Brady’s Six.
Newly acquired nose tackle Isaac Sopoaga played 26 snaps and two of the best came on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 to end the Steelers’ fourth drive of the game. On the third-down play, Sopoaga got his hands into right guard Guy Whimper and knocked him into the offensive backfield, impeding the path of running back Le’Veon Bell for no gain. That was a good snapshot of Sopoaga’s power. He did the same thing to center Fernando Velasco on the next play, winning at the line as Bell was dropped for a loss of 1 yard to turn the ball over. At 6-foot-2 and 330 pounds, Sopoaga gives the Patriots a powerful nose tackle that they didn’t otherwise have on the active roster. Based on those two plays, it sure looks like he still has something to offer.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/newly-acquired-nose-tackle-isaac-sopoaga-played-26/
On the Rob Ninkovich sack of Ben Roethlisberger that ended the Steelers’ first drive, on a third-and-2 play, it was a good combination of rush and coverage. We’d give an assist to linebacker Brandon Spikes, who faked a blitz, then backed out to help in coverage on running back Felix Jones over the middle. That was Roethlisberger’s first read, but when he spotted Spikes, he held on to the ball longer than he wanted to and by that point the rush arrived. It might not always look pretty, but just as he did against the Bengals on Oct. 6 with an interception, Spikes showed he can compete at times in pass coverage.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/on-the-rob-ninkovich-sack-of-ben-roethlisberger/
It Is What It Is » Bill Belichick doesn’t think ‘anybody has lost any confidence’ in Kenbrell Thompkins
Good stuff from BB…
I wouldn’t say we go into the game and, ‘OK, well this guy is going to get a lot of opportunity here for ‘X’ amount of time and then we’re going to shift it to somebody else.’ Or, ‘We’re going to get this guy ‘X’ number of carries and then the next guy ‘X’ number and the next guy ‘X’ number so they all get the same amount over whatever, a quarter, a half or whatever fixed period of time there is.’ We just don’t do it that way. It’s much more of a, when this grouping is in the game, these players in the game with that grouping, these are the matchups we’re trying to attack on their defense. A lot of that is sometimes a function of what they do. If they’re back showing a lot of coverage, maybe we run the ball more. If they have everybody on the line of scrimmage, maybe we throw it more. If it’s different blitzes, then those might either cause an audible or it might cause more of a change in the play-calling style, which again, gives you the same effect. I get a lot of the same questions every week and it’s kind of the same answer every week. You can pick out any player you want and say, ‘Well, this guy got a lot of things or that guy didn’t get very much of it.’ We just usually don’t go into the game saying, ‘We’re going to throw the ball to this guy 15 times and we’ll only going to throw to this guy twice.’ Or, ‘We’re going to get this guy 15 carries and this other guy is only going to get two.’ I think that’s just not the way we do it. We try to attack the defense, we try to move the ball, we try to score points, we try to win. If that’s one player getting the ball 10 times and another guy getting it once, and we’re efficient doing it, then that’s OK. If it’s spread equally, that’s OK too. It’s just trying to find a way to be productive, move the ball and score points. It’s not about trying to create stats or any of that. The only stat we’re interested in is points and wins, because points are wins.
when a player is a healthy scratch, does that mean he is on the sidelines? Just wondering what’s going on with KT and when he will be back on the field.
No, I don’t think you’ll find those guys on the sidelines very often. As for KT, it’s a long season. I wouldn’t write him off yet. It’s clear that Dobson has progressed quicker than KT did, and KT had a huge chance to show what he could do early in the season.
Sometimes just taking a step back slows the game down a bit and then he can move forward. Now with Collie possibly hurt we could see Thompkins (or Boyce) back in the mix after the bye.
One thing you can count on is that the Patriots will dive head-first into self-analysis this week and find out how they can better use their weapons. So don’t be surprised to see KT back out there in a significant role before the season is over. But he has to show some improvement, because he didn’t show enough through the first half of the season.
What do you think are the differences defensively to belichick about playing with a lead compared to playing in a tied game
It’s an interesting question and goes back to the situational posts I answered last week. Really, playing with a lead can absolutely taint your stats because if you have 9+ point lead in the second half you just don’t want to give up any big plays. If they want pass or run plays that go 4-6 yards and keep the runner in bounds, they can have them.
So you look at the Steelers game yesterday and you see how some of the stats for the Steelers are a bit skewed. They were down, they had to take some shots down the field and they even grabbed a couple of them, but the Pats got one too.
These kinds of things can add up over the year and have a real impact on the things like passing yards and the someone looks at the number out of context and thinks they pass defense is worse than it actually might be.
But in a tie game you’re just running your defense as you game planned.
There’s no question the “prevent” style (even though it’s technically not really a prevent defense per se) can be frustrating, but it also works if you don’t care about stats. And as BB says, “stats are for losers”.