<p>Brady wasn’t great either. He badly overthrew Amendola when he was 5 yards behind the defense. He threw a very hard ball with no arc. Even in the last scoring drive, he threw two passes at the receivers’ feet. In the series that ended with Dobson’s drop, he threw a couple of lousy balls.</p>
<p>But more importantly for the long run, the offensive line continues to do poorly at their main job, which is keeping Brady upright. He was sacked 5 times and under pressure all night. The O-line seemed confused by basic stunts. And they were beaten one on one. It’s hard to separate Brady’s performance from the line’s.</p>
<p>As to the receivers, remember they have no tight end. Before this game, the TE’s had been thrown to I think a total of 6 times. They did a little bit more tonight with Hman but imagine trying to be rookie wideout when the defense has no worries about covering the TE. That means the LB’s can drop back into coverage more easily and deeper and both the LB’s and the safeties don’t have to worry about the TE seam pass, so they can commit to closer coverage on the wideouts. It isn’t just that Gronk is a target but that the defense has to account for him in a pattern or pretending to block and heading out. That doesn’t exist now at all, which means the DB’s - often 5 - and the LB’s have a much easier job.</p>
<p>Mayday! Mayday! Please send help to One Buc Place immediately. Tampa Bay Bucs’ ship is sinking. At 0-5 and with all the off-field and background nonsense going on, Coach Greg Schiano’s time is running out.</p>
<p>Will the eastcoast poll voters finally realize that teams like Clemson, Georgia, and Louisville are only ranked that high because they are artificially hoisted up by a popularity contest in the preseason and a joke of a schedule. None of those teams should have been in the top 10 since Day 1.</p>
<p>Really glad the Red Sox wrapped it up last night so I don’t have to deal with flicking back and forth between that and the Denver/Indy game tonight.</p>
<p>Still undefeated in my fantasy league, but injuries are taking their toll… not feeling good about today’s matchup.</p>
<p>Not feeling good about the Pats this week either, with their top 3 defenders out. Having Gronk back should help.</p>
<p>Quote from article
" O. Andrew “Bum” Phillips Jr., who spent half his adult life as a football coach and every waking moment as the personification of all things Texan, died Friday at his ranch in Goliad.</p>
<p>Phillips was three weeks past his 90th birthday and more than three decades removed from his heyday as head coach of the Oilers from 1975 through 1980. But he remains the personification of a time, a place and a team that remains deep in the hearts of everyone who saw them play." </p>
<p>Oiler fans knew they got cheated in the postseason vs. Steelers… Renfro caught it inbounds, in the end zone … I think that’s how it went.
Greatest Bum quote (or best to me anyway) … “Last year we knocked on the door. This year we beat on it. Next year we 'gonna kick the damn thing in!”
RIP to an extremely colorful coach.</p>
<p>The weird call that won the game for the Jets is interesting: after the game, the NFL changed the wording on their website. It formerly said something about players not on the line of scrimmage can’t push players into the offensive formation. It was changed to eliminate that part. The explanatory video for the rule, with the head of officiating, also talks about players not on the line of scrimmage. I gather Belichek says this is how the rule was explained to him when the NFL did its officiating tour in training camp. (This is a new rule.)</p>
<p>But more importantly, Brady was really inaccurate. Lots of bad throws.</p>
<p>I was at the Jets vs Pats game today! I went with my sister and her fiance, who are huuuuge Patriots fans and I’m a NY Jets fan since the age of 7. It made for an interesting game ;)</p>
<p>My Jets have lucked out twice this season with crucial penalties on the other team. They deserved to beat the Pats yesterday; they played a better game, but, without that penalty, they would’ve certainly lost that game since the Pats would’ve had very good field position after the missed FG.</p>
<p>I know very little about football (my HS never had a team) other than it’s a bunch of guys bumping into each other and then falling down. Put while on a recent vacation, in one hotel room with one TV, my hubby had a story about the Manning family on TV. I was mesmerized by the details of the father and the three sons and kept asking my husband to flip back to that channel instead of watch whatever football game was on at the time. ( I know, true love.)</p>
<p>So last evening, my husband proceeded to tell me the story of Peyton’s injury and his journey to Denver. (He gave me ALL the details, and it was a story way too long for my short attention span, but that’s another story. ) And he was almost in tears as he was telling the story.</p>
<p>He said the Indianapolis fans gave a very warm welcome to Peyton last night, and I did see a pretty cool poster held by one fan that read “We love you Peyton…just not tonight!”</p>
<p>That’s the kind of stuff I enjoy about the game.</p>
Apparently that was a preliminary form of the rule, and the final rule in the actual rule book says that nobody can push players who are on the line. There is nothing about players not on the line of scrimmage. The NFL never posted the final form on the web site, and then corrected it, which is leading to all kinds of crazy conspiracy theories.</p>
<p>The player admitted they went over the rule in pre-season and he forgot the rule.</p>
<p>Shame on Belichick for not knowing the rule.</p>
<p>
This. Patsies can’t blame the refs, they blew the game.</p>
<p>This is from Mike Reiss, who reports for ESPN and is a longtime football sportswriter:</p>
<p>"At the same time, it takes only a Google search to understand why there might be some misunderstanding about the rule. The league’s own website, NFL.com, had explained the rule this way for the past six weeks: “Team B players not on the line of scrimmage at the snap cannot push players on the line of scrimmage into the offensive formation.” </p>
<p>An accompanying video had NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino saying, “They cannot push from the second level, the down linemen into the offensive formation. … These techniques are dangerous, pushing into the offensive formation, and that’s why we want to get them out of the game.” </p>
<p>But within two hours of the conclusion of the Patriots-Jets game, the NFL.com