bills

Pats Posits: Pats Are Who I Posit They Are

October 30, 2018 by Mike Dussault

The Pats pulled away late to close out the Bills as Tom Brady extended his dominance over Buffalo to a whopping 29-3. Brady has more wins over them than any other quarterback over any other team. The Bills Mafia has been left to just throw dildos on the field and accept their loss.

Without Sony Michel it was the grind that I thought it possibly could be in the gameplan:

For the past two seasons, it’s been clear that the Patriots are at their best when they’re balanced and establishing that balance in this game might be tougher than anyone realizes. If the run blocking isn’t on and Barner is unable to make people miss they’re going to become one-dimensional against a good passing defense and that could be cause for concern. Toss in any more strange giveaways leaving a short field for Anderson and there’s a chance this game is interesting, at least for a little bit.

So we got a heavy dose of Cordarrelle Patterson at running back (10 carries, 38 yards) and a game that was just 12-6 in the 4th quarter. The other stats that stand out due to the lack of a ground game was third down where the Pats were just 5-14 and in the red zone where they were 1-3. Just three of the 14 third downs were four yards or less. That speaks to not getting enough early down yardage.

What’s clear to me now about the 2018 Pats is that as long as they have Brady-White-Edelman-Gronk they’re going to give just about any team problems. They have less margin for error with turnovers, but they’ll move the ball. If they have Michel, or just an effective ground game, they’re at a different level of unstoppability.

As for the defense they met expectations against Derek Anderson and the inept Bills offense, holding them to just 6 points, a season low. They also forced two turnovers, returning an interception for their first defensive touchdown since 2015, a streak of 40 games. With no quick change situations, the defense showed that they’re definitely not as crappy as many were making them out to be. But again, it’s the Bills. We’ll see how they look against Aaron Rodgers, but we’ll take it.

More on it all in a halfway edition of the Posits…

Patriots Gameplan: Week 8 at Buffalo Bills

October 26, 2018 by Mike Dussault

The 5-2 Patriots are on the road again, visiting AFC East “rival” Buffalo who sit at 2-5. The Bills will be without rookie quarterback Josh Allen, meaning that veteran Derek Anderson will start against the Pats for the first time since he and the Browns actually hung tougher-than-expected way back when against the 2007 Patriots.

Despite their record, the Bills defense isn’t a total disaster, ranking 6th overall in DVOA, including 4th against the pass. The problem is that Buffalo has 12 turnovers in their last four games and that will kill any team. Their offense is ranked 32nd overall and 32nd passing and very well could be the worst in the league, and that was before Anderson had to start. There’s been plenty of times to wonder if the Bills could knock off the Pats over the years, and just a couple times they actually did, but this doesn’t appear on paper to be one of them.

As for the Patriots, they’ve won four in a row but given up 102 points in those four wins. The Bills’ inept offense is just what the Patriots defense needs, though in reality, they’re better than the points allowed might indicate. The offense though was really starting to click, just as Sony Michel was lost to a not-as-bad-as-it-looked injury that will have him miss at least this one game. The Pats look like they’ll roll with Kenjon Barner and James White as their only two backs, which is a little concerning, especially if it puts added pressure on the valuable White.

What do the Pats have to do to get to the halfway point of the season with a strong 6-2 record and even their road record at 2-2? Here’s the gameplan!

The 2017 Patriots Defense: Can Patchwork Front, Inconsistent Back Get It Done?

December 26, 2017 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots defense turned in another signature effort against the Bills that we’ve seen in recent weeks — early struggles on third down, some big plays allowed, only to see them tighten up in the second half and allow the offense to pull away.

I’m not here to sugar coat it guys, this defense is a shell of what we’ve seen in recent years and obviously injuries are a huge part of it. The other part of it is that the secondary, which is healthy, needed to step up and lead the way for the decimated front seven. At best, they’ve been inconsistent. At worst they’ve been lit up repeatedly no matter who they’re facing. But again, they’ve made the plays they needed to to win games.

But as I look around at the personnel up front I wonder how many stop gaps there are and how many actual building blocks there are.

I’d break it down like so:

Pats Posits: One More to Go

December 25, 2017 by Mike Dussault

Merry Christmas from the West Coast! It was a unique experience for me yesterday as I was on a plane and left with no better option than listening to the Patriots win over the Bills via the Sports Hub radio stream. It’s been a while since I experienced a game only on the radio, but it was fun to finally get to see the big plays later in the day and I thought Zolak and Socci were fun to listen to.

