PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Thursday Pats Stat Pack

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Now that we’re a quarter of the way into the season I feel comfortable diving into some of Football Outsiders’ DVOA stats and the early numbers for the Pats are pretty outstanding. 

Remember, these numbers are adjusted for the matchup and situation, so go easy on the “Pats haven’t played anyone good” outrage.

First we have our overall DVOA on both sides of the ball, where the offense is hitting a level that puts it on par with Brady’s MVP seasons of 2007 and 2010. Defensively, they’re better overall but a little worse against the run, though I’d say that’s party by design.

Here’s a closer look at how they’re matching up with various receiving threats:

The improvement against tight ends is what stands out most, while there a bit of drop replacing Revis with Butler, the rest is pretty much the same. And again, they’ve been better overall.

Finally comes what I call the “bend-don’t-break chart” where they’re looking far less bendy after last week’s performance against the Cowboys. We’ll see how that holds up.

Why is Tom Bradys QBR for the Dallas game only 24.1? It does not even seem close to being correct.

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I have never once mentioned or referenced QBR here but what better time to talk about it? I saw something this morning referencing this, mentioning that no one actually knows what the formula for QBR is and that it’s likely that the large amounts of yards-after-catch hurt Brady’s score.

This is a common way to state the “Tom Brady’s not that good” argument from those who love to ding him because he’s not hurling the ball 20 yards downfield in an impressive aerial assault every play. For some reason that is now a sort of standard for various analysts out there when evaluating quarterback play. As if “dink and dunk” is a gimmick and not real quarterbacking. 

If it was just a gimmick though, I’m not sure why more teams are trying to do it because it’s been deadly effective for the Patriots since 2010 especially.

YAC hurts the QB? Well what about the fact that Brady audibled to that play based on the defense then threw the ball to the hot receiver in less than 2 seconds? Not many quarterbacks in the NFL can do that, but it’s something that isn’t taken into consideration by graders. They see an easy short pass and the receiver running a long way with the ball.

I’m not one for a lot of individual stats here on the blog. I think the only thing I really ever reference is Football Outsider’s DVOA, which measures total team efficiency. I also know people have issues with Pro Football Focus when some of their grades that don’t pass the smell test for the same reason.

I just think it’s hard to apply individual grades to players in the ultimate team sport and since I’m not really interesting in ranking individual players, rather just analyzing how the team performs and executes, I pretty much ignore things like QBR and PFF. 

I just prefer to watch the games closely and come to my own opinions rather than stress about handing out a numerical grade to every individual player on every play when the game is so fluid from play to play and game to game.

You can make stats say whatever you want to, and so much of these advanced stats are more interested in find HOT TAKEZ that they lose the forest for the trees, just like last year when Brady was said to be “no longer elite” or whatever even before the Kansas City game.

So my power ranking-free, individual stats-free Patriots blog will power on!

Does the colts game have the feeling of a trap game to you too? I mean after the whole offseason and it being an away game and everyone expecting us to just roll over them.

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I think it’s going to be a lot more of a battle than many are expecting. The last few matchups look like blowouts in hindsight, but last year’s regular season game especially was closer than we might want to think. This is a Colts team at home fighting for their season in many ways. At some point Luck is going to stop throwing interceptions to us. Now I’m not sure how well they can stop our offense, but I think this will be a real test for the defense.

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Guess we won’t be running this play this week. 🙁

As you’ve probably heard by now Nate Solder has reportedly been lost for the season with a biceps tear. It’s a significant blow as Solder is one of the best left tackles in the game despite what many complaining Pats fans say. 

Luckily the Pats have good tackle depth and experience with Sebastian Vollmer, Marcus Cannon and likely practice squad call-up Cameron Fleming. Cannon got a bad rap after his failed move to guard last season, but he’s been a solid rotational guy who can play both sides of the line and the Pats even rewarded him with a new contract last year that surprised a lot of us. 

There is some question if Vollmer might flip to left tackle, a spot he played as a rookie and in college but I think they’ll try to mitigate the number of changes and just insert Cannon there, at least to start.

The NFL season is a campaign of attrition as much as anything else. This is the 2015 Patriots first taste of injury adversity and it likely won’t be the last taste of it. But they’ve overcome plenty of significant injuries before and have built in the necessary depth to navigate this loss. They will miss Solder’s ability in space, but with Tom Brady unloading the ball so quickly these days the edge rushers can be mitigated.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/guess-we-wont-be-running-this-play-this-week/

New England Patriots defense steps up, led by Malcolm Butler | The MMQB with Peter King

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New England Patriots defense steps up, led by Malcolm Butler | The MMQB with Peter King

Nice read from Andy Benoit although from his tweets while watching the Patriots defense he was a little more harsh than he is here, especially questioning how good the Patriots’ pass rush really is and if they’ll be able to consistently bring it against a good passing team. Can’t argue they have’t really faced a fully functioning offense yet, although the Steelers were pretty close. One thing you can count on, they’ll get no credit this weekend no matter how it goes, but I think it will be their biggest test yet and I’m very curious how they matchup in the secondary with the Colts’ WR threats.