PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

by

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

by

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.

by

https://www.patspropaganda.com/768/

What do you think about the Cowboys giving the rest of the NFL a blueprint to slow down the Patriots’ offense?

by

I never buy that inevitable talk every time some team sticks with the Pats offense for a (usually short) period of time. I do like how the Cowboys had a new wrinkle to throw at the Pats but the problem is that they didn’t have a counter punch to that.

Just about any team with a good front seven can get some shots on Brady, but how many can do it for 60 minutes? That’s the question and that’s the blueprint.

I always go back to Eric Mangini’s gameplan against the Pats in 2010 when he was with the Browns. He went into depth about it on ESPN later that season and made a few good points that are still true:

1. If you’re not lying you’re not trying: DISGUISE PRESNAP. You can’t let Brady know what you’re going to do. Guys should be walking around and not give away any keys as to what is comein

2. Have two gameplans, one in the first that should be coverage heavy. Disguise like you’re going to blitz a lot, but drop almost everyone. Then, once the Pats figure that out (Which they will) you need a second gameplan for the second half to throw them off again. Then you can go back to the stuff that worked in the first.

3. 60 minutes: It’s a cliche but once Brady figures out what you’re doing he’s going to torch it. Look at SB42. All of sudden they march down the field and take the lead after not being able to move the ball most of the game. Luckily for the Giants that Eli and the offense had a miracle drive of their own.

So I like some of what the Cowboys did but they didn’t do it long enough as the Pats put up 30 points on them. There’s long been a blueprint to slow Brady down, it’s just not many teams have the personnel, creativity and full-game discipline to execute it.

Patriots vs. Cowboys All-22 Review: Defense Edition

by

Lots to like in this game even though the Cowboys were without Tony Romo, Dez Bryant and others.

The headline has to be the heavy dose of press man coverage. Everyone thought this would be a zone defense after Revis and Browner walked but that has not been the case and personally I’m thrilled. You just can’t play zone defense and expect to stop a good QB.

But especially nice was to see the defense being aggressive against a lesser quarterback, when they’d often just sit back in zone and wait for mistakes against these kind of guys in the past.

Here are some general observations on a small sample size:

Logan Ryan
 was the regular CB with Butler, but in sub packages he came off for Brown in the slot and Coleman in the outside. I think this might be because Ryan is probably the best against the run of that group, but is more limited in coverage perhaps. Coleman continues to get chances and looks like he belongs. He’s feisty and was one of my favorite Patriots fits coming out in this draft.

Dominique Easley
 continues to impress me more against the run than the pass, which isn’t really what we expected. He’s just so fast off the ball that he has an instant leverage advantage on an offensive lineman looking to pull. He’s just so disruptive in those situations (see below), but when he’s straight-up pass rushing he wasn’t really winning, at least not like Sheard did a couple times.

Malcom Brown
 had his best game as a pro, holding strong at the point of attack but also being active on the move. It’s a good sign that he’s starting to show positive signs. He tied with Branch for leading defensive tackle snaps with 23.

Jamie Collins was everywhere in this one. Hard to pick out just one play illustrating how he dominates in every facet, but look at the screen shot below and know Collins makes that tackle for a 3-yard gain. Could’ve gone for 30 if he wasn’t so athletic in beating blockers.

McCourty was used on Witten and they doubled him with Jordan Richards quite a few times as well. Not really as outside the norm for McCourty as I might’ve thought. We saw him manning up tight ends last year, with Antonio Gates one example that comes to mind.

I don’t want to keep hammering a guy coming back from injury but didn’t see much out of Mayo in his 29 snaps. If Hightower is out for a while I have real concerns about who’s going to be next to Collins. Mayo still has okay speed, but is generally pretty easily blocked and doesn’t really make much of an impact. Maybe it’s just being next to Collins anyone would look average. But there’s just a lack of strong direct force from Mayo, if that makes sense. Not so much tentative, just a step behind where he was and unable to navigate the wash.

Jabaal Sheard is such a beast I’m not sure how much longer he’s playing less than Ninkovich. He’s the perfect weapon for this defense and if you want to talk about offsetting the loss of Revis, he’s your guy.

It was nice to see the defense go down to the end of the game playing man coverage and not sitting back in prevent zone like they often have in the past. They weren’t quite as aggressive and mixed in some Cover 2, but still had a majority of man coverage concepts.

I keep coming back to one thing – why haven’t the Patriots committed like this to pass rush about five years ago? Now we’re seeing more and more defensive personnel with one or even no defensive tackles. Just the LBs and LB/DE hybrids lining up all over the place and causing havoc getting to the QB. This is why the defense is better now, I don’t care who the corners are.