PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Armond Armstead/Mark Harrison’s Seasons are over for Patriots

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Per Jeff Howe’s tweets below, it looks like it’s now official, no Armond Armstead or Mark Harrison this year. 

On Harrison it’s probably good to give him a red shirt year. He was never healthy coming into camp and as we all know it takes time for receivers to pick up the system. He’ll be one to watch in camp as no other receiver has his size and speed on the roster.

Armstead is a real disappointment and no one seems to know what happened. Most were penciling him in as the top sub-rusher next to Wilfork this season, and everything looked okay until he suddenly was put on the PUP for what was called an “infection”.

How did he get the infection? Was it related to his heart issues that caused him to miss time in college? Nobody seems to know. 

It’s even more disappointing because after the injuries to Wilfork and Kelly, the Pats really could’ve used some reinforcements along the defensive line. Hopefully the real story comes out eventually. It’s probably more likely to now that his season is over. 

So yeah, more bad news. Anyone getting used to this yet?

How is the whole Brady or Manning conversation still in existence 3>1 17-7>9-19 C’mon man!

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Here were my three reasons Brady is the best of all time, one of my most read articles in my time at B/R. So that gives you some of the answer. Fans eat this stuff up, especially ones who want to tell me how stupid I am in the comments (and there are PLENTY of those).

Everything has to be ranked in sports by the media and comparing the two best quarterbacks of their generation is inevitable.

Personally, I don’t really care who is better. The reasons I like Brady better are mostly superficial, even though there are plenty of stats to support the Brady is better argument. 

Even if I wasn’t a Pats uber-blogger, I don’t think there’s much argument that Brady is just the cooler of the two. Peyton’s more like a dorky football Frankenstein with a big head, JV facemask, and little shoulder pads and a weird paunch belly.

But even I can see Peyton Manning’s brilliance as a quarterback and I do think he can make it look even easier than Brady at times. We get so caught up in the “who’s better” of it all we lose perspective of how special these matchups are and that they won’t happen many more times. Trying to have every player to ever play ranked nice and neatly to the point where there’s no more debate is pointless and impossible. 

Let’s just enjoy watching two of the best of all time and let the better TEAM win.

Pats must harness their anger from the bad calls

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I pretty much moved on from the end of the Panthers’ game as soon as the refs picked up the flag. I know it’s still heavily in the news rotation, but as I said yesterday, I don’t want NFL games to be decided by penalties, and regardless if it was or wasn’t the right call, it was the call they made and it was not going to change.

I’ve said it many times, the Pats don’t often lose and when they do it’s by less than one score. They’ve lost 15 games since 2010 and their average margin of defeat is less than a touchdown (6.67 points).

Strangely three losses in the last two seasons have come on controversial calls at the end of the game. This includes both the Carolina and Jets games this season, and last year’s regular season loss to the Ravens on a field goal that was questionable.

This brings me to the Broncos who are flying high and the toast of the NFL after beating the Chiefs last week. They feature a high powered offense that is at times unstoppable, and are drawing comparisons to the 2007 Patriots.

But here’s the thing – the 2007 Patriots were a perfect storm, and as much as the results and point totals might look similar, the Broncos are not that team. 

The biggest reason? Anger.

After the Spygate charade, the 2007 Patriots were angry and wanted to embarrass teams. Unfortunately for them, you can only run on anger for so long and they lost steam at the end of the season. They were still talented enough to get to the Super Bowl and have the lead late in the game, but they couldn’t close it out.

Still, a team that feels unfairly treated and miscast by the media can use that as motivation.

Could this year’s bad luck and bad calls that have gone against the Pats reignite some of that kind of anger in 2013? The Pats still seem pretty pissed off today and if they can harness some of that energy into the game this weekend, a game where they’ll hear all week how great the Broncos are and all about Peyton Manning and Wes Welker, they might play with an edge like we saw from the 2007 team, a team that was so focused and so locked in, they were unbeatable for five months straight.

By Sunday I’d expect this Patriots team to be pretty sick of it all.

The 2013 Broncos are a fantastic team, but they are not the pissed off 2007 Patriots who were looking to destroy anyone in their path. If the 2013 Patriots can take on some of that “us against the world” mantra into the last couple months of the season, they might just make a little more noise than anyone expects.

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Through 10 games, the pass defense numbers stand in stark contrast to where they were last year. At this point in 2012, the Patriots had allowed 289.7 passing yards per game, 30th in the league. This season, that stands at 229.2, 12th in the league. With the slippage in run defense (due in large part to the fact that the Patriots have lost stalwarts like Wilfork and Kelly), the pass defense was a point of pride through much of the first half of the season. And Talib helped silence Roddy White, Jimmy Graham and Vincent Jackson, cementing a rep as one of the best corners in the league.

patriots – Cold Cut: When it comes to Pats secondary, there’s chilling truth to Steve Smith’s words – WEEI | Christopher Price

https://www.patspropaganda.com/through-10-games-the-pass-defense-numbers-stand/

An itsy bitsy bit of good news

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Well, despite “minor meniscus surgery” Alfonzo Dennard was at practice today, though he’s still expected to miss a few games. Steve Gregory returned with a cast over his broken thumb and Aqib Talib was also present, though he didn’t finish the game on Monday and could still be iffy.

All in all it might be a bit of gamesmanship going on here, because all three of those guys could miss the game on Sunday and it wouldn’t surprise me. But they’re at practice and that’s the most you can hope for at this point. And now we’ll take any bit of positive news we can get.

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https://www.patspropaganda.com/8874/