PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Best/Worst in Weekly Patriots Links-1/7

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WOW! I cannot wait to go to sleep! I’ll take one for every night of the week. Between this and the $50 bags of peanuts, take my money Tom! Take it all! I’d knowingly buy water from this guy if he told me it was wine. Just brilliant. When he retires in 20-whatever I’m sure he’ll keep finding ways like this to pay the bills.

Let’s kick off the bye week links with a couple Globe pieces. First, Trollin’ Volin recaps the Pats beatdown of the Dolphins and labels it a microcosm of the season. Ben writes:

The Patriots offense isn’t as dynamic without Rob Gronkowski, but it still does a good job of keeping the chains moving and picking up positive yardage…the defense still came up big when it needed to. The Patriots have shown a knack for making timely plays this season, and that happened again Sunday. 

He’s right. Great overall effort on Sunday and it started from the opening kick. That first drive especially was just such a thing of beauty. Alternating run and pass, a true surgical dissection of a home team and deflation of their home crowd. You just knew from that point moving forward that the Pats were locked in offensively. The D loosened their grip a bit, seemingly given the score, but were able to shut the door when it mattered. The Patriots combined to beat the Jets and Dolphins by a score of 76-17 over the final two weeks of the season. Peaking at the right time, it’s going to be awfully difficult for a visiting AFC club to come in and pull an upset. Especially given the forgiving seeding.

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The Propies: 2016 Patriots Regular Season Awards

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No gameplan article this week, unless you consider sitting on your couch watching some stress-free playoff football a gameplan. Instead today I’ll be handing out a bunch of “Propies” for the regular season awards, honoring the the superlative performances from the 2016 Patriots.

Yes, the next month will truly determine where the 2016 Patriots place in history will be, but if 2007 taught me anything, it’s that appreciating the regular season is what makes being a football fan the most fun. Let’s face it, the playoffs are stressful. Almost too stressful. And more often than not they’re going to end in bitter disappointment.

But can anyone at this point really feel disappointed? We got the Deflategate suspension over with, lost only Gronk to injury (still significant, but not what we saw in 2013 or 2015), and finished the regular season off in dominant fashion that gives every indication this Patriots team will come out with something to prove the next (hopefully) three games.

The Patriots dynasty continues to roll on with another 14-2 season in books!

Without further ado, we’re on to the Propies!

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Putting the Patriots 2016 Defense in Historical Context

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One of the driving forces behind this blog was my realization in 2008 that Bill Belichick was going to have a chance to construct another whole defense from scratch. Few Coach/GMs have the kind of longevity to attempt this kind of thing, and as old stalwarts like Tedy Bruschi, Rodney Harrison and Mike Vrabel faded from New England, it was up to Belichick to build another defense that could help win Tom Brady another Super Bowl or three in the second half of his career.

2007 was the Dynasty Defense’s last hurrah. In 2008, they were old and slow and by the 2009 offseason Belichick went into full “blow it up” mode. Richard Seymour was traded, Bruschi and Harrison retired, Vrabel was shipped to Kansas City. Surprisingly the 2009 defense was actually still pretty good statistically — 12th on third down, 6th in PPG, 14th overall in DVOA. But with Ray Rice‘s first-play 83-yard touchdown run in the 2009 AFCWC which kickstarted a thorough Raven domination, it was clear the Pats still had a ways to go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_-Ti84l4Ek

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Coffin Corner: NEVER FORGET!

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If you’ve been on #Patriots Twitter or listened to the Hucksters of Boston Radio lately, you’d think the Patriots fans and reporters are the folks who had been concussed every playoff Sunday for the last 10 years, not the players. That’s the only way to explain the insane front-running, Super Bowl-assured confidence that’s been on display for the last few weeks.

Folks have already declared victory over whichever haplessly quarterbacked divisional round opponent comes to town. Nevermind that Mark Sanchez once sent Brady and the boys packing. After the divisional round, they’re certain that Andy Reid (HOF coach) and Ben Roethlisberger (HOF QB) will roll over in Foxboro. Never mind that Rex Ryan (not a HOF head coach) and Joe Flacco, twice, (not elite) have sent Belichick and Brady to early vacations. The Patriots have homefield advantage, which most fans and “experts” credit as the most impactful difference in last year’s AFCCG loss to Denver. Nevermind that both the Sanchez-led Jets and Flacco-led Ravens both won in Foxboro.

