Tom Brady won three superbowls before he got a decent Wr last year in Randy Moss and none of his Rb's blow you away either. None were as good as Martin or Thomas Jones in that timeframe and none of his receivers were better than Cotchery or Coles before Moss came to town.
Troy Brown and Deion Branch were outstanding WR and Kevin Faulk has always been great catching balls out of the backfield. The Pats won with D and they had good WR.
I don't follow your logic. Nobody could play up to their potential when the Quarterback is turning the ball over 2-4 times per game? First of all that's a little of an embellishment. Three int in the last 9 came from being "out of the game" and taking a shot. Still could have played safe and lost by 7 instead of 14 granted. The defense's play has nothing to do with the play of the quarterback. Even after a turnover they can hold a team to 3 on a short field. Good defenses do. Kris Jenkins got worn out and was substituted proving there was a lack of depth to begin to with. Our vaunted run defense got gashed by Peyton Hillis, Frank Gore for a half, and then DeShaun Foster. Both Marshawn Lynch and Freddy Jackson had their best games as Bills against us. In the snow we couldn't tackle Maurice Morris of TJ Duckett when it mattered. Our pass defense was horendous. How many times would you see Abraham Elam so far out of the play you could wonder how he even had a job. Ty Law was a shell of himself since the New England game. Lowery couldn't cover anyone in the flat and got beat deep. The puzzling thing is that Kerry Rhodes is supposed to be a ball hawking saftey and yet he was seldom around the ball. Maybe a lot was scheme, which obviously sucked, but it was also a product of no pressure. Did you see how good teams like Baltimore bring pressure from everywhere. They send corners, linebackers, sometimes they bring the safety. They run stunts to open up lanes. They run blitz on running downs and seldom turn their back away from the quarterback. They force turnovers. On the special teams, again having nothing to do with the quarterback was dismal. They gave opponents excellent field position the last half the season. Leon Washington wasn't breaking the big runs and setting us up with good Field position on the flip side. In fact, there were games that he allowed balls to be downed inside the five. Our offensive line that was great in opening up holes for our backs, had more trouble down the stretch as well. Teams were watching film and making adjustments, we were not reacting to that. We just ran the same stuff. Our OL also had a lot of costly penalties. Woody and Moore mostly. False starts and holding calls that stalled drives. As good as they can be in the run game. As a unit, they weren't great in pass protection. If you go back and watch the games you will see a pocket collapsing on nearly every dropback of 5 or more yards. Also, you won't see very good passing lanes. Thomas Jones, did not run great down the stretch either. He's popping off, but his production didn't give us a good as down and distance as we had been getting earilier in the season. He was getting stuffed on second/third and short, and his averages per carry went down. It's a lot harder to convert 3rd and 8's, then 3rd and 3's. Though even we got into good third and short, our coaching staff went to shotgun. That was mind boggling. What happened to Dustin Keller? Favre's favorite saftey valve was taken away by I guess Mangini because I saw a lot more of Franks and Baker and that was a mistake. First of all, teams have to start accounting for him because he was catching a lot of passes and converting a lot of third downs. I know that made Coles unhappy, but we WERE winning during that time. Mangini takes him out of the equation, and not teams can pay more attention to Coles and Cotchery and Washington. Chris Baker and Bubba Franks are about as slow as they come and even a Def lineman can cover those guys. Then, I saw our top line receivers (Coles) not really working to get open. Watch the Seattle game in particular you'll see guys watching the QB scramble and not coming back for a pass. Almost motionless. The coaching staff is probably the biggest underachiever. After our success, teams were almost always showing blitz and dropping out of it. Perfect time for us to keep running the ball. When you have 7 or more dropping back in coverage, you call more running plays. It's not rocket science. Also, you don't have everyone running the same damn route. How many times to you see the whole team running nearly the same route drawing extra defenders. I understand the Favre doesn't like a lot of movement, but you can't tell me that you can't run receivers in motion to see if they playing man to man or zones. Having trouble getting LC the ball? Put him in the slot and set up good matchups. Team is sputtering on offense? Go to the two minute offense in the first quarter and change the tempo. Mix things up, put Cotchery in the backfield on third and one and flank out Keller to the sideline. Use misdirection once in while. Run a counter to the 5 gap once in while. Move the frickin pocket, Roll out Favre to the right and let Jones or Leon release out on a delay. Clear out the area for a swing pass. Send Coles, Cothchery, and Stucky on seam routes to draw the defense deep and throw five yard pass to Washington getting a matchup on a line backer. You're going to tell me that if teams see our guys running deep go's they are going to look for the short pass. Every DB will think it's time to pick off Favre and play the deep ball. Sell the screen! Don't just let the defensive end or tackle run free to the quarterback. Have them block them and make them think they got beat by a move. I got a little sidetracked, but my point was the whole team under perfomed and all started with the coaching. Glad Mangini was let go. I don't think Schottenheimer would help as he seems to be part of the problem.
