PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

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The New England Patriots have made great efforts to revamp their defense in recent seasons but one player who has stuck around quietly doing his job is Rob Ninkovich and he popped up against the Dolphins with a big game as a pass rusher, profiting from favorable matchups and unblocked opportunities to make a mark in this game. Ninkovich registered a season-high nine total pressures (one sack, two hits, six hurries) to take his season total through eight games to 36, only six short of his total for the entirety of last year’s regular season. He added to his fine display with a pair of batted passes (one of which was nullified by a delay of game penalty) and a trio of tackles (one of them a stop). He even notched up a missed tackle to register a stat in every column of our defensive stats page for this game. We have seen much better from Ninkovich as a run defender this season but this was the most productive we have seen Ninkovich as a pass rusher this season and comfortably the most effective more importantly.

ReFo: Dolphins @ Patriots, Week 8 | ProFootballFocus.com

https://www.patspropaganda.com/the-new-england-patriots-have-made-great-efforts/

I’ve been a long time Pats fan, but as happy as I am about the turn around in this game against Miami today and the win, I can’t help but be very worried and concerned about the rest of the season. There’s so many problems to overcome: key injuries, rookie players, Brady seeming off a lot of the time, not using the running game enough, O-Line issues….what are some things they can do in the rest of the season to try to overcome these weak points as much as they can and win in the Playoffs?

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Perhaps more than any season, they just have to keep coming together. They’ll likely have one more game without Vereen and then the bye week. That should be a great time to get some quality work in. If they get fully healthy, they’re a pretty talented team and should make some noise down the stretch. Offensively, I feel like all the pieces are in place to really put it all together. Vereen, Amendola and Gronk are huge keys to that and all three of them must get back up to speed.

Issues like protection, lack of running attack, etc. can all be worked out and things like that are almost always figured out by mid-November. 

Defensively, if you put Talib and Kelly back in the mix and I don’t see how this defense still isn’t better than anything the Pats have had the last three seasons, even without Mayo and Wilfork. For reals.

So I know it’s been sloppy and ugly, but if everyone can just hold on for a couple more weeks, that’s when the season actually starts. Let’s just be happy the Pats are already in a great position in the AFC and barring a huge meltdown, will be back in the playoffs once again.

And as we’ve seen from the average regular season teams that have won recent Super Bowls, it doesn’t matter how you looked in October when you’re playing in January.