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Patriots Special Teams Report – Week 5 @ Cleveland Browns

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Patriots Special Teams 16wk5

What a return it was for the greatest quarterback to ever live. Having to watch Jacoby Brissett for two and a half games really makes one appreciate the greatness of Tom Brady even more, and it seemed to elevate and motivate the entire team as a whole. Special teams had another solid week, with the lone hiccup being Stephen Gostkowski’s third miss on the season.

Gostkowski started the season off on the right foot, nailing all three field goals (at distances of 47, 53, and 32 yards) against Arizona in Week 1, and was named the AFC Specialist of the Week. However, it’s been all downhill from there for the highest-paid kicker in the NFL since: Gostkowski has missed three of his next seven kicks in the past four games (keep in mind, he missed three total last season).

He missed a 39-yarder wide right against Miami, pushed a 48-yarder to the right of the goalposts against Buffalo, and most recently hit one too far to the right on a 50-yarder on Sunday. Notice a trend on his misses? All wide right. All of his misses have had plenty of distance, but each time his kicks have sailed too far to the right. Seeing as Gostkowski is the fourth-most accurate kicker in NFL history, Patriot Nation should be confident that he will correct whatever flaw is ailing him at the moment. Be sure to watch how Gostkowski does in the coming weeks, even on the ones he makes.  

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Patriots-Browns Film Review: Third Down Defense Edition

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In this week’s film review I’m going to take a little more micro look at the third downs that the Patriots failed to get stops on against the Browns. Right now the Patriots are 27th in the NFL in third down defense (44.6 percent, worst since 2010) and 30th in red zone defense (80 percent).

Combine the two and the Patriots are by far the worst third down defense in the red zone in the NFL, giving up a first down 83.3 percent of the time. The second-worst team in the league, Baltimore, is at 70 percent, while the third-worst, Houston, is at 57.1 percent. That shows just how far below the rest of the league the Patriots have been in the critical area of their beloved bend-don’t-break, which depends immensely on third down stops in the red zone.

Now I’m not here to go all doom and gloom on the defense. These stats are certainly concerning, but there’s a long way to go and with Tom Brady back in the mix, we’re just getting our first taste of the real 2016 Patriots. So we can reserve some judgement at this point.

Here’s a look at five third downs against the Browns with what went wrong and how the Pats might fix it.

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Pats Posits: Tuesday Leftovers Edition

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Things certainly seem back to normal this week. Brady had a vintage Brady performance, all the Jimmy/Jacoby stuff can be put on the backburner (at least by me) until next offseason and the Pats are once again in the driver’s seat in both the conference and the division.

This feels like Belichick/Brady Patriots football!

Here are some leftover tidbits as I cleaned out my Pats notebook and looked back at a few key moments in the game before diving into the All-22 once it becomes available.

— Plenty of digging on how the Pats used Bennett and Gronk going on. Kevin Duffy of Masslive.com had a good breakdown:

Here was Gronkowski’s breakdown by alignment on snaps with Bennett:
In-line: 31
Slot: 8
Wide: 4

And here was Bennett’s:
In-line: 35
Slot: 4
Wide: 4

The Pats rans on 19 of the 30 snaps both tight ends were in-line, but some of their biggest pass plays came out of those kind of sets as well, including Bennett’s 37-yard touchdown. This illustrates the power of having two all-around Y tight ends — they can dictate however they want to. And the play action is going to absolutely devastating this season. And it really boils down to keep them mostly in-line and working from there.

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Pats Posits: 4-1 and It’s Real Fun

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Tom Brady is back like he never left. Brady tore up the Browns for his 8th career 400-yard game, with three touchdowns to Martellus Bennett, en route to the Pats 33-13 win over the Browns in Cleveland.

All in the Patriots Universe is right.

Now, with Deflategate firmly in the rearview mirror (I pray…) the Patriots are ready to move on in pursuit of their fifth Super Bowl. Their offense looks primed to take them there. Their defense shut down Cleveland’s ground game and gave up just two scoring drives.

All three phases have things to clean up, but make no mistake, the 2016 Patriots are on track now and the season is very much underway.

 

Here da’ Posits…

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How a Bad 2010 Browns Team Beat a Good Patriots Team

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Back in 2010, Rob Gronkowski was a rookie. He wasn’t yet Gronk. BenJarvus Green-Ellis was busy churning out tough yards and never turning the ball over. Danny Woodhead was just starting to be more than a fast little Jets spy. Wes Welker was still piling up receptions on his way to being the Patriots all-time receptions leader. Randy Moss was just recently traded, and Deion Branch had come back to town! Aaron Hernandez was showing himself to be a promising rookie. Nobody had yet grown tired of Brandon Spikes, or Ron Brace, or Jermaine Cunningham. Holy crap, Tully Banta-Cain was back for a second stint. Rob Ninkovich had yet to become a workmanlike folk hero.

The Browns…well, they had fantasy football “Oh crap, MAYBE on my bye week?” guys everywhere. Mohammad Massoquoi. Colt McCoy. Ben Watson. Josh Cribbs. Chansi Stuckey. Brian Robiskie (did you have him? Yeah, I also play dynasty). Peyton Hillis had a great year that year, with 1600+ yards from scrimmage and 13 tds…otherwise…eek. T.J. Ward and Joe Haden were there on defense, but nobody else that was sending shivers up your spine.

The Browns won 34-14.

How. HOW?!

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The Best/Worst Weekly Links in Patriots -10/8

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He’s back and he’s angry. The Days of Judgement are upon us.

CC: Roger Goodell, Troy Vincent, Bart Hubbuch, Mike Kensil, Bill Polian, Jim Irsay, John Harbaugh, Ryan Grigson, Gregg Doyel, Bob Kravitz, Troy Aikman, Don Shula, Marshall Faulk, Rob Parker, Shannon Sharpe, Chris Carter, Max Kellerman, Mark Brunell, Ron Borges, Tom Jackson…

If you pray for rain, you have to deal with the mud, too.-Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), The Equalizer

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New England Patriots Gameplan: Week 5 at Cleveland Browns

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65Dze6WLS4s

Yup, Tom Brady’s back and the 2016 season can officially start this Sunday in Cleveland. Seriously, for all the time we wasted debating Jimmy Garoppolo’s future and toughness or the gameplan for one-thumbed Jacoby Brissett, it all matters about as much as the preseason did now.

So yes Patriots fans are giddy, the rest of the NFL is worried and the Browns are preparing for worse damage than Florida right now.

But how easily the “Brady’s back” angle has made us all forget that the last two times the Patriots have faced the Browns it hasn’t quite gone as we all thought it would. There was the brutal 34-14 loss in Cleveland in 2010 and then the miraculous comeback by the Patriots in Foxboro in 2013, which also saw Rob Gronkowski’s knee blown out.

The Pats needed an onside kick recovery to escape Cleveland in that one.

The Browns have been anything but an easy out for the Patriots, no matter how the matchup looked on paper going in. But these Browns are far younger and even less talented than what the Patriots dealt with in 2010 and 2013.

Couple that with the Patriots coming off an embarrassing loss and we might just finally get the Browns blowout we’ve been waiting six years for.

Here’s the gameplan to get the season off to a new start under our favorite quarterback.

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