But this sports community, arguably more than any other, should know that winning football games in the regular season means about as much as Roger Goodall’s “integrity”. The Patriots went 18 and 1! The 2010 team was 2007’s equal in efficiency and was one-and-done in the playoffs! Sorry, but another reminder is needed, Mark Goddamned Sanchez, perhaps the worst starting QB in the history of the sport, beat the Patriots in the playoffs!

The most dominant team in the NFL for the last decade has 1 Super Bowl win and only gotten to the Super Bowl 3 times. You know why? Because it’s really hard to win a Super Bowl!

I don’t want to do this. I really don’t. This hurts me more than it hurts you, but you’ve given me no choice, folks. Someone has erased your data processing unit in order to forget your violent mortality and I need to jog the memories by reminding you of the searing memory that still haunts my sleep.. Ugh, here we go…

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Breaking Down Patriots Renewed Offensive Balance

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The Patriots locked up the top seed in the AFC Sunday with a 35-14 dispatching of the Dolphins, giving New England home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, an essential piece to the Patriots Super Bowl puzzle. The win was the Patriots 14th on the season, and while much of that success has been (rightfully) credited to the incredible resurgence on defense, a large component of this triumphant 2016 campaign has been the renewed balance between running and passing offensively. We know that Tom Brady has the ability to drop back and pass 50 times without much help from the run game and still will the Patriots to a win (see Divisional Round, 2014), but we have also seen just how vulnerable the Patriots become when Brady is asked to win the game by himself (see, 2016 AFC Championship Game). The lack of balance was one of the biggest factor that contributed to New England’s early exit last January, which is why instilling a consistent balance between run and pass will prove to be crucial as we head into the postseason.

Last season, according to Kevin Duffy of MassLive.com, the Patriots had their worst run/pass ratio in recent years, passing the ball 62% of the time and rushing on only 38% of plays. Coincidentally, the Patriots rushing attack ranked 30th in the NFL, which allowed teams like the Broncos to drop numbers off the ball and flood Brady’s passing lanes, without needing to give much thought to the run game. Granted, part of the lack of success running the football can be attributed to losing LeGarrette Blount to a hip injury in Week 14, but even with him, the rushing attack was still on pace to finish near the bottom in rush yards. The Patriots called upon the corpse of Steven Jackson and special-teamer Brandon Bolden to take the bulk of the carries in the AFC Championship Game, and as well as know, it did not go well.

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Patriots Tuesday 10 Pack

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Back in the Ministry of PatsPropaganda today and excited to get back into the daily blog flow after a nice two week vacation. Hard to believe the 2016 regular season is over. In case you missed the Posits on Monday they had plenty of thoughts on the season overall.

As 20 teams start their offseasons there’s been plenty of news as teams blow things up and start anew. Luckily for the Pats this week we can take a bit of breather, focus on the regular season a bit and wait to see how this weekend’s slate of games play out.

Here’s what’s on my mind from the last couple days of Pats news…

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Pats Posits: Let the Brady Legacy Tour Begin!

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The Patriots finished off their 2016 season with a convincing, if not slightly scary, 35-14 win over the playoff-bound Dolphins. New England capped off a 14-2 campaign, locking up the top seed in the AFC and looking far more like a Super Bowl contender than 2015’s squad that blew their last two.

The rest of Sunday around the NFL unfolded exactly how the Patriots would’ve scripted it. The Chiefs snagged the second seed, while the Raiders fell to the fifth. Now the Pats await the lowest remaining seed, either Houston, Oakland or Miami. I am a-okay with all of them.

Overall, the 2016 was a fascinating campaign that began with Jimmy Garoppolo, got a dash of Jacoby Brissett before a near-flawless Tom Brady took over and the team never looked back after a goal-line-stop loss to the Seahawks.

A whole lot more on the 2016 season, the playoff outlook, and yes, a thank-Hoodie-nobody got hurt win in Miami in the Posits…

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