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Notes on PFF’s Patriots grades: Week 8 Rams

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We’ll be back later this week with a look at PFF’s cumulative grades for the season, but for now here are our observations from their grades for the Pats against the Rams.

Best Offensive Grade: Gronk 6.7

Worst Offensive Grade: Branch -1.2

Best Defensive Grade: Brandon Spikes 2.6

Worst Defensive Grade: Justin Francis -1.5

Spikes tied for his best coverage game of the season with a 1.5 (also got a 1.5 vs. Titans) and a pass defended. Though he didn’t get credit for a single stop in the run game. That’s a first.

Alfonzo Dennard had the best defensive back score with a 1.2 in coverage. He only allowed one catch on three targets.

No Patriots defender was in the red for coverage. Wow, let’s all take a breath and enjoy that one for a moment.

Off the edges and behind the right guard were the two most deadly running holes for the Pats running backs.

The Pats were credited here with 9 blitzes on 33 plays, good for 27%. This doesn’t seem as high as I expected to be, perhaps it was just the complexity of the blitzes that drew the attention. Double A gap and double edge blitzes were run a couple times.

Dan Connolly was a dominant 3.1 in run blocking and looks like he’s starting to find his groove at RG. His pass blocking was a -1.8 though.

Ryan Wendell had his best pass blocking game of the season with a 1.1.

Spikes was a surprise as the third ranked pass rusher on the day with a 1.2.

Vince Wilfork had his second best score of the season, and it was just a -0.1. More on this coming later in the week, because through half of the season Wilfork is the worst graded Patriots defender and I don’t agree with it.

Solid game for Kyle Love with a 1.3, his best score since week two. He was especially good in the run game. Positive sign for Love, we need him to start elevating his play.

Chandler Jones got his best pass rush grade of the season with a 2.8, but his 4 stops are almost more impressive.

Marquice Cole had an impressive 1.2 on the day. Hope he’s not hurt and gets more of a shot at slot corner, he really flashed some promise there.

Rams blitzed on 11 of 35 snaps and Brady ate them up when they did for 107 yards and two touchdowns.

See our full season of PFF notes here.

Lethal Patriots show zig, zag instead – BostonHerald.com

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Lethal Patriots show zig, zag instead – BostonHerald.com

Great offensive strategy breakdown from Matt Chatham, illustrating why the Pats are so hard to defend.

Run when it looks like pass. Go short when they think long. Up is down. Left is right. Tracking tendencies of opposing teams is a big deal in the NFL for coordinators. This Patriots team is extremely skilled on offense but also unafraid to be a toothless gum-lover at times you least expect. That’s a scary combination.

Patriots Pass Rush Behind Last Season’s Pace Despite Adding Chandler Jones, Dont’a Hightower – New England Patriots – NESN.com

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Patriots Pass Rush Behind Last Season’s Pace Despite Adding Chandler Jones, Dont’a Hightower – New England Patriots – NESN.com

Good stuff from NESN’s own Doug Kyed…

Last year’s Patriots finished with 43 sacks, 54 QB hits and 164 QB hurries for 261 total QB pressures in 1134 plays according to Pro Football Focus. They were able to generate a QB pressure on 23 percent of plays. Carter was the most successful at rushing the passer – despite missing 2 ½ games – with 51 total pressures and Anderson was close behind with 45.

This season, the Patriots are on pace for 36 sacks, 48 QB hits and 130 QB hurries for 214 total QB pressures in 1096 plays. They’re generating a QB pressure on 19 percent of plays. Jones is the leading pass rusher, on pace for 62 total pressures, while Ninkovich is second, on pace for 31. Nink finished last year with 39. The problem is, the Patriots have filled Carter and Anderson’s roles with Jones and Ninkovich, but they simply aren’t blitzing linebackers like they did last year with Nink. The Patriots will have to start blitzing their linebackers, and rushing five or six players more often.

Pats D giving up more TDs on the long ones

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Quick nugget of note that I just discovered while messing around here, through eight games the Patriots have given up 42 pass of 20 or more yards, the exact same amount as they gave up last year.

The big difference? Last year they only gave up 2 touchdowns on those 42 big plays, this year they’ve give up 10.

This is another illustration that the Pats have gotten away from “bend, don’t break”.

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While the defense remains a work in progress, the Patriots can take solace in marked improvement in a number of statistical categories. The defense is yielding nearly two fewer points per game at this juncture in 2012 (21.3 as opposed to 23.0) and has cut down its yards allowed per game by nearly 50 (416.2 to 369.8).

New England Patriots could be poised for big second half – ESPN Boston

https://www.patspropaganda.com/patriots-blog-36/

Updating base vs. sub defense stats

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Updating base vs. sub defense stats

That puts the seven-game total at 54.9 percent in sub packages (298 of 542, including penalties). These numbers are actually lower than anticipated at the halfway point. In 2011, the Patriots were in sub more than 60 percent of the time, but the last three games have trended toward the Patriots playing more base.


Given that the new 4-3 features more athleticism I’m not surprised the numbers are skewing more toward the base defense this year. That’s by design to help stop the pass over every down. 

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Bottom Line Apparel presents The Bottom Line Patriots Player of the Week

It’s pretty hard to choose from all the deserving Pats after such a dominant win, but Gronk was absolutely unstoppable so it has to go to him. He’s been dealing with a lot of injury issues this year, but he looked like his 2011 self yesterday.

Check out these stats via Chris Price at WEEI:

Gronkowski has scored 34 touchdowns in 40 games in his career, and he now is marching through end zones and into history books in a fashion befitting his robotic Sunday celebration.

Gronkowski now has 11 games with multiple touchdown catches in his career. He joins Jerry Rice as the only players in NFL history with that many multi-TD games in his first three seasons; but Gronkowski, of course, still has eight games left this year to set a new standard. No tight end has come remotely close to such a figure.

Overall, Gronkowski now has 34 touchdown catches in his first 40 career games, the most in that number of games since Randy Moss started his career with 40 touchdowns in as many games between 1998-2000. (John Jefferson had 34 in his first 40 career games; Bob Hayes scored 35 touchdowns in his first 40 games; and Rice had 32 in his first 40 career games.)

Think about it: Ben Coates had nine games with multiple touchdowns in his long, illustrious career. It’s taken Gronkowski 2½ seasons to bulldoze past that standard.


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