PatsPropaganda

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Offseason Education: Patriots Schemes

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Offseason Education: Patriots Schemes

In an effort to help some of my fellow Patriots brethren gain a little more football knowledge this offseason I’ll be bringing occasional links and articles that can help clarify some of the finer points of the game.

Today we have this link about the Patriots strategy from Wikipedia. This is about as basic as you can get, but it’s a good place to start. One of the biggest points I’d like to stress, especially as we get closer to draft time, is that there are different types of 3-4 defenses in the NFL.

The Patriots are looking for defensive lineman who can hold their ground against two monster offensive lineman, whereas the Steelers are looking for defensive lineman who can get upfield, and also drop occasionally into coverage. Both are 3-4 defenses, but the philosophies are much different.

Frenz: How does Brady’s MVP impact his legacy?

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Frenz: How does Brady’s MVP impact his legacy?

Good stuff from FOPPer (Friend of PatsPropaganda) Erik Frenz. Patriots fans are all conditioned, by success and by BB’s coaching style, to look at any non-Lombardi Trophy season as a failure. But the reality is that the Patriots legacy could’ve gone one of two ways this season. Most seemed to think this was the year, due to all the youth on defense, that they would take a step back. It’s only logical.

But what we learned was that regardless of who the players are the Patriots will always be contenders as long as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady are there. Despite a total defensive turnover in the last three seasons. Despite the loss of Moss. And yes, even despite the Jets last two playoff runs.

And it’s finally the off-season…

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Anyone else feeling a sense of calm this morning? 31 NFL teams are all disappointed, and just the Green Bay Packers are happy. 

So here on Day 1 of the 2011 offseason what are our general thoughts? 

First and foremost has to be the CBA, because without that there won’t even be football. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little concerned. There isn’t much time until the March 3rd expiration of the current CBA, and if they get there without a new deal this could drag on for a long time.

The reason I’m worried is that the NFL has grown fond of orwellian language like “enhanced season” and signs like that generally point to them being set on what they want out of this next CBA. The commissioner continues to tell the world that fans want an 18 game season, but every educated fan I’ve heard from is against it. The fans and bloggers I’ve talked to are almost universally in favor of the players.

The NFL’s negotiating tactics and gasp, propaganda, are worrisome, but ultimately there’s too much money at stake for this to go too badly wrong. I hope. Otherwise the game could be severely set back.

So we’ll see how it all plays out in the next few weeks.

If we do get a new CBA there will be a mad scramble as everyone figures out the new rules for Free Agency. Players like Logan Mankins could be largely effected.

The draft however should stay largely the same, though the pay structure for rookies may not.

This should be one of the most interesting off-seasons for NFL fans in a long time. The game is going to change, perhaps just slightly, or perhaps entirely (if we see a lockout). Either way I expect the Patriots to be ready to take advantage however they can.

Brady wins 2010 NFL MVP

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While Belichick winning Coach of the Year really gave me a new appreciation of the 2010 Patriots season, I’m left kind of feeling blah about Brady’s MVP. Maybe it’s because he had such a stinker in the playoffs, something that was confirmed around the Super Bowl this week by the many football analysts and pundits out there. From Mike Reiss:

When the topic was the team’s playoff loss to the Jets, there was one overriding theme: Tom Brady took the team far during the regular season, but he didn’t look like himself in the playoff loss. When looking at where things broke down in that game, Brady was where most analysts started. One opinion that stood out was that Brady is usually so mentally tough that he can overcome mistakes, but some felt his first-quarter interception put him in a funk that he couldn’t recover from. “He didn’t look right,” was the common refrain. 

This interview with Michael Lombardi did make me feel just a little bit better. The fact is that while this season ended in disappointment just like 31 other teams did or will, we had a better four month regular season than anyone else. No we didn’t win a Super Bowl, but it was a magical season while it lasted with lots of amazing and exciting football. 2010 was just more proof that as long as BB and TFB are around the Patriots are going to be a contender.

Tom Brady Patriots MVP