PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Mike Dussault

Patriots Gameday Reset

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Well it was an anti-climactic Sunday but of course now I’m happy to have a MNF game getting me through the first and hardest day of the week. 

One thing that jumps out to me after watching a lot of other teams play on Sunday is the level of parity in the NFL this year. Most likely we won’t have an undefeated team left after the Chiefs travel to the Colts this coming weekend. Wonder when the last time was when there wasn’t an undefeated team by week 6. 

This is what the NFL has always strived for and it seems like it make the race for playoff spots even more intense this year.

Of course I kept an eye on the Jets-Bills game until it started to become a blowout. No way around it, the Jets are playing great football right now. Hats off to them, but there’s still a lot of football to be played. Biggest question now is if LT2 can stay healthy, especially with the amount he’s touching the ball. In New England we know all too well how quickly running backs over 30 can get dinged and miss time. Their next game against the tough run defense of Minnesota should be a good one.

PATS GAME THOUGHTS

If these were the old Patriots I’d feel a lot more confident about the tide of optimism turning against them this week as a motivating factor. The fact is proud dynasty defense, it’s a collective group that has never proven they can win big games on the road. The X factor is if these young players, who we hear are all talented, can take to Belichick’s coaching and show improvement. 

I have no doubt they are all working hard every day, but it needs to translate onto the field. If it doesn’t then we have not yet seen the low point of this defensive rebuild and it could very well be coming tonight or, gasp, even later this season.

With the Pats killer schedule and young defense there will be no easy games this year. The Browns and Lions both showed yesterday that they can compete with anyone this year, and going to Buffalo is rarely as easy as it was for the Jets yesterday.

Tonight’s game one way or another is going to tell us a lot about the state of the New England Patriots. Not to say a loss will be insurmountable, but given the upcoming schedule it would certainly be an uphill climb.

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New Throwback/Alternate Jerseys are for sale at the Pro Shop now. If you can’t tell they’re different from last years throwbacks you’re not paying attention.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/new-throwbackalternate-jerseys-are-for-sale-at/

Patriots Best Case/Worst Case

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By the end of week six half of the AFC East inter-division games will have been played. The four AFCE teams will then embark on a rough slate of games outside the division until they finish off the final divisional games the last five weeks of the season.

From a Patriots perspective what’s the best and worst case scenarios?

The best case scenario would be if the Pats win and Jets lose, which would put the Pats at the top of the division.

  1. Patriots 3-1 (2-1 AFCE)
  2. Jets 2-2 (2-1 AFCE)
  3. Dolphins 2-2 (1-2 AFCE)
  4. Bills 1-3 (1-2 AFCE)

The worst case scenario would be a Patriots loss and a Jets win, leaving the standing to look like this:

  1. Jets 3-1 (3-0 AFCE)
  2. Dolphins 3-1 (2-1 AFCE)
  3. Patriots 2-2 (1-2 AFCE)
  4. Bills 0-4 (0-3 AFCE)

Then you have your middle of the road scenario: Pats win/Jets win…

  1. Jets 3-1 (3-0 AFCE)
  2. Patriots 3-1 (2-1 AFCE)
  3. Dolphins 2-2 (1-2 AFCE)
  4. Bills 0-4 (0-3 AFCE)

That last scenario might be what is most likely in my book (yes, I’m still one of the few people in the NFL world that think New England buttons it up this week).

No matter what the outcomes this weekend this is not a must win for anyone. All the AFC East teams have extremely difficult schedules this year. The only games left for the Patriots that they “should” win are the Browns, Bills and Lions. The other 10 games are toss ups and that goes the same for the Jets and Dolphins.

So yes the road to the playoffs goes through the division, but great starts can be easily blown by a stretch of a few bad games. The NFC and AFC North divisions will take more than a few games from the AFC East, so there’s no reason to panic even if the worst case scenario unfolds for the Pats this weekend. 

Though that would certainly make for a horrible two weeks of Patriots bashing and Jets praising.

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* ESPNBoston.com’s Tedy Bruschi: It’s Monday night, national television, all of America watching. This is a game in which the New England Patriots are going to make a statement. I think the defense is going to come out and play well. Even though they beat the Bills and they’re all saying the right things, I think they know they have something to prove. This is a game when we will finally stop talking about the defense playing poorly and not rising up big games, such as the playoff loss to Baltimore and last year’s Monday night game in New Orleans. I think the Patriots win a three-point game.

I feel the same way Tedy.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/espnbostoncoms-tedy-bruschi-its-monday/

A Trinity of Horrifying Pats Stats Articles

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There was a holy trinity of horrifying Pats stats articles today. I thought about linking to all of them at one point or another because, while totally sobering and scary, they are pretty interesting too. I figured the best thing to do would be to put all three on one page and then leave it up to you if you want to look at them or not.

So proceed with caution from this point on. It ain’t pretty…

First we have this article from ESPN.com which is full of disturbing facts like:

In his past eight true road games, Tom Brady has a 50.8 passer rating in the second half compared to a 101.6 passer rating in the first half. The numbers get downright ugly in the fourth quarter, when Brady has a 29.3 passer rating courtesy of one touchdown and five interceptions. Quite simply, that makes Brady the worst quarterback in the NFL on the road in the fourth quarter since 2009. Not rookies Mark Sanchez (29.7) or Matthew Stafford (33.4). Not even quarterbacks who lost their jobs, such as Derek Anderson (33.4) and Kerry Collins (42.2). No one has been worse than Brady. 

Or if that’s not bad enough, this:

In true road games, opposing quarterbacks are averaging 278.3 yards and a 103.9 rating, the third-highest in the NFL, putting the Patriots behind both the Oakland Raiders and Detroit Lions.

Then comes this little doozy about how bad Darius Butler has been through two games and change this year:

There’s a ton of stats to illustrate how bad Butler is, but this one blew my mind: Opposing quarterbacks have posted a 151.6 passer rating when throwing at Butler, the second highest mark among 88 qualifying cornerbacks. Let that sink in for a minute. 158.3 is a perfect score. So in essence, throwing at Butler has almost been like throwing at nothing.

Yikes.

Finally comes this one which is basically more of the same…

  • Here are some of the statistics on throws outside the numbers against the Patriots this season: Completion percentage: 72.3 (NFL rank: 32nd) Yards per attempt: 8.3 (NFL rank: 31st) Touchdowns: 5 (NFL rank: 32nd) Passer rating: 123.7 (NFL rank: 31st)

So there you have it. The sky is falling according to these articles. For some reason it makes me think we’re gonna see a vintage Tom Brady performance and a shutdown of the Dolphins passing offense. Sometimes that just how the NFL works. We’ll see. But the numbers don’t lie.  Luckily for us they don’t predict future performance, right?