Best of the Week

After blowing a great opportunity to take care of business in Miami and firmly entrench themselves in the AFC Wildcard conversation, Rex and company have been awfully quiet this week. No pranks, no bold proclamations, no guarantees, no nothing. That is, at least up until the point that I’m writing this. Unfortunately, there are no low hanging fruit courtesy of Buffalo’s head coach for me to address this week. That being said, there’s plenty to fire up so let’s get right into it.

Chris Price (WEEI) gets us kicked off with two columns. One, as always, is his “5 Things to Know” which gives us a spark note look at the Bills and an excellent breakdown of their strengths and weaknesses. Price points out how impressive Buffalo’s running game has been, but notes they may be without the catalyst for that success on Sunday:

“The key to everything? McCoy, who is as dynamic a back as you’ll find. His health will certainly bear watching over the course of the week. There was plenty of debate surrounding the wisdom of having him try to play against the Dolphins. If Rex Ryan blew him out against Miami and isn’t available for this week’s showdown with the Patriots, the folks in upstate New York won’t be happy.”

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                                            “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.”

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Do you guys know who the two longest tenured head coaches are in the National Football League? One, Bill Belichick. Two…drum roll please…

This guy. Marvin freakin’ Lewis. Owner of an 0-7 playoff record. Yikes. Speaking of records, I’m going to sound like a broken one when I say this, but it has to be “put up or shut up” time for Marv this year, right? Doesn’t it? Cincy has been loaded for years now, and has very little to show for it, getting outclassed in January season after season. Now at 2-3, coming off a thorough beatdown at the hands of the Dallas Cowboys, Cincy comes into Foxborough in a certifiable panic. Making matters worse for the Bengals, they’re coming right in time for the football version of Dexter’s home opener.

 

The resemblance is actually uncanny…but I digress. Let’s get some links going.

Mike Petraglia (WEEI) wrote a somewhat scathing scouting report of the Bengals in his “5 Things to Know” piece this week. Petraglia writes:

“The swagger of the Bengals, something they enjoyed over their current five-year playoff run, is gone. It disappeared with their epic playoff meltdown against the Steelers and the team’s decision to bring back Pacman and Vontaze Burfict, the two principals at the center of Cincinnati’s choke job in the final 60 seconds. The Bengals reacted like they normally do – they did nothing.”

I couldn’t agree more. Not only did they drop another high pressure game, that team self destructed on national television in a home playoff matchup. If that wasn’t the boiling point to make sweeping organizational and personnel changes, I really don’t know what will be.

Now that we adequately summed up the Bengals, let’s move on to some Pats’ pieces. Doug Kyed (NESN) opined on the Patriots’ revamped double tight end attack here, and explained how it was only a snippet of things to come:

“Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett combined for 11 receptions, 176 yards and three touchdowns Sunday in the Patriots’ 33-13 win over the Cleveland Browns, but both tight ends ran routes on just six of those completions. Gronkowski was on the field for 81 percent of snaps, while Bennett played on 69 percent.”

In other words, this combination is just getting started. Is it bold to say the present duo is more difficult to defend than the Gronk/Hernandez pairing of a few years back? Bennett’s blocking has to be accounted for, Hernandez’s never did. The defense is left completely unbalanced, as the offense can run, pass, and play action out of the two tight end set with equal effectiveness. That’s simply not fair.

A couple player focus pieces from PatsPropaganda’s own Rick Starke on running back James White, and Rich Hill of Pats Pulpit on rookie linebacker Elandon Roberts. Both guys do a great job of bringing proof to the table, with excellent film clips throughout each respective piece. Watching White pick up a blitz off the edge to allow Brady to get a throw off, and Roberts blowing up CLE All-Pro left tackle Joe Thomas and, in turn, running back Isaiah Crowell are worth the price of admission. Starke stresses the importance of White’s blocking, “White showed the awareness to protect Tom Brady from an unabated shot to the chin from the blitzing corner” which has largely been good this season. On that note, don’t just expect Dion Lewis to come right in and take all White’s reps away, I’m expecting something closer to a 3-headed monster (Blount, Lewis, White). McDaniels has an opportunity to get very creative, especially with the two smaller backs on the field at the same time. Hill had some high praise for Roberts, not only regarding his physicality in the run game (“Roberts makes the tackle through Thomas’ block as the Patriots force a major stop. This was a Brandon Spikes-level run stuff”, but his pass coverage as well:

“Roberts’ coverage wasn’t perfect, but he absolutely took away the play from Pryor and dropped well into coverage. This is awareness above and beyond some other linebackers on the roster.”

Before we start calling this kid Tedy Bruschi, let’s have him string together a couple of weeks first. Extremely encouraging nonetheless. Plus, this hopefully means Jonathan Freeny can stay far away from the defense and stick to his bread and butter on special teams.

To wrap up this week, Jeff Howe (Boston Herald) argues that Brady’s suspension helped the Pats in the short and long term. He writes:

“In the first four weeks, Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett combined to absorb eight sacks and 16 hits, including one that wrapped up Garoppolo’s starting cameo and another that essentially ended Brissett’s season. There’s nothing wrong with keeping Brady away from that level of abuse.”

Do we want those four games back? Of course. Does Tom want those four games back? Of course. Did he get railroaded? Of course. But would you take 3-1, a division lead, and a fresh Brady for October on? Of. Course.

At the end of the day, we’re onto Cincinnati, Brady’s home, and I can’t wait.

 

 

 

 

 

He’s back and he’s angry. The Days of Judgement are upon us.

CC: Roger Goodell, Troy Vincent, Bart Hubbuch, Mike Kensil, Bill Polian, Jim Irsay, John Harbaugh, Ryan Grigson, Gregg Doyel, Bob Kravitz, Troy Aikman, Don Shula, Marshall Faulk, Rob Parker, Shannon Sharpe, Chris Carter, Max Kellerman, Mark Brunell, Ron Borges, Tom Jackson…

If you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud, too.-Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), The Equalizer

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Rex week.

Gold. 0-2, back against the wall, dials up a big winner against the Cardinals last weekend. Cocky Rex is the best Rex, especially coming into Foxborough. Couldn’t have written it up any better. Love him, hate him, flat out despise him, but the entertainment factor is real. It’s always great to see him beat his big old chest and pull on Belichick’s cape leading up to every matchup. I can’t even think of a word to describe it…

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