I’m a big picture guy so I hope no one’s expecting me to overreact to today’s stinker. In simplest terms the Patriots lost Aaron Hernandez to an injury and seemed unprepared to alter their game plan accordingly. In the first half especially they looked disjointed on offense.
At one point it felt like Stevan Ridley making something out of nothing was the only offense they were getting.
Brandon Lloyd made some great catches but I wouldn’t call him and Brady “deadly” just yet. Still, he seems to be getting it, and is showing that he can be a threat outside the numbers that we so badly need.
The defense had some patches on inconsistency but ultimately they made enough plays to still keep the offense in it. This is a positive sign. Spikes’ forced fumble is a big play to build on.
Special Teams was somewhere in between the offense and defense. Gostkowski made four field goals but the only one we’ll remember is the one he missed. And obviously the blocked punt, was a huge play that basically won it for Arizona.
We’ll have all week to speculate about why Edelman is playing over Welker. Is Welker dinged? Are they just trying to manage him? Or is Edelman simply outplaying him? I’m sure we’ll get plenty of this over the next six days.
Sterling Moore looks to have overtaken Ras-I Dowling for the time being as the third cornerback. That could just be a game plan thing though I’m not sure how much we saw of Dowling.
I’ve just never felt comfortable criticizing an offensive coordinator for play calling, but I will say a lot of Josh McDaniels calls left me scratching my head. It was like without Hernandez they lost 80% of what they wanted to do.
In my game preview I thought the Pats would move fast and try more hurry up. It seemed to work later in the game, but where was it early on?
I just can’t get caught up in debating the replacement refs calls. We’ve had good calls and bad calls for us and against us over the years, it’s up to the players to adjust to how the game is being called.
Losses like these will happen early in the season. We see them (almost) every year. Jets in ‘09, ’10. Bills in ’11. It’s a little troublesome that this happened at home, but in the long term an out of conference loss in week two isn’t going to have overwhelming ramifications.
I have no doubt they can overcome the loss of Hernando, they’ll just be a little more conventional. I don’t think there’s any reason to be overly concerned that this offense is in trouble long term. They still need to figure out how to beat teams that aggressive man with them, but it seems like they have the pieces in place to challenge it better this year. Things just went wrong from the start and kept going wrong, and they couldn’t get the ship righted.
The main issues to focus on now:
- How long is Hernandez out for?
- How will the offense adjust without him?
- Can the defense continue to build on these two games?
Now we move on to an AFCCG rematch with the Ravens in Baltimore. Both teams are coming off losses, as if it wasn’t going to be a total war already. Hard to believe us or the Ravens will be 1-2 by next Monday.
Hats off to the Cardinals for a well-executed game plan. There’s no doubt they were the better team today, but there’s still plenty to be optimistic about in New England.