New England Patriots helmet, uniform concept design-The Penalty Flag
Fan-designed Patriots uniform concepts!?!? Yes please!
Before we get into that, some stuff just needs to be said,” Rodgers said. “First of all, I’ve got to do something that the NFL is not going to do, and I have to apologize to the fans. Our sport is generated, a multi-billion dollar machine, by people who pay good money to come watch us play. And the product on the field is not being complemented by an appropriate set of officials. The games are getting out of control. Like I said in the first week, I’m OK with replacement refs as long as they don’t have a direct impact on the game. Obviously last night there was a direct impact on the game on multiple plays. But my thing is I just feel bad for the fans. They pay good money to watch this. The game is being tarnished by an NFL that obviously cares more about saving some money than having the integrity of the game diminished.
Charting Baltimore’s Offensive Success | Ian Logue/PatsFans.com
Charting Baltimore’s Offensive Success | Ian Logue/PatsFans.com
A closer look at where the Ravens targeted the Pats in the passing game from Ian Logue. They were who we thought they were…and we let them off the hook.
Patriots Need To Ramp Up The Pass Rush Against Buffalo : Pats Pub
Patriots Need To Ramp Up The Pass Rush Against Buffalo : Pats Pub
Dead on analysis from Steve Balestrieri about the pass rush. It’s funny, usually Pats fans love to complain about the pass rush and now when it really was a glaring problem I haven’t heard much about it.
The Bills offensive line has had a great start to the season, and the Pats defensive lines ability to get pressure might be the key factor starting between the 2-2 or (gasp) 1-3.
After thinking about it for a day, I think a multitude of the yards we gave up to Flacco were the check downs to Rice when we were covering all the receivers down field and he had no one else to throw to and didn’t want to take a sack. What do you think?
According to PFF Ray Rice had 5 catches for 49 yards. One of them came against Spikes and went for 27 yards, and the other 4 were against Mayo for 22 yards.
It really makes me remember what good job Dane Fletcher did as a spy against Rice in 2010. Mayo is really our only linebacker right now with the speed to handle runningbacks and even he was getting smoked. Not sure what the answer is right now, it looks like an area of personnel weakness and I’d expect future teams to continue to attack it until the Pats prove they can stop it.
Notes on PFF’s Patriots grades: Week 3 Ravens
The grades are out and here are the things that I found most interesting:
Top Defensive Player: Devin McCourty (1.3)
Top Offensive Player: Tom Brady (6.9)
Worst Defensive Player: Brandon Spikes (-4.8)
Worst Offensive Player: Julian Edelman (-1.7)
Let’s start on the defensive side of the ball since that’s where there’s the most to talk about.
Brandon Spikes has been as up and down in the first three games as one can possibly be. He was the lowest graded defender in weeks 1 and 3, and the second highest graded defender in week 2. His -2.7 run defense score is glaring, especially with only 2 tackles and 1 stop. For a middle linebacker that is unacceptable. I can handle his poor coverage (-1.1) but if he’s not blowing up the run he’s useless out there. He did give up 88 yards on 3 pass completions as well.
Dont’a Hightower was the second lowest graded defender with a -2.0. Hard to get too down on a rookie in a game of this magnitude so early in his career, but if you want to know why the run defense was so bad the brunt of the blame has to come to him and Spikes.
Jerod Mayo was slight below average with a -0.9, but he did have 10 tackles and 5 stops.
The Patriots only had McCourty in the green for a positive grade in this game, he was thrown at 12 times and gave up just 6 completions.
Tavon Wilson gave up 3 receptions on 3 targets but only 1 yard of YAC.
Kyle Arrington struggled against Anquan Bolden giving up 3 catches on 4 targets for 43 yards.
The PFF graders gave the Pats a QB hit (Ninkovich) and 12 QB hurries. The official NFL game book gave them zero QB hits. Love and Jones were both credited with 4 hurries.
Vince Wilfork scored a -1.7. In last year’s AFCCG he scored a 7.0.
You know it’s a bad pass rush day when your two best pass rush scores are Kyle Love (0.3) and Ron Brace (0.2). Jones had a 0.1 and everyone else was at 0 or below. Yikes.
Well that paints the picture for the defense how about the offense…
Sebastian Vollmer played the whole game and was the third highest graded player on offense with a 3.6. He was in the green in both pass and run blocking , the only o-lineman to do so. This is a positive development.
Connolly (-1.9) and Mankins (-2.9) struggled in run blocking. Mankins was a positive 1.5 in pass blocking though.
Gronk was a -1.1 in run blocking, but 1.1 in pass blocking. The scorers had him staying in to pass block on only 8 plays.
Ryan Wendell was a positive 1.6 in run blocking, tying him with Vollmer. He has been one of the biggest surprises early this season.
Brady was lights out, but only 1 of 3 beyond 20 yards. He was most deadly in the middle of the field at 10-19 yards, where he was 5-5 for 80 yards. 25 of his 41 passes were under 10 yards away or behind the line of scrimmage.
Brandon Lloyd tore Cary Williams up for 8 catches on 10 targets for 98 yards.
Find all of our Notes on PFF’s Patriots Grades here.
