Week 12 Gamete Thread - Titans

I'd love to try his wine, but it's a bit above my price point.

Worth it for special occasions. I've opened a bottle after the last 3 SB wins (and also opened one the night we knew Brady was leaving - yeah, I was happy that night. His piss poor attitude in 2019 told me a lot.)
 
this. so much this. if tb had anything to lord over bb about being the reason for the pats success it would be this year.
i used to pray for 3rd and short because they were better on that down and distance than they were on 3rd and long.
they did tighten up somewhat in the playoffs though.
Here’s a sad fact:

Sterling Moore had a better postseason in 2011 than Tom Brady.
 
This looks off to me, no running game for 3 quarters and the Oline scores a high score?? They were stonewalled.


Very little pressure generated against the pass and Pats still got 100 yards rushing against a very tough front.
 
Observations from the game (and some more general):
1) Tennessee's Simmons is an amazing player. He gave our outstanding G/C/G group all they could handle all game. It looked like he had marching orders to not even think about getting to Mac, but just to make sure that he controlled his interior gap and fill the adjacent hole with an OLman's ass.

2) Barmore had a bad day. That said, he's attracting a lot of attention, which is a sustainable win in and of itself.

3) Bolden. I don't know what to say about Bolden. I think he's Tim Wakefield. You know how some RBs - like Chris Johnson or Priest Holmes or even Derrick Henry - seem to be sprinting, but make people at the 2nd level miss because they have an extra gear? Bolden seems to accomplish the same thing at the end of the day, just that he messes up people's angles because his speed is deceptive. It's just deceptive on the slow side. He's not a slow guy in a foot race, so all I can think that's happening is that he's almost never going at full speed except in rare bursts for an instant. By all accounts he's crazy strong, and I think the combination allows him to run through tackles that aren't quite lined up right because the angles are off due to him controlling his speed. It's like watching batters get pissed off when Wake was on his game - yeah, the ball is dancing, but damn it, I should be able to hit a 60 mph pitch!

4) The Pats did not dominate this game. They just didn't. Tennessee made some bad mistakes in the 2nd half, but they ran all over the Patriots and but for McCourty's lightning reflexes (against his momentum, no less) that led to JCJ's pick, this game looks very different late.

5) Not Judon's best day either. In fact, as a group the LBs had some troubles yesterday. They were getting caught up in the wash worse than I've seen all year.

6) I have some concern that Tennessee saw something on tape that exposed a fundamental, exploitable weakness in NE's run defense. But two things: First, Tannehill's sub-100 yards passing makes me think Belichick went in with the game plan of letting them run and making passing impossible - just baiting Vrabel go run it down. Second, we just have a luxury of having Belichick there, which means this: if there is something schematic that Tennessee exposed, Belichick will get it fixed. How many teams have that luxury?
 
Agreed except they got them there and they played to their ceiling winning the game, allowing 13 points until the end. It was literally the greatest coaching job of BB's career coming off a Lockout with no camps, a rushed preseason and a rebuild. Who goes to a SB on the front of a rebuild? Just incredible in an offensive era to hold a team in a SB to 13 points.

The Pats offense played far below their ceiling. This happened in both SB losses to the Giants. You can't tell me you walk into a SB and say "14 points should be enough, no problem". It's just preposterous to think that in this era.

The Andre Carter injury was the blow they couldn't absorb as it weakened their rush badly and made Mark Anderson basically the key pass rusher, where it would have been a lot better if he was a sub rusher. I remember when he went down and I was like "that can't happen if they're going to go deep into a postseason"..

They spent the year playing mostly 4-3 and just didn't a 3-4 capability which hurt them during the rebuild. It just wasn't there. But, that has nothing to do with the D outperforming the offense in that postseason, because that's what happened. Ironically, in the game when they struggled vs Tebow in November in December,Carter went down in a heap in the 3-4, but th3 faster 4-3 is what worked better vs the Tebow crap and they shut the door with it in the second half of that game, and then obviously blasted him again the postseason with it. But, it would have been nice to use the 3-4 vs the Giants RBs in the SB, sure.