So here we are, the Pats are 12-3 with one game to go, and really all I see is a pile of negativity everywhere I look. I get it, everyone outside of Patriots Nation is so sick of the Patriots. Now, instead of getting excited post-game it immediately becomes about deflecting that negativity.

Bad calls, the Jimmy G situation and the Alex Guerrero thing are the stories driving the Patriots’ narrative these days. It feels like this was the year that the Patriots finally broke the rest of the NFL. Long gone are the “they haven’t won anything since Spygate,” that was such a reassuring crutch for those who hate the Patriots. Now they’re left with no such crutch.

Wins alone are no longer close to enough for even those in our tribe. Wins are boring now. Wins can’t drive the Patriots’ season narrative because it’s just been so played out. So instead it’s all about the secondary stuff and that’s just so frustrating that here in the last few seasons of Brady we can’t really enjoy a win being a win. Now everyone wants to talk about anything but the wins.

More frustrating is the direction it’s all trending, pointing toward how things will look and sound when the Brady-Belichick era is over. We now know that Jimmy G will be hung around our necks for all time. And it will be even worse if Belichick misfires on the second round pick we got for him. I knew it would be bad for Patriots’ fans in the aftermath of the dynasty as everyone lined up and piled on, but the sneak preview we’re getting now makes me realize it will be even worse than we imagined.

But the good news, that everyone has seemingly forgotten, is again that the Pats will be the top AFC seed with a win over the Jets, the bye is already secure and clearly, the dynasty isn’t over yet as much as everyone outside of our fandom want it to be.

Here are the Posits on the win over Buffalo and even some of the ancillary BS.

Patriots Gameplan: Week 16 vs Buffalo Bills

December 22, 2017 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots host the Bills Sunday (1pm EST), their second time in four weeks against Buffalo. The Pats suffocated the Bills last month with a 23-3 win that saw Rex Burkhead and Dion Lewis run wild and the defense allow just two sustained drives. Since then the Bills have pulled out two wins to stay in the playoff race.

Now this seems like the last real test of the season, and the Patriots should aim for a finish like 2016, when the closed out the last games with authority as opposed to 2015 when injuries caught up to them and they lost the top seed to Denver. The Bills are fighting for their playoff lives and will throw everything they have at the Pats, especially with some added motivation seeing Rob Gronkowski again so soon.

Is this a hammer-down, Super Bowl-bound Patriots team? Or will the Bills put together the clean game needed to do the rare feat of beating the Patriots in Foxborough? That kind of regression coming off a big win in Pittsburgh would be exactly what the Pats don’t need.

Here’s the gameplan to move one step closer to locking down homefield.

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Is Patriots’ Run Defense a Fatal Flaw? — Season Film Review

December 6, 2017 by Mike Dussault

While the Patriots defense has been trending up the last few games, I was surprised to see they had fallen from a mid-season 23rd-ranked run defense to 30th in Football Outsider’s DVOA, an analytic that weighs situation and opponent. This is of course about when Dont’a Hightower went on IR, so some drop-off should be expected but it hadn’t been all that glaring to me recently.

If they do have a bad run defense it hasn’t hurt them in the win column. Last week against the Bills they gave up their second-highest yardage total this season (183) and held them to three points. Opening night against the Chiefs (185) remains the highest and only time a team actually ran to victory over New England.

Yardage wise they’re 26th, yards-per-carry they’re 32nd.

So is this a real flaw for the Pats’ defense? Will LeVeon Bell be able to exploit it? Could the Steelers ride that to victory? Miami got a season-low 67 yards on the ground vs. New England and doesn’t look like they’ll do much more this Monday night.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the bigger running plays against and how much impact they had on the game.

PATSHOW Ep. 116 Pats/Bills Review and Pats/Dolphins Preview

December 5, 2017 by Mike Dussault

Here’s today’s episode of Patshow breaking down the Gronk suspension and the Bills win, along with a very special film analyst. Please like us and share!

If you enjoy Patshow and would like to see more of it please give our sponsor links below a click. That’s all it takes and every one helps, and it will help us expand and bring you even more fun content. Thank you!

Today’s Insert of the Week is brought to you by Dr. Scholl’s Athletic Series Running Insoles. My pick was Eric Lee for the second-straight week, showing up big against his former team.

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Electro Breakdown Zone brought to you by Energizer Ultimate Lithium. We were joined by 5-year old Campbell to break down what play sparked the Brady-McDaniels screamfest. http://bit.ly/2zVo6FW
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