PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Pats Posits: You Can’t Complain About a Win in Pittsburgh

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A win over the Pittsburgh Steelers is a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. It wasn’t pretty at times, but it was an effective win on the road. The Patriots were sloppy, but it didn’t matter. The return of the “Bend-Don’t-Break” defense made sure the lead held up and now the Pats are 6-1, and hold a significant tie breaker in the race for homefield advantage.

Ultimately what matters most is that a) no one left the game with a significant injury, b) you can slow Brady-Gronk down, but it cannot be stopped for 60 minutes, and c) the Patriots now have a two-game lead over the Bills in the AFC East. The defense has, in the words of Mike Lombardi, “issues” but here in late October the Pats are positioned well atop the AFC and have time to iron those issues out.

But yup, the Patriots are running away with this thing early.

More on it all in them Posits…

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A Historical Look Back at Patriots’ Points Allowed, Third Down and Red Zone Defense

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Maybe this is a little too deep for a pregame read, but I dove into the long-term defensive stats of the Patriots under Bill Belichick and found the results really interesting.

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-2-07-02-pmBelichick has said in the past that the key stats for a defense are points, third down and red zone, with points being the most important. Entering today’s game, the Patriots are 2nd in points, 29th on third down and 27th in the red zone. The disparity is fascinating, and those stats are fueling the latest debates about how good the Patriots defense is or isn’t.

But when you look back since 2001, the picture that these stats paint isn’t much different than what we have today. In that time the Patriots have averaged 20th in third down defense, 17th in red zone defense, and 8th in points. As you can see from the charts, the third down defense is all over the map, while the points have been a model of consistency.

screen-shot-2016-10-21-at-2-03-49-pmThe media (and yours truly included) have been hammering the third down defense in recent weeks, but maybe it matters just a little bit less than we all think it does. The Super Bowl-winning Patriots teams weren’t always lock down on third down – 2001 (15th), 2003 (7th), 2004 (21st) and 2014 (16th).

When you compare those rankings to points allowed — 2001 (6th), 2003 (1st), 2004 (2nd), and 2014 (8th) — the latter seems far more important, even though the Patriots have only dropped out of the top-10 in points allowed in three seasons under Belichick (2002, 2005, 2011).

Obviously you always want to get off the field on third down and to prevent touchdowns in the red zone, but maybe we (I) should stop obsessing over those two stats like they’re the end-all, be-all of statistics.

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Best/Worst in Weekly Patriots Links – 10/22

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                                            “It smells like…victory.”

Early on it wasn’t pretty, but at the end of the day, Brady’s home debut ended how we thought it would: with a W. Staying in the AFC North on a road date with the Big Ben less Steelers this weekend, let’s throwback to the fallout after last season before we get into this weeks’ links.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of Mike Tomlin on the sideline hemorrhaging while Gronk is spiking a touchdown and ‘Zo is screaming with whatever voice he has left God knows what in his ear will absolutely never get old. For a “no-nonsense” team that prides themselves on not making excuses, all Pittsburgh seems to do is just that. Last season, it was league prepped headphones that cost them the game. This season? Well, Pittsburgh’s defensive coordinator Keith Butler has built in reasoning for the imminent embarrassment his unit very well could put forth tomorrow. In Kevin Duffy’s (Masslive) piece, the coach was quoted as saying:

“I don’t think they’re doing anything special. I think they do things outside the box sometimes, you know, that might be on the edge of being legal or not legal. They’ve done a couple of things in the past — putting an offensive tackle out as ineligible but he’s not really. Sometimes the emphasis by the NFL in terms of what they call and what they don’t call, (the Patriots) use that a little bit. They’ve been accused of doing a lot of things. But the thing we’ve got to do is ignore that and play.”

