PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Patriots Third Down Deep Dive

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The Patriots offensive third-down conversion rate has slipped below 40 percent for the just the third time (2005, 2013) since 2001, while the third-down defense ranks 25th in the league with their worst rate since 2011. If you’re looking for a reason why the Patriots have sputtered at times in 2018, third down, aka the money down, is a great place to start.

Without Julian Edelman for the first four games, the offense also had to replace super-clutch Danny Amendola, as well as Dion Lewis who sparked them quite a few times last year. When Gronk was slowed with injuries, it just made it that much 2018’s offensive transition harder. The results are obvious, as this new iteration of the Brady offense hasn’t quite totally clicked yet.

The defense doesn’t quite have those excuses. Aside from losing Ja’Whaun Bentley this is pretty much the defense the Patriots brought into training camp. They’ve shown plenty of signs of being a total defense, but their inconsistencies, especially on the road have been maddening. Some speed bumps should be expected with Matt Patricia gone and Brian Flores in, but now is the time for them to lock in.

Overall, the 2018 Patriots are 14th on offense and 24th on defense on third down. The 2015 and 2016 teams combined were 4th on offense and 7th on defense. The offense’s last dip was 2013, when they fell to 16th. The defense hasn’t fallen to 2010 depths yet, when they ranked 32nd in the league, allowing a whopping 47.1 percent conversion rate. They’re just at 43.1 now, the same rate they had in 2011, but still hovering over the bottom third of the league.

2015 and 2016 were the height of the second generation Belichick Patriots and where the bar was set before injuries and departures started to add up in 2017. Those two years were the best run by the third down units on both sides of the ball since ’05-’06. Let’s take a look at how and where they’ve declined.

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Pats Posits: Maybe the Pats are Just Bored

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It was nice to get a chance to catch our breath over the bye week and enjoy some non-Pats-stressed football. What seems clear is that the parity of last season has extended into 2018. It’s good for the league that so many games were close with the exception of just a couple blowouts which please the fantasy crowd.

After the Chiefs, Saints and Rams it’s a whole lot of up and down teams that could win or lose on any given Sunday. The Pats are definitely in that lower tier but part of me has to wonder if maybe the Patriots Football Machine is just having a little trouble getting up for non-big games. Especially on the road. At home against good teams, the Patriots have looked like one of the most solid teams in the league.

How you play on the road and against supposed inferior competition does say a lot about the complexion of your team, but I don’t know, maybe this team is just having as hard a time getting psyched up to play all our old friends at the Titans or Lions as I do. And a September Super Bowl in Florida? Whatever. Wake me up for KC, Aaron Rodgers, Big Ben and playoff games.

This is a transition year on offense and injuries have altered things a bit. Defensively, there aren’t any excuses. They’ve played pretty good at home and on the road they’ve looked like a different defense. The struggles on special teams, resulting in field position losses, have been silent killers.

We’ll get a small idea whether or not they can finally just turn it on this weekend. Yeah, the Jets have struggled but so has Buffalo and they hung with these road Pats. New England will get no credit for putting down the Jets, especially if their offense sputters again, but a solid road win to start the post-Thanksgiving push would be nice.

There’s a good team inside these 2018 Patriots, but their dueling personalities have drawn skepticism about their Super Bowl chances. All I know is they’ll keep at it, and go down swinging no matter what. It’s just what they do, even when they don’t win.

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Trey Flowers or Bust in Free Agency 2019

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Maybe this is the wrong time to take a look at the expiring contracts on the Patriots considering we’re coming off such a poor performance, but it’s the bye week and in just a few short months the free agents will be at the forefront of everyone’s mind no matter how the season ends.

The list of pending free agents has one big name at the top — Trey Flowers — and after him, and maybe Josh Gordon, is there anyone we’d be all that upset to see leave? Anyone who would truly hurt the Patriots a couple years down the road if they went elsewhere?

Let’s rundown the pending free agents, roughly ranked in order of importance current impact.

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Looking for a Friend at the End of Tom Brady

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It’s no surprise that the punditry and non-Patriot fans gleefully awaiting the inevitable decline of Tom Brady were out in force this week. While most professional sports legends are attributed a kind of reverence as their careers wrap up, Brady has just been too good for too long and transcended from the days of old media (newspapers!) to today’s overabundance of constant breaking news and hot takes.