13 points allowed if Brady isn't lazy to take that Safety, throw an INT on 1st down to start the 1st qtr on an irresponsible throw to Gronk on one leg, almost in FG range, or the slightly off throw to Welker off his back foot with him wide open. All 3 were just horrendoys gaffes which allowed NY to take more clock than what should have been NE's clock since these occurred on 1st downs. Ugh. Even typing this makes me annoyed.

If just 1 of those god awful bad plays/mental miscues does not occur, and BJGE gets like 5 more carries, NE wins the SB with 3 points allowed in the 2nd half. They played brilliantly considering the lack of overall talent and depth. The latter was more the issue in a game like that.

This is really where the lack of accountability started with Brady, too. Giselle came down after the game pointing fingers as Brady was trying to hush her all embarrassed. The undermining of BB the GM and Coach, was already in play then when our best players on offense were letting us down (Brady, Mankins, Welker).
Wes Welker makes that catch, the game's over.

The Patriots defense playing up to below-average in that game was more an indictment of how bad the Giants were.
 
Umm, err, well, Vrabel needs to get over it. That was almost 15 years ago. He and Seymour weren't getting one last big deal here heading into a Lockout at their age.

I am expecting a bludgeoning of Ryan Tannehill and that tepid offense that Tenn has after stupidly drafting Corey Davis in the top 5, overpaying for old Julio Jones and losing their offensive centerpiece in Derrick Henry.

It's a top heavy roster. This team should be fresh and ready to get a lead and keep it with a swarming defense. It's time to slap down these hotshot coaches who once were affiliated with NE and try to make it seem like their shit doesn't stink. They've achieved nothing in this league other than being in a weak division or taking advantage during a pandemic.
They ran for a lot of yards against us. Thankfully yards don't win games, points do. But 240 yards rushing, if that were Henry, this game might have been very different.
 
It doesn't really matter, though. As long as we beat Buffalo twice and TCB against Jax & Miami, we can actually lose to both TEN and IND and still take the East.
I think we split with Buffalo, we beat Jax and Miami. Indy is a guessing game right now. I still think we take the East, I think Buffalo falls apart a little in the December.
 
I think any of the top 6 teams can beat the other on any given Sunday. Turnovers, penalties, officiating and weather can change a game quickly.
So can coaching and BB is far and away the best of the bunch. He's the X Factor we have going for us to tilt the scales. McDermott and Flores are
pretty good though. Give them an extra advantage (TO, penalty, bad call, etc.) and a W can become an L real quick.
 
I think any of the top 6 teams can beat the other on any given Sunday. Turnovers, penalties, officiating and weather can change a game quickly.
So can coaching and BB is far and away the best of the bunch. He's the X Factor we have going for us to tilt the scales. McDermott and Flores are
pretty good though. Give them an extra advantage (TO, penalty, bad call, etc.) and a W can become an L real quick.
McDermott and Flores are cocky, IMO, and it's showing up in their teams' seasons with poor leadership and players thinking they've arrived, all because of a pandemic that caught people off guard in 2020.

Not a great look. Throw in McDermott's Pop Warneresque supportive clapping in between each play like some hack coach and it's not something I'd want here.

I hope we slap the living daylights out of that big mouth twerp.
 
They ran for a lot of yards against us. Thankfully yards don't win games, points do. But 240 yards rushing, if that were Henry, this game might have been very different.
I think the coaches out-thought themselves on this one. If you look at my pregame comments I mentioned they have no WRs, so it's going to be all Hilliard/Foreman, both with running and throwing to them. Literally the whole game was to scheme against the backs and they didn't do a great job against it, which his is surprsing.

I saw some odd alignments like light boxes on 3rd and short, etc. Instead of just stacking the box and making Tannehill throw to beat you, flooding the middle with LBs in zone, and making him work outside the numbers. They seemed to do the "let's induce the RB" approach thing again, where they had no issue trying to bait the run. Obviously, that backfired twice for larger runs, which wasn't good and they also gave up some other chunk runs as well, as you note.

Sometimes I think our coaches over-think these things.
 
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