PatsPropaganda

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Report: Hightower Done for Year with Torn Pec

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Welp, you spend a good hour this morning writing about how the Pats can manage for a game-plus without Hightower and then Ian Rapoport drops this bomb.

No other way to cut it, this is a huge blow to Patriots Super Bowl hopes. Between Julian Edelman and now Hightower, it’s hard to come up with a worse scenario that doesn’t involve the quarterback, and given the depth and meaning of all those players, losing your best wide receiver and linebacker might even be worse. At least with Jimmy G there’d be a small element of excitement.

So what now? Is there a trade out there that could help? Are we ready for a whole lot of David Harris? There’s no easy answer as is often the case when you lose a player of this magnitude. As I mentioned this morning, getting Shea McClellin back would certainly help. Then a trio of Harris, McCellan and Cassius Marsh would be serviceable, complimenting Kyle Van Noy, who has shown remarkable progress in recent weeks and is now the de facto leader of the front seven now. Throw in some Trevor Reilly and Marquis Flowers and maybe someone emerges. Is that a Super Bowl winning linebacker group on paper right now though? Ummmmmm….

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Injuries Strike Pats Just After They Clicked

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We’re all sick of hearing it but here it is again “injuries are the only thing that stand between the Patriots and Super Bowls at this point in the Belichick/Brady dynasty.” You either get years where they stay almost entirely healthy — 2014/2016 (with a notable exception or two like Gronk last year), or 2013/2015 where key guys are lost and it’s just not enough to get past the AFC Championship.

Every year is a bit different. And this year, the injuries to Julian Edelman, such a critical player, and others cam early enough that they could still be overcome. But it’s a long season and we’re not even half way through it. And now, after a couple weeks of injury reprieve, the Pats once again had a frightening injury report on Wednesday with Dont’a Hightower, Malcom Brown and Danny Amendola leading the way.

These were three gut punch absences, especially after the Pats were coming off their first complete game performance of the season. A feel-good “Pats are back” type win that made the sloppy start a distant memory.

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Film Review: Pats vs. Falcons – Defense (Until it Got Too Foggy) Edition

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The Patriots defense turned in their best performance of the season against the Falcons, a total team effort where they were fundamentally sound from top to bottom. Things got a little too foggy to breakdown the entire game, but from a half-plus of review I got a pretty good sense of how well they played and how they were able to shutdown a Falcons offense that had shredded them for much of the Super Bowl.

Here’s what stood out…

— Van Noy continues to make really good progress and his development is a big reason why the defense is playing so much better, especially against the run. The 3rd-and-4 on the Falcons’ second possession was a perfect example as Van Noy splits a double team in space to make a solo tackle for a three yard loss on a toss sweep. It was an excellent play, a great example of the kind of things that weren’t happening earlier in the season.

— After converting the following fourth down via a Matt Ryan scramble the Falcons put together a nice little drive that ended with a Cassius Marsh blocked field goal. On the last third-and-10 the coverage was excellent. Ryan had nowhere to go and the pass rush flushed him out of the pocket. He thought about scrambling again, but McCourty peeled off his middle field help coverage to prevent it. Just an overall really solid team defense play in a key spot, the kind of stuff we haven’t really seen enough of.

— On Marsh’s block he again demonstrated a strength — getting skinny and getting through gaps to make plays. It’s shown up a few times on defensive plays and now it set up what might’ve been a season-changing special teams play. After this the Patriots just played with even more confidence.

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Patshow #111: A Foggy Falcons Victory Wrap

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Join yours truly and Nick “Fitzy” Stevens as we break down the Pats’ Super Bowl 51 rematch win over the Falcons. We’ll also take a look through the fog at Brandin Cooks’ touchdown, check out the best tweets from the game and take a look ahead to this weekend’s matchup with the Chargers.

The Redemption of the 2017 Offensive Line

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The Patriots made a statement Sunday night, dominating the Atlanta Falcons to the tune of a 23-7 blowout in which Atlanta’s lone score occurred with just 4:09 left to play in the game. While the defensive effort made most headlines, it was the unheralded work of perhaps the Patriots most important unit, the offensive line, that deserves their share of the credit for the victory.

After the Tampa Bay game, I wrote about the Patriots offensive line struggles and the essential nature of protecting Brady, and it is clear that they red what I wrote, because we have seen a marked improvement from the unit in the two games since. In the first five games, Brady was sacked 16 times, which already eclipsed his sack total from last season ( just 15). The offensive line conceded three sacks Week 1, two Week 2, five Week 3, three Week 4, and three Week 5, good for an average of 3.2 sacks allowed, and 3.4 quarterbacks hits allowed, in that span. After Week 5, the Patriots were on pace to allow 51 sacks on the season, which would set a record for total sacks in a season with Brady under center.

However, in the past two weeks, we have witnessed a profound rise in the performance of the offensive line, led by the interior line, particularly center David Andrews (Pro Football Focus’s 3rd ranked center) and guard Shaq Mason (Pro Football Focus’s 5th ranked guard). Against the Jets last week, the Patriots did not yield a sack for the first time all year, and in Sunday’s contest with the Falcons, the Patriots did not allow a quarterback hit, also for the first time all year. Brady was sacked twice Sunday night, but one can be attributed to a communication breakdown between Brady and his line, not an offensive lineman being beat by a rusher.

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Pats Posits: The New England Football Machine Rolls On

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After showing brief glimpses that they were a good team through the first six games of the season, the 2017 New England Patriots finally turned in their first consistent performance in a 23-7 win over the Atlanta Falcons. Yes, rumors of the Patriots demise have once again been exaggerated.

Simply put, it all worked against the Falcons. The four-headed running back monster finally showed how well it could power the offense, and most importantly, close games out. The much-maligned defense turned in one of their most impressive performances in recent memory, and they did it without Stephon Gilmore. It was a total team, total game win, the first of its kind this season and it was incredibly refreshing.

I’ve been saying there was a good defense inside there somewhere, and against the Falcons we saw what they were capable of. This is where the bar is, and it’s now set pretty high. Way above the worst defense in the league, but maybe not quite the all out domination we saw on Sunday night through the fog.

It looks like the 2017 Pats finally realized the season had started and that’s bad news for an NFL loaded with parity.

Here’s what I think in the Posits.

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