Not only does it seem like the great majority want to see Brady finally stink, they’re actively rooting it on, eager to take the heroic stand that at some point he will break down and they were the first-ish to call it. Do you ever remember people on ESPN or wherever else getting excited about Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, or even old pal Peyton Manning finally hanging them up?  Imagine how Manning was treated after Super Bowl 50, despite being a passenger on their championship ride. Would Brady ever get that kind of glowing adoration if he willed this 2018 Patriots team a Super Bowl title?

I’m still reading hot takes that coming back from 28-3 wasn’t all that impressive.

For whatever the reasons, and there are plenty of them, the Brady hate at the end is very real, leaving us all wondering why they can’t just leave him alone to get old and stinky in peace and not cue the victory parade after any sub-300 yard game.

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Film Review: Patriots Defense vs. Titans Edition

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It took me a couple days to finally dive into the film review of the Patriots against the Titans and I can’t say I was looking forward to it. But I’ve been with this defense for a decade and I can’t shy away even when things go as badly as they did in Tennessee.

Let’s take a look at the scoring drives and what went wrong.

1st Drive – Touchdown

The first play of the game pretty much summed up what kind of day it was going to be, as the pressure collapsed around Marcus Mariota but couldn’t bring him down and he found Corey Davis on a deep in cut. The re-appearance of Keionta Davis was a bit surprising and what wasn’t surprising was how the Titans went right after him on this drive. He had the same trouble getting off blocks and making plays. Really Trey Flowers was the only one who showed any pop in this first drive. The Titans finished it off on a third down as Patrick Chung failed to get a jam at the point of the bunch set and was outrun across the field by Jonnu Smith. The rollout by Mariota forced Devin McCourty into a no-win position (see below).

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Pats Posits: Music City Disaster

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There’s simply no way to put a silver lining around the Patriots completely flat performance against the Titans. They were bad in all three phases and made just a handful of plays over the course of the entirety of the game. The up-and-down secondary, which had recently strung together some solid performances, fell down hard yesterday, led by Stephon Gilmore, just as everyone was becoming assured he was a superstar shutdown corner.

The kickoff and punt teams, sub-par all year, once again were bad, giving the Titans favorable field position all day and putting the defense even more in the crosshairs of a balanced offensive attack that the Pats had no answer for.

Then there was the offense, which went 3-15 on third down and put up just 40 rushing yards. Yes, those things go very much hand in hand, as the smoke and mirrors offense finally collapsed against a team that knew Tom Brady through and through.

Unfortunately, we’re at the phase of the Patriots dynasty that every bad game will be touted as the end, the cliff, the harbinger of doom for Belichick and Brady. This one will certainly get that treatment over the bye week as I’m sure the radio airwaves are full of long-held bile that has been waiting to explode.

There’s no question, the 2018 Patriots were not on the upward trajectory I assumed they were. They continue to be two different teams at home and on the road, a strange dichotomy for a team that went undefeated on the road for a season-and-a-half from 2016 to 2017. And now, they’re behind the eightball when it comes to homefield and the playoffs, meaning that their road woes must be fixed or their chances of getting to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five seasons will be severely in jeopardy.

Still, they’re a better team than what we saw yesterday. And not every team will play as flawlessly as the Titans did, especially with their inside knowledge of Brady and the Pats. Let’s dive in and vent and try to find some meaning and maybe just maybe, a glint of hope?

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Patriots Gameplan: Week 10 at Tennessee Titans

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The Patriots visit the latest incarnation of the Patriots castoffs. There was Romeo Crennel’s former-Pats-heavy team in Kansas City, and its later incarnation under Bill O’Brien in Houston. Now franchise-defining Mike Vrabel has Dean Pees, Logan Ryan, Malcolm Butler and Dion Lewis all under GM Jon Robinson who spent 11 years with the Patriots.

So yes, there is a soft spot here for this team. I especially loved Vrabel, Lewis and Butler and their departures are among my most unfavorite. To see them all them playing against the Patriots all at once might be a little much.

The Titans know Tom Brady as well as any team he’s ever faced. They’ve played extensively, both with and against him. There’s no secret to Vrabel and Pees about what they’re dealing with. That applies to their knowledge of Belichick as well — how he’ll want to play the game, what they can expect to see taken away from them, how critical turnovers will be.

The question will be can they execute the 60-minute gameplan it’s going to take?

Here’s the gameplan to make sure they can’t.

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