The numbers do tell the story here because in his Playoff losses - including yesterday - he has always thrown only 1 TD, while turning the ball over. Call it black & white or whatever you want; he shits the bed in Playoff losses and winds up being one of the reasons his team loses. And gimme a break with the torn rotator cuff garbage. As of right now, that's your only excuse/explanation for his game at Pitt. The previous week we had seen him throw that bomb to Moss in which he flexed his little bicep afterwards, so clearly, he was capable of throwing the ball, albeit in pain, but you speak as if he couldn't throw (when he in fact could), which is your reason why he lead us to 3 points that game. We rushed for about 110 that day, so he had the running game going too -- but what happened? The D got in his face and he wet his pants.
Troy brown was good but not as good as Cotch or Coles and Deion Branch has not been seen since he left NE. Faulk is a very good football player but not as good as Curtis Martin or TJ. The Pats did win with D but I was trying to Give examples where a Qb won with less talent than Cp has had to work with. People do not understand at some point on the way to the Sb the Qb has to step up and make plays Chad has never done that. Yesterday was Vintage Chad when it counts. You can't win games 10-6 for a month straight on the way to the Sb against the elite teams of the league.
Amen. I love the injury excuse when debating noodle arm. That's not an excuse, it's actually one of his biggest flaws. 2, 16 games seasons all in all. He's always friggin injured so in my eyes that's not an excuse it's just another in the list of Pennington's problems.
Quality post, AZ. But many here do not have attention spans for long posts. Fyi... Of all your points I merely want to talk about two, the first being the apparent lack of adjustments made by the CS in the pass blocking. Interesting that Callahan, who was brought in to work the running game, was not part of the coaching for OL pass blocking, apparently. But who was in charge of that? The other was your point about failing to run the ball when the opponents' D's were playing back. Just lousy coaching, imo, and another good reason why Mangini had to go.
No, both. It was only 40+ yard FGs I looked up though. Brady had good, not great, WRs and a really good OL and it's not fair to compare Chad to Brady. Outstanding is ovrdoing it, they were products of Brady. How has the outstanding Branch done in Seattle? The Pats won w/ a great QB more than anything else.
Brown was great before he went over the edge and he was a key guy in the first SB. Branch's numbers are almost identical in Seattle to what they were in NE. He is a guy who can't stay on the field but he is also a guy that stretches the field and gets open when he is healthy. No doubt Brady was great during the SB runs and the D was great also but they did have some weapons. When the D turned to shit they brought in better weapons and Brady didn't get it done. You need a lot to win it all, good D, great QB play and weapons. Brady had all of it around him and he was great during the run. The Pats with a worse D than Brady ever had when he won SB won 11 with Matt Cassell this year.
Brown was never "great". he had 3 80+ rec seasons and 2 were w/ Brady, none did he average more than 11 YPC. Reaslly nice player, far from great. Branch's #s were never grat in NE. he is still searching for his first 1,000 yd season. he's had one season over 60 recs. Brady got it down, he led his team to 18 wins in 18 tries then led his team to the go ahead score in the SB w/ about 2 mins left and the D gave it away. Brady was the biggest reason NE won 3 SBs and 4 AFC Titles. he had them on the verge of the SB in '06 w/ one of the worst WR corps you will ever see.
Don't forget about Vinatieri. Patriots won three super bowls by three points. Vinatieri's clutch field goals. Who's to say that they win any without him. And the first one never should have been had it not been for the bullcrap "tuck rule" vs Oakland in the snow. Brady is great, don't get my wrong, but he's not the only reason the Patriots have enjoyed so much success.
Of course he's not the only reason but he is the biggest reason. Manning has had Vinatieri the last 2 years and hasn't won a playoff game, you have to get yor K in position to make those kicks and Brady did and only the SL game was a defensive game but he did an amazing job getting AV in FG range getting the ball at the NE 17 w/ just a minute and a 1/2 to play and NO timeouts. Against Carolina they won 32-29, he led them to 18 4th qtr pts including the GW drive getting the ball w/ 1:08 to play. Against philly they won by 3 but that was a backdoor 3, they were up 24-14 and Philly scored late.
There we go......4 picks......Now we can finally stop misremembering the past.....Thanks Roger...that word keeps coming in handy.
This post means absolutly nothing when Chad got the Dolphins into the playoffs and the Jets as a whole didn't. SO SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT CHAD! THE JETS FAILED TO GET INTO THE PLAYOFFS WHEN THEY WERE 8-3! IT'S THE TEAMS FAULT!
I'm not giving Pennington a free-pass, he made some poor decisions with the football, but it was the Ravens defense that forced many of the those decisions / throws to be poorly made. Chad still rules in my opinion, he was great for our offense this year, and will likely only get better heading into 2009. He's not done yet, I think he's still got plenty of gas left in the tank.... He just did, he won the AFC East Championship..... He's only mediocre when he loses. What is he when he wins??...