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New England Patriots Gameplan: Week 7 at Pittsburgh Steelers

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The 5-1 Patriots travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers Sunday in what was supposed to be an AFC Championship game preview, but with Ben Roethlisberger out the game won’t quite live up to that hype. Still the Steelers have two of the most dynamic weapons in the game — Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell, and both should provide plenty of problems for the Patriots on the road.

It seems after last week’s win over the Bengals that the Patriots are starting to find their stride in 2016. They got through Brady’s suspension and overcame some minor injuries and are now looking to establish the one thing they’ve been missing in the first six weeks of the season — consistency.

No one will be handing out any awards for beating Landry Jones, but this is an important game nonetheless, and one that could very well determine where a potential rematch is played. We all know how impossible the Patriots can be to beat at home in the playoffs so a victory here provides a key tie breaker that could be needed when the season ends.

It’s hard to believe the Patriots and Steelers have only met four times in the regular season since 2010, and haven’t met in the playoffs since 2004’s AFC Championship.

Here’s the gameplan for a rivalry renewed once again…

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Patriots-Bengals Film Review: What’s Up With Jules Edition

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julian edelman gif

I came out of the win over the Bengals happy that the Patriots were no longer having to over-rely on Julian Edelman. Preserving Edelman for the key moments in the playoff run is of prime importance as we saw last year, when the Patriots 3rd down numbers fell off a cliff when Edelman went down.

However I made the mistake of flipping on Felger and Mazz on Monday afternoon to discover them wondering what was going on with Edelman. Huh? I usually don’t humor F&M’s silly outrage with blog posts, but it does seem like Edelman’s been a little bit more quiet than we’re used to. Add in a few recent penalties and his lack of a touchdown through six games and I started to wonder if something was up with #11.

So I took a look at Edelman’s season so far to see what, if anything, is really going on.

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Patriots Terrible Take: Tomato Cans? – Week 6

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I only have the energy for one take today because The Oldest Huckster in Boston threw out a doozy of a tweet.

Hot Take:

King of the Strawman argument, DickButter Shaughnessy, pulls out his classic “tomato cans” analogy to describe the rest of the Pats schedule. His columns and hot takes have become the laziest game of madlibs.

Here’s the formula: [Thing that is good for team’s chances to win this week]. Actually it’s bad you idiot because [uninformed, but intensely guttural opinion] [then always] #tomatocans

Here let’s try one, something that is good? Home field. Okay how about: The Patriots have home field advantage in the playoffs. Actually it’s bad you idiot because they won’t be tested on the road until the Super Bowl. #TomatoCans

I might have to rewrite the formula because it sounds so stupid when you say it out loud—

He said that?! For real? I was just making a – When did he say it? 2014, like when the Patriots won the Super Bowl or how it’s always confusing because the season is played over two years and you mean like the 2014-2015 season? No? The year they won?!! Woooooooow. That’s just doubling down on stupid. Let’s examine the wall of Tomato Cans.

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Week 7 Scouting Report: Pittsburgh Steelers

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Another week, another Patriots win. It’s gonna get really hard when this franchise falls back to Earth with the rest of league. Reminds me of a great Charles Barkley quote, “When Belichick and Brady leave, y’all team is gonna f*****g suck.”  This franchise is pretty safe for the next few years but you have to wonder, how will the the team transition out of the BB/Brady era into a new one. Something to ponder later, but in the meantime…

Here’s everything you need to know about the Pittsburgh Steelers, aka “The Pittsburgh (Antonio) Browns.”

Week 7 at Pittsburgh Steelers

Sunday October 23

4:25 pm EST, CBS

Low 60’s, 10% chance of rain, 11mph winds

Opponent/Patriots Stats:

Steelers: 4-2

Notable Games: The Steelers were blown out in a Week 3 loss to their next door neighbors, the Philadelphia Eagles 34-3. They came roaring back in a big way decimating the Kansas City Chiefs 43-14 the following week.

Common Opponents: Cincinnati Bengals (both teams won) and Miami Dolphins (Patriots won Steelers lost 15-30).

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