tom brady

Pats Posits: The Season Starts Now

January 1, 2018 by Mike Dussault

Happy New Year! The Patriots finished off their regular season by beating the Jets in frigid temperatures and improving to 13-3 on the 2017 season. It wasn’t exactly an exclamation point finish, but it was effective and seemingly injury-free. The bottom line? The Pats now have homefield advantage for the third time in four years and the last two times they’ve had it they’ve won the Super Bowl.

I’m not going to dwell too much on the Jets game. I’m sure there are plenty of takes out there extrapolating all kinds of major implications from how the Pats performed in what were some pretty tough conditions. But I don’t think there’s much to take from it, though it does finish off a full 16-game sample and in that broader regard there’s plenty to talk about.

First, we have to start with Dion Lewis, who once again carried the team as you might hope a running back would do when there are tough conditions for the passing game. It’s just such a huge relief that we made it through the regular season without another catastrophic injury. Specifically — Tom Brady, Lewis, Rob Gronkowski and Danny Amendola are just absolutely critical to the Super Bowl chances and it looks like all will be ready to go.

With that group upright the Pats will be a hard out for anyone, no matter how the game unfolds.

Let’s take a moment to catch our breath as the Pats await to see who they’ll play next Saturday night in the AFCDG.

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.

Cooks-ing with Gas: Return of the Deeeeep Threat

November 21, 2017 by Mike Dussault

When the Patriots signed Brandin Cooks this offseason the excitement about adding a weapon with Cooks’ deep speed was palpable in Patriots nation. After all we’d been led to believe that Tom Brady could no longer throw deep without Randy Moss, that the Patriots ran a gimmick offense that relied on the “dink and dunk” that any quarterback could run. Why haven’t more teams adopted that easy offensive philosophy was just a question whose answer eluded even the most stat-backed football pundit.

Here we are, 10 games into the season and there’s no question any more that the deep ball is certainly back in New England, though it never really left except from people’s perceptions. Cooks has caught 12 balls longer than 20 yards, including catches of 62 (season-long) and 52 against the Raiders and the Pats are rolling, pushing the betting odds for Patriots vs. Dolphins game to another stratosphere.

It wasn’t instant out-of-the-gate unstoppability like it was with Randy Moss, but the addition of Cooks has finally put the deep pass back on the front burner for defenses. There’s no more crowding the line, taking away the quick passes and daring Brady to throw down the field. Now, the downfield attack is coming, and defenses are wise to protect themselves from it.

Let’s take a closer look at the two big Cooks plays from the Raiders game, and examine how the Patriots are making these big plays.

Patriots Mid-Season Awards

November 7, 2017 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots play five of their next six games on the road before finishing the season with back-to-back home games. It will be a difficult stretch that defines the 2017 Patriots and either reinforces or changes everything we think we’ve come to know about this team.

There’s no question, the 2017 Pats were hit hard by injuries and departures and got off to one of their slowest starts in years. Of course, we’re all well aware by now that it’s not the start that matters but the finish.

But by now the half season has played out in a way slightly different than we’ve come to expect. All teams are unique, but the 2017 Pats version is in many ways a new variation. The deep passing game is suddenly a viable weapon. There are four running backs who can do it all. And then there’s the defense, with many new faces up front leading the way, while the expensive veteran secondary looked lost and uncoordinated through much of the first eight games.

Let’s break the first half of the season down in everyone’s favorite way — handing out awards!

Pats Posits: Let the Real Football Begin

November 6, 2017 by Mike Dussault

With Daylight Savings falling on the exact halfway point of the Patriots season, which also just happens to be their bye week, we’ve suddenly turned the page to real football. Weather becomes a factor. Each game is more important. And the cream of the NFL crop should be rising to the top.

I don’t know what it says about me or the NFL but I didn’t really care to tune in Sunday and see any non-Patriots teams play. It’s amazing what a year without any really dominant teams can do to viewing enthusiasm. There’s been so many major injuries, watering down the product on the field and taking away a lot of the excitement.

All I know is I’m ready for the Patriots to get back to work and as it seems right now, their chances to get to the Super Bowl are as good as ever.

The bye week was a good time to reflect a bit on the 2017 journey so far and reset our focus on the next three months of football, which will end on February 4th in Minnesota.

Here are my Posits on what it will take for the Patriots to get there.

Coffin Corner: Can Belichick Learn to Share His Roster? Coughs up a loogie

November 5, 2017 by James Conway

By far, the most amazing thing about parenthood is watching how children learn stuff. Every time, you see a neurological spark that connects a cause to an effect your heart swells: “My kid’s a forking genius.” The kid sees a stopped bus then he sees the red light. Then says: ‘bus stop at red lights’. “My kid’s a forking genius.” Every time he notifies me “I poop”…. I greet the disgusting revelation with “My kid’s a forking genius.”

It’s the most amazing thing to witness. And yet it happens to every parent, for every kid. Language, understanding spatial relationships and even the tenants of physics are innate naturally developed cognitive skills. My son learned Einstein’s theory of gravity the first time he walked down the stairs carrying three trucks, did a “yard sale” and bloodied his chin. “Fork! My kid’s not a genius.” But one thing that child professionals, teachers and pediatricians tell you is that the concept of sharing is not innate. There is no inherent understanding for humans to share. If you left four kids in a Biosphere, they would likely never learn to share. Sharing is a learned trait, instilled by the teachings of families, parents, mentors, religions and communities.

And as we know Bill Belichick is happy to share… some things. He always shares credit graciously, he shares his personal feelings about how dumb writers are with aplumb, he shares his workplace with his children, his life with a spouse or girlfriend, but there’s one thing that he has had a pretty hard time sharing over the years. Final say over roster construction.

Everyone does their job. Brady is the CEO on offense, the Krafts are the CEOs of the company and Belichick is the CEO of the roster. That is the biggest reason that he is in New England in the first place. He was promised limited owner intervention into the team building aspect, also the fact that the Jets suck donkey butts. And let’s just say that after 5 Super Bowls, 16 going on 17 winning seasons, 14 AFC East titles, it’s been a good recipe for success. Stay in your lane.

But at appears on first blush that Trading Jimmy G marks a huge forking fork in the road.

The Record-Setting Pace of the 2017 Offense

October 31, 2017 by Sam Hollister

Despite another relatively ugly effort, the Patriots ground out a victory Sunday against the Chargers to extend their winning streak to four games. Leading the charge to the Pats 6-2 record is the offense, which leads the NFL in total yards, and while they continued to struggle in the red zone on Sunday, they still rank 7th in the NFL in points per game.

While this success is certainly not surprising, there was some concern about the passing game after the loss of Brady’s safety blanket, Julian Edelman. However, thanks to the best variety of distribution we have seen in the Brady era, the passing game has been able to combat the loss of Edelman, and even prosper through it, reaching territory that few Brady-led offenses have ever reached.

Thus far in 2017, the Patriots have five players with have 31 catches or more, compared to the first eight weeks of the 2016 season, in which they had just three. In 2017, James White leads the way with 43 catches, followed by Rob Gronkowski (34), Chris Hogan (33), Brandin Cooks (33), and Danny Amendola (31). These five are all on pace to reach at least 670 yards this season, with Cooks leading the way at 1,126 yards and Gronkowski in second with 1,018 yards.