PatsPropaganda

Important things to talk about here and I’ll probably have to go back and link to this during the game, but here are some thoughts on yours and a couple of my own.

1. CB play vs. Rodgers – We might only see a series or two from Rodgers and their top offense, but the important thing to remember is that the Patriots are going to play a vanilla defense. What that means is Cover 1, Cover 2 or Cover 3. I expect they’ll play a lot of man to man just to see how guys do, not because that’s the coverage they’re planning on playing primarily this season. 

So much of the Patriots’ strength on defense is their disguise and mixing of coverages. So in no way will this game tell us how good they’ll be as a defense. What you’ll be able to see is how good guys are in their individual matchups and then that will inform how they’re actually used when the Pats start gameplanning.

2. Run defense is very important but let’s remember with limited tackling in practice now we can expect the tackling will be sloppy, and that will unfortunately continue into September as we saw last year. But still, stopping the run when the defense is evolving to more athletes than size will be an interesting thing to watch.

3. No question, it will be fun to watch the rookie guards. I’m excited to see Shaq Mason pulling in the running game, but I’m more curious to see how he holds up in the passing game, especially with a big tackle or linebacker bearing down on him.

4. Pass rush is kinda the same thing as the coverage, it’s going to be four guys rushing one on one probably and not any disguise to open up blitzers. Still, this is important from an individual physical performance point of view, but we’re not going to learn how good the 2015 Patriots pass rush will actually be in the regular season. Of course, the best pass rushers are the ones who can win one-on-one so we will get a sense of potential on some guys, especially the rookies. It’d be nice to see Easley launch through the line into the backfield a couple of times.

For me I’m most excited to see the rookies out there and see how their games translate at the pro level. Do they look lost? Or do they look like they’re immediately playing at real speed?

Jordan Richards is one I am very curious about.

Finally I want to see the running backs and how well they do at everything. I’d love to see Jonas Gray put in a strong showing, I think we need him to step up into a significant role now that it doesn’t look like Gaffney’s going to do much at least for now.

Here it is for those who don’t know what he’s talking about…

This is probably worthy of its own investigation because you’re right, it makes no sense. On the surface the two are not related – because the K balls he references are handled by the league and supposed to be new. 

Even if they were the wrong balls, how is that related to the Patriots or playing in New England? That’s a ref issue. And why would the Ravens care to relay something insignificant like that to the Colts?

Then he segways into the rumor of the Pats deflating balls as a rumor that should be investigated, which seems like the real purpose of this email.

So perhaps mentioning the Ravens, albeit for something completely unrelated in any way except under the general topic of footballs, it gives the appearance of credibility I guess.

But is the Colts special teams coach really this much of a factor in the whole thing that he was singlehandedly able to get his GM to notify the league offices of a long-held rumor?

This whole thing is very strange and Ravens fans and management seem apoplectic about it. I don’t know what is true, but I’m more focused on the Colts’ blame in this than the Ravens.

So hard for the haters to wrap their skulls around this one. You hear plenty of “well then why’d they fire McNally and Jastremski?!”.

First of all, they were suspended per the league’s request and second of all, like you said, McNally only worked gamedays along with hundreds of other people. 

Still they find it unbelievable that Brady wouldn’t know who McNally was, even though he’s only there on the days that Tom is completely focused on the game and not chumming it up with everyone.

As for the “away deflator” it would really be much harder because the Pats wouldn’t have their own attendant to take the balls to the field. This is one of the biggest holes in the deflation conspiracy plots – how would they have ever been able to consistently and secretly pull it off on the road?