tom brady

Patriots Gameplan: The 2018 Offseason

February 9, 2018 by Mike Dussault

And just like that, the team-building portion of the season has commenced. We’re on to 2018.

Belichick and McDaniels staying, at least one more go-round with Tom Brady, and a bunch of really good players returning from injury. As we turn the page on 2017 and the loss to the Eagles, next fall is already looking promising if only by getting Julian Edelman and Dont’a Hightower back alone. Not to mention Derek Rivers, Harvey Langi, Shea McClellin and others like Tony Garcia, etc.

There are two places the Patriots must start — left tackle and running back. From there the dominos will fall, into external free agency and the draft.

Here are the headlines of what’s coming this offseason and an early feel on the needs.

Pats Posits Tuesday Edition: The Aftermath Continues

February 6, 2018 by Mike Dussault

So much coming at us here in the early days of the offseason it’s hard to keep a handle on it, so I’m going with a Pats Posits Tuesday Edition so I can chime in on all of it. For those of you braving the waters of ESPN and sports radio bless your hearts, I’ve been in mostly a bubble since Sunday night and I’ve really quite enjoyed it. Every now and then I’ll see something stupid they’re talking about and am reminded why I’ve been abstaining.

— Matt Patricia has officially been named the head coach of the Lions and it appears he’s taking Patriots special teams coach Joe Judge with him. So this will be a hard reset on all three coordinator spots and I wonder if Belichick holds back with the actual coordinator titles as he promotes from within. It was how he protected McDaniels and Patricia in their early days and could make sense here for Brian Flores and Chad O’Shea. Still rumors of Greg Schiano joining the staff, which would be another Belichick reclamation project. I think it would be good to get another perspective like Schiano in an assistant head coach role.

— I still can’t get over the game Tom Brady had in the Super Bowl. I’d bet that the Brady Cliff Gang has been mostly quiet these last couple days and if they’re not quiet they’re just doubling down on stupidity once again. All things considered this might’ve been Brady’s best overall Super Bowl game. Yes, the fumble at the end was a crappy button on the end of it, but outside of that what more could you ask from Brady in a game like this? As we hit 2018 there’s no question we’re in the twilight of his career and each game he QBs here on out is a gift. If that was his last Super Bowl I think he put another feather in his Patriot hat despite the loss.

Pats Posits: Relief, Bewilderment and Frustration After Pats’ SB52 Loss

February 5, 2018 by Mike Dussault

The Eagles made one of the only big defensive plays of the game and beat the Patriots in Super Bowl 52 for their first championship last night. Before we get too heavily into the “what the hell happened” of it all, I think it’s important to say the Eagles played the perfect game. So few teams can put together the flawless 60-minutes of effort required to take down Tom Brady and steady strangulation of the Belichick Pats but that’s what Philadelphia did on the biggest stage and for all the bickering about what the Patriots did or didn’t do, Philly deserves full credit for what they did.

It’s also important to remember that despite one of their worst defensive performances in recent memory (which is saying a lot) Tom Brady still got the ball back with plenty of time to win the game. That’s where it felt like this one was heading, until it wasn’t because Brandon Graham made the clutch play that the Patriots defense could not.

So yes, there’s plenty to unpack from this one, and most of it will take an entire offseason, but in this single game the Eagles were the better team and for whatever reason I’m not finding it all that hard to swallow. It’s been a while since I’ve been in my Patriots cave of misery. The last time I was here was January of 2016 after a frustrating loss to Peyton Manning and the Broncos.

There were some cobwebs in the cave, some dusty pictures of SB42 and SB46 and Peyton Manning as a Bronco, but there’s a strange comfort in the cave of misery. This is where most NFL fans exist full time, and we’ve gotten far more reprieve than all of them. If anything, this eighth Super Bowl trip was just a reminder of how hard it is to do what the Patriots have done. A better team got them this time, but I think there’s at least enough ammo in New England Patriots Football Weapon for another strong run next season.

Of course there are tons of questions as to what that weapon will look like exactly, but we’ll dive into those in the coming days and weeks.

First, let’s just vent about the Super Bowl…

Brady/Belichick Docs Save Super Bowl Week

February 3, 2018 by Mike Dussault

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUdEJJya6T8

I’m pretty sure the media broke me this week. It’s surprising because it wasn’t on the heels of some big controversy, it was a fairly mundane week of your average Super Bowl hype overload, but for some reason, more than ever, I just found myself done with everything anyone had to say about the Patriots. I flipped through a couple moments of all the usual talk radio shows, just to check in, never to actually consume, and found absolutely nothing being said that interested me.

It all peaked with Alex Reimer affair which was just the perfect example of how gross it has all become. The rest, from local to national coverage, was just a rehash of a seasons-worth of mellow drama or that everyone is sick of the cheating Patriots. Probably not a surprise that the Patriots started their own Not Done network this week, because outside of there and some select actual football shows out there, it was just a mess.

People like Rob Parker have made hating the Patriots his old act, while the local yokels on the radio are in a constant disingenuous search for which button to push on their listeners.

I found myself really wondering why anyone tunes into this stuff, especially local sports radio. Every day I see hoards of people raging against the media and their Patriots takes. That rage only fuels the fire on the other side and around and around we go, with the actual game and analysis of the sport being left in the dust. It’s just been a constant reminder that the only way to win against the hot takes is not to play and that’s why I’ve just taken to tuning it all out and focusing here on what interests me — football.

