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Top five Patriots bye week wishes

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Ah, the bye week. That two week mid-season lull in between games when we the fans are forced to take a mini-football break before the stretch run.

For the players and coaches however it’s a time to get healthy, look at what’s working and what isn’t and set the course that will Hoodie-willing lead to the promise land.

Here are the top five things I’m hoping for over the bye week.

1. Get Healthy – the most obvious one so we’ll lead with it. Along with the significant injuries (Jerod Mayo) there have been plenty of dings through the first six games and this should be a time to get healthy. Guys we most need back at 100%:

  1. Jerod Mayo
  2. Albert Haynesworth
  3. Julian Edelman
  4. Sebastian Vollmer
  5. Ras-I Dowling

Getting Josh Barrett, Patrick Chung, Leigh Bodden, Aaron Hernandez and Matt Light some time off to get over their lingering injuries should also provide a big boost.

2. Devin McCourty get your mojo back – I’m not sure if McCourty is suffering from a sophomore slump because he’s just not playing well or if teams have a sense of how to pick on him that they didn’t have last year. I hope it’s the former and not the latter because that’s correctable. McCourty didn’t really start to come on until late October last year anyway, let’s hope the same thing happens this year. The Pats need him to step up in a major way.

3. Extend Wes Welker and/or Jerod Mayo – why not take the extra time to lock up some of the vital pieces of the puzzle. If not Mayo or Welker how about Andre Carter, who’s only one a one year deal, or Benjarvus Green-Ellis, who should be a fairly easy deal to get done now before he breaks 1000 yards again. Of course knowing the Pats they’ll probably start the contract extensions with Gary Guyton. Ugh.

4. New tweaks for offense – Call it an off game for Tom Brady but not counting the final drive it seemed like taking away Wes Welker for the most part was a fairly effective way to slow down the Pats offense. Teams will see what the Cowboys did, and granted they might not be able to execute it, but the offense looked very much stoppable for much of last Sunday’s game. I’m not a huge “blueprint to stop the Pats offense” guy, but they cannot become over-reliant on Welker. The Patriots must stay one step ahead and figure out how to better protect Welker from coverage, while also incorporating their running backs more into the pass game. Kevin Faulk could provide a major boost in this area.

5. Figure out a way to get Chad Ochocinco more involved in the offense before the Boston sports media combusts – Who cares if the offense has consistently moved the ball and put up points without Chad, he’s a big name and if he doesn’t have a break out game soon he just might overtake the Red Sox as the lead story on all sports programming.

Notes on the Patriots-Cowboys Re-Watch (Defense Edition)

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This is the kind of win that will get me through the bye week, and as someone who focuses on the defensive side of the ball like I do it was extremely gratifying to see the defense finally pick the offense up.

Random defensive thoughts and observations after watching it a second time:

– That was Brandon Spikes best game as a pro and it looks like he’s finally getting back on track after being derailed after the 45-3 game last year with the ADD medication suspension. I can’t say enough about how much I love what Spikes brings. If you saw the BB Football Life you’ll remember how one of his key talking points early on was how dull the defense seemed even after making a big play. Spikes brings just the kind of excitement and energy this defense has needed since Bruschi and Harrison left.

– Gary Guyton continues to be a weak link in my eyes. When Mayo returns I’d love to see him-Spikes-Ninkovich as the primary linebackers, and save Guyton for sub-packages. If even then as Spikes has shown improvement in pass defense. Guyton is never going to have the kind of physicality you need to win in the run game. He will be at his best when he’s kept only to passing down defense and even then I’m not sure he’ll ever be a true impact player.

– The pundits were killing Albert Haynesworth last week but I saw some real positives from him against the Jets, and he took another step against the Cowboys. As we predicted before the game his biggest impact was as an interior pass rusher though they did use him in a run down rotation as well. Finally the Pats were getting some push up the middle from him. There were numerous snaps that he bull rushed right into the pocket. Don’t doubt that Andre Carter’s big day had a lot to do with Haynesworth. I think the Pats management of Haynesworth has been masterful. If he can continue to build on his performance against the Cowboys the Patriots will have another dominant defensive lineman for the stretch run. But I might be one of the only Pats pundits out there who thinks Haynesworth is showing flashes of being unblockable and I’m not sure what everyone else is watching.

– Have to give some love to Kyle Love and Gerard Warren as well. Both had big plays in spots. The defensive tackles looked like the biggest question marks on the Patriots last week, after the Cowboys game it looks like it could be developing into a strength. Especially if you add Ron Brace and/or Brandon Deaderick to the mix.

– I’m starting to worry about Devin McCourty. Is he just playing bad or has a year of game tape given opposition a clue to his weaknesses? McCourty turning around his season is vital if the Pats are going to make a Super Bowl run.

– Me and Frenz talked alot about “specialization” of the Patriots defense this past off-season, however the last few games, partially due to injuries of course, the Patriots have been running minimal substitutions compared to the past couple of seasons. I think a lot of this has to do with Andre Carter and his ability to be a three down player.

– It’s hard to truly evaluate safety play on the broadcast copy of the game but I have to guess that James Ihedigbo is doing a decent job in his two games as a starting safety. He brings another physical presence with Chung back there. Should be interesting to see what happens when Josh Barrett returns.

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Rex’s face might be the best part of the pic.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/rexs-face-might-be-the-best-part-of-the-pic/

Sirius/Kirwan & Ryan: Belichick gives insight into going 4-3

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Sirius/Kirwan & Ryan: Belichick gives insight into going 4-3

Now here’s an explanation of why the Patriots switched from a 3-4 to a 4-3 that nobody had heard yet. Belichick explains that due to the shortened off-season and training camp it just seemed easier to install their nickel front and use that as the base than try to get into all the intricacies of the 3-4.

We’ve obviously written and talked a lot about the switch and usually we attributed it to wanting to get more pressure and be more attacking. I’m sure those were factors as well, but to hear BB say how big the lack of teaching time was in the decision was a little bit of a bombshell to me.

“We’ve played a mixture of odd fronts and even fronts, but I just felt like from a starting point – given the lack of spring opportunities to practice and meet, and the shortened training camp in terms of actual number of practices – that from a teaching standpoint we felt like there would be more carryover teaching our base defense and nickel defense really as one front,” Belichick explained (short audio clip here).

“We wanted a lot of carryover between our run responsibilities and run fits, and some of our pressure defenses and things like that. We’ll transition and build into some of our odds fronts, but we felt like in trying to evaluate young players, asking them to learn one system in a 3-4 and then learn another system in nickel [was too much]. As you know, we were in nickel defense just as much as we were 3-4 defense because of teams using multiple receivers on early downs and two-minute and all those kind of things.

"So we felt like it would be a better opportunity to evaluate our players and not try to over-install and put in a ton of defense. Try to cut it down a little bit and see if we could execute it better. Certainly, we have a long way to go but I do feel like we’re making progress, and I think our players at least understand what we’re doing.

"There are so many intricacies to a 3-4 defense that I just didn’t know if we’d be ready to handle them this year. Probably wouldn’t have been, to be honest with you.”

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Oooooh this one’s a keeper of Andre Carter laying some wood on Sanchez.

https://www.patspropaganda.com/oooooh-this-ones-a-keeper-of-andre-carter-laying/