PatsPropaganda

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A Look Back: The 2009 Saints Massacre

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If you have yet to see the entire two-part Bill Belichick A Football Life, stop reading and watch it above immediately. Or for the purposes of this post you can just click play and it will queue right up to maybe the most infamous loss of the Belichick era thanks to NFL Films’ documenting it from the inside.

I am of course talking about the 2009 loss to the Saints in New Orleans by a glaring 38-17 score. The most famous part of this loss was recorded by the cameras as Belichick lamented not being able to get the 2009 team to play the way they needed to, that it had nothing really to do with the Saints and was mostly on the Patriots’ inability to overcome any adversity.

Eight years later we have a good perspective on the 2009 season now and I thought it would be a fun little look back at a terrible game that came in maybe the worst season under Belichick.

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Patriots Gameplan: Week 2 at New Orleans Saints

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The 0-1 Patriots travel to New Orleans Sunday for an intriguing matchup against Drew Brees and the 0-1 New Orleans Saints. The Patriots haven’t started a season 0-2 since 2001 (aka Tom Brady‘s first year as a starter) and after the terrible showing in the season opener, New England’s backs are already against the wall. Kind of.

As we discussed on Patshow this week, this season already has some drama and that can be a good thing. We’ve lived a 16-0 season (and the ensuing 18-1 finale) and that thrill of will-they-or-won’t-they lose a game was special. But we don’t need to live again. 2017 is going to be a battle, that much is already clear. Losing Edelman, then Hightower AND Amendola going down in the first game? Kinda hard to top that outside of losing you know who.

Frankly injuries are usually the only thing that keeps Belichick and Brady from going to the Super Bowl every year, and it’s fair to wonder if this team has already lost too much. The difference this year is that they’ve all happened so early in the year. This isn’t 2009, 2011, 2013 or 2015. Those all featured late heavy-impact injury losses like Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, Andre Carter and yes, Julian Edelman. Once again it will actually be any late-season injuries that define this team’s championship hopes.

I’m still holding my breath for the Patriots to make some significant in-season personnel moves. This team still feels like a work-in-progress at this point.

And now they return to the site of the worst regular season loss in BB/TB history.

Here’s my gameplan for pulling out a win by any means necessary in New Orleans.

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Kill, Bill, Vol 3: The New England Patriots Schedule of QB assassins.

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Let me start by saying: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!

The Patriots got beat by Alex Smith.

Yes, Kareem Hunt and yes, the Chiefs and yes, Andy Reid, who previously prompted two overused soundbytes: “Tom Brady’s just not good anymore” and “We’re on to Cincinnati” (my least favorite of the Hoodie catchphrases). So I’m not saying FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! because they lost to the Chiefs. That’s fine, Andy Reid is as competitive with Belichick as Tom Coughlin was. The loss isn’t a problem, even welcome, if it focuses the team and pushes them to come together.

The reason I am saying FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK! is Alex Smith.  Alex Smith, the dink and dunk QB, who had a career 61% completion percentage. Alex Smith, the number 1 pick who has never amounted to that value, who had only 1 game with 4+ TDs in 142 Regular Season games.  Alex Smith, who was being challenged by a rookie for his starting job in training camp, who had only two games ever where he amassed more than 311 yards.  That Alex Smith torched the Patriots defense for 368 yards, 4 TDs, 80% Comp %, 148.6 Rating.

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Potential Defensive Adjustments vs. Saints

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I try not to look at any kind of stats until Week 4. It’s just too small a sample size and too easy to overreact, and that’s certainly the case this morning as I took a peak at my stats site of choice FootballOutsiders.com.

The Patriots defense? Ranked 32nd in overall defense, 30th against the pass and 32nd against the run. Nowhere to go but up, right!? I like Football Outsiders because it’s not based on one random analysts grades but by efficiency in the context of the situation. It gives us a good sense of how the team executed. And clearly the Patriots didn’t execute well at all.

By historical comparison, and again, this is just for shits and giggles at this point, here’s how those numbers stack up.

Of course things will get better, but it won’t exactly be handed to the Patriots, especially with a tough matchup against a great quarterback at his homefield this weekend. Here’s a few thoughts on some personnel switches that might help improve things and be better suited to handling Drew Brees and the Saints diverse attack.

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Scouting Report: Saints

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Wednesday’s time to turn the page to the Saints, who lost to the Vikings 29-19 on Sunday.

The headlines; Brandin Cooks returns to New Orleans, Belichick and Brady return to the site of the memorable 2009 blow out that was featured prominently in Belichick’s A Football Life and, oh yeah, the 0-1 Pats really need a win, never an easy task when facing Drew Brees.

Their last meeting in 2013 in Foxboro Brady threw a last-second game-winning touchdown toss to Kenbrell Thompkins.

On paper this one looks like it could be a shootout, so hold on folks, let’s take a quick look at the Saints!

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Patriots Film Review: 3rd & 12 with White & Lewis

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One of the packages that I thought could help offset the loss of Julian Edelman was the use of both James White and Dion Lewis coming out of the backfield. While the Patriots did employ this package against the Chiefs it wasn’t all that effective, but it really should’ve been.

In today’s film study I pulled a third quarter play to take a bit of a closer look at why the offense seemed to get off track without Amendola. At this point the Patriots are up 17-14 with just under 10 minutes left in the third. This is a third-and-12, the kind of tough down Edelman lived to convert. In this situation the Patriots didn’t have much to work with, but the direction of the offense should be obvious going forward.

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Film Breakdown: Kareem Hunt 78-yard Touchdown

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I broke down this play today on Patshow because I think it encapsulates a lot of what went wrong for the defense against the Chiefs.

At this point, it’s early in the fourth quarter and, gasp, the Patriots are WINNING! I know this fact has taken a back seat to the “Pats got blown out” hot takes, but fix the problems on first down and take away the fourth-quarter big plays and this is a game the Patriots likely win.

Let’s take a look how it broke down as we get Up Close and Personnel.

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