guy for being a baller, but Matt Judon is held more than a kid’s favourite teddy bear, and he still managed to get a hand on Darnold whilst being enveloped by an offensive lineman.
A name I know that was on many peoples lips, Christian Barmore, and well, the kid had himself a GAME!
The injury list is always a cause for concern but right now it’s getting rather long, and after this Carolina game, particularly on the running back front! Rhamondre Stevenson was really letting loose until he got caught out with a head injury. Mid way into the second quarter he showed Sean Chandler who was boss with not only a stiff arm but one that threw the guy outta the club! Boom!
Brandon Bolden continues to roll up and show up, proving he is a valuable part of the Patriots offense, and towards the end of the second quarter he made a great adjustment to turn and make a difficult catch. He pulled out the stutter step to get a good run and even pulled a trick on Stephon Gilmore gaining himself a few extra yards.
Hunter Henry maintains his “Mr Consistent” badge with his fifth Patriot touchdown in six games.
I think I gotta give a gold star to Mac Jones. He may not have had one of his best games, but he’s a rookie quarterback who not only “quarterbacks” really well, he pushes the pile, blocks, jumps on a loose ball to recover, and he pulls back his huge offensive linemen to try and make sure they don’t get into any disagreements. This kid rocks, it may be just my opinion, but he’s my quarterback baby! So hold my darn coffee, and bring on the Cleveland Browns! Woof!
It’s not an easy season to be a Patriots fan, a roller coaster of game performances and Tom Brady doing so good elsewhere. It’s pretty tough being a rookie quarterback too. I mean, Mac Jones is giving the Patriots literal blood, sweat, and almost tears! I feel sorry for whoever has to wash his road game white jerseys, blood is an absolute pain to get out…
But his sacrifice was not in vain, as the Patriots bring home a win on the road.
Unfortunately, it was a scrappy and perhaps messy game. It wasn’t one of the best performances we have seen by Mac so far, although that may be less of an “on paper” kind of thing and more of a visual confirmation. And some of the solidity that had begun to grow back on the offensive line seemed to have been edging away a little.
Plenty is being criticised of the coaching too. Now, I am loath to attempt to be critical of something I probably know less about than Nike the dog, but towards the end of the second quarter, Mac threw the ball all over the place, and the Patriots did not undertake a run play. Normally that’s no big deal, but in a game that was currently sitting at 10-14 with the half bearing down on them and against a defense that is known for being weak against the run, I thought perhaps a run drive may have been a good choice. Don’t get me wrong, that’s just my rookie opinion and they did end that drive in a field goal bringing the deficit to just one point.
The officials didn’t help much either, with what felt like a million penalties called against the Patriots and maybe two called on the Chargers. Obviously, I am exaggerating for dramatic effect, but you’re fans, you know that’s how it really felt.
The actual recorded statistics were in fact, 4 penalties by the Patriots for 30 yards and 5 for the Chargers for 40 yards. As the sands of time fall, it would appear that officials do not call holding on Matt Judon, I mean, he is that much of a beast – they must think he is just too tough to need it, right?
But I digress as usual, but hey, we all know you come for the wit, and stay for the tight endage, wink wink.
Moving swiftly along to the more positive aspects of the game such as the great showing of Myles Bryant! Devin McCourty had a fabulous tackle and tug-out of the ball towards the end of the second quarter, only bettered by that glorious hand flick Kendrick Bourne undertook to prevent an interception, although it was following the miss of a high ball catch, it was still kinda beautiful.
Jakob Johnson continued to prove his worth and the fullback spot on the roster, with some fabulous blocking, notably the first Damien Harris rushing touchdown of the game. Not only that, but perhaps due to the absence of James White, Mac has begun to utilise Johnson in short passes too. Fabulousness for all you fullback fans out there!
Hunter Henry was a little quiet in this game, perhaps expected what with the Chargers weakness against the run, but the Chargers know what a great tight end Hunter can be and had him covered plenty, and that was obvious right from the start of the first quarter.
It would seem the revenge tour was not to be for Hunter, other than the great second quarter reception that almost, almost, resulted in a touchdown and the lovely end of game punt catch, but the other ex-Chargers player, Adrian Phillips, made up for the both of them! Phillips notched up two interceptions and a touchdown against his former team, and he looked pretty darn pleased with himself.
I have to end my recap this week with my favourite moment of the game. Chargers defensive lineman Jerry Tillery had the latest hit on a quarterback I may have ever seen. It was so late David Andrews had been stationery for what felt like ages, only to turn and witness the terrible slam Tillery made into Mac. Andrews, being the utter beast he is, stepped over Mac to get in Tillery’s face with the speed of someone, well let’s say a guy a bit little less squishy than Andrews is. The fierceness on Andrews’ face was momentous and I may have swooned a little.
Now, I do not condone any form of violence, but if you can find someone who will fight for you the way Andrews would for Mac Jones with the look on his face Andrews had, that person is a keeper… Just sayin’
And so concludes the game against the Chargers. I hope the Patriots can keep this, albeit scrappy, momentum going into Carolina, they are presently 3-0 on the road! Now, where did I hide the good Halloween candy…
Go Pats!