Patriots Gameplan: Super Bowl 52 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

February 2, 2018 by Mike Dussault

It’s hard to believe we’re already back in another Super Bowl. So much of the 2017 season was a blur of 28-3 and stupid storylines, few of which had much of anything to do with actual football. There were usually catastrophic injuries that somehow this Pats team overcame to get here and yes, a couple exciting wins, but mostly I remember noise.

Well, all those are out the window now. It’s all about one game and and another chance for Bill Belichick and Tom Brady to raise the bar even further on what has been a run unlike any other in sports history. But as we all know, these games are never easy. They’re stressful and the highest of drama.

The Eagles are a very tough opponent for the Patriots. Maybe they don’t have the flash of the 2001 Rams’ offense or the 2016 Falcons offense or the 2014 Seahawks defense, but they’re a good football team that has overcome a ton that would’ve torpedoed most teams. They’re balanced and have all the right pieces to challenge the Patriots’ weaknesses.Their resiliency is remarkable and the sign of a team that won’t wilt in the face of the Patriots’ dynasty.

The Patriots will certainly have to earn their sixth title just like they earned the five before it, with a 60-minute effort that will take every last second and maybe even a miracle catch or two. I’m not even sure my heart is ready for another one of these games, but here we go.

This is the gameplan to get it done and hang another banner.

Patriots Super Bowl First Quarters vs. Fourth Quarters

January 25, 2018 by Mike Dussault

Mike Reiss brought up one of the Patriots most impossible and infamous stats to Bill Belichick yesterday, that the Patriots had yet to score a point in the first quarter of any of their seven Super Bowl appearances. Belichick scoffed even though the players said last year he was all over them about getting off to a fast start against the Falcons, which of course did not happen.

For as remarkable as the Patriots’ dominance since the early 2000s has been to never have scored a point out of the gate is just as remarkable and it’s hard to even guess why. The team has run the gamut from a defense-first squad to an unstoppable offensive one, but it never made a difference. Here are the Pats’ overall stats from Super Bowl first quarters:

Team Defense Table
							Play Results						Play Type
Tm	G	Plays	ToGo	Yds	1st%	TO%	TD	FG	1D	Int	Fum	Sack	Pass	Rush	Punt	FG
NYG	2	18	8.00	5.17	33.3%	.0%			6				11	7
PHI	1	15	8.07	3.00	6.7%	.0%			1				7	5	3
SEA	1	20	7.10	3.75	25.0%	5.0%			5	1			11	8	1
CAR	1	19	9.11	4.68	15.8%	.0%			3				9	7	2	1
STL	1	11	7.36	4.55	18.2%	.0%			2				5	4	2
ATL	1	17	9.24	4.24	23.5%	.0%			4			2	10	5	2
Totals	7	100	8.18	4.24	21.0%	1.0%	0	0	21	1	0	2	53	36	10	1
Pct	7%						0%	0%	21%	1%	0%	2%	53%	36%	10%	1%

Provided by Pro-Football-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 1/25/2018.

Pats Posits: Belichick and Brady off to Super Bowl No. 8

January 21, 2018 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots defeated the Jaguars 24-20 in the AFC Championship and will return to the Super Bowl for the third time in four years where they’ll face the Philadelphia Eagles. The Patriots faced the Eagles the last time they were attempting three-of-four titles and defeated them in Super Bowl 39.

There will be plenty of time to jump into that intriguing matchup, but for now we have to talk about the AFC Championship. Really, it was one of the most remarkable games in Patriots history. The Jaguars played absolutely perfectly for the first 50 minutes. They attacked the Patriots’ weaknesses, they played mistake-free and they even knocked out Rob Gronkowski. Dion Lewis was getting nothing on the ground and the Jaguars had a number of early sustained drives.

But the Pats kept battling like they always do. Without Gronk or a running game, Brady, with some help from super clutch Danny Amendola, willed the Patriots to victory. Of course it didn’t come without the defense turning around after getting shredded early. They once again made the key plays that opened the door for the Patriots to come back. Stephon Gilmore‘s pass defense sealed what was a championship-worthy performance by a defense comprised of many new faces from last season.

I always say you can never truly appreciate a win until you’ve accepted a loss is very possible, and this game had that. Of course 28-3 has ruined us in that regard because now, more than ever, we know the Patriots are never truly out of it until the clock reads zero.

This never gets old. And the Patriots keep finding new ways to demonstrate just how mentally and physically tough they are. The Jags had all the look of the teams that beat the Patriots at home in the playoffs — the two Ravens teams and one Jets team all had a swagger about them, a fearlessness that Jacksonville seemed to emanate as well. But this time their clean game didn’t matter because the Patriots simply outplayed them in the final ten minutes.

It was perfect football in all three phases and in tight games like this that’s what makes all the difference. When it came time to finish the game the Jags couldn’t do it, and Tom Brady did.

Here are the Posits on another crazy epic playoff win.

On 3rd & 18…

Tom. Brady. #JAXvsNE #NFLPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/I0V4bwKW2A

— NFL (@NFL) January 21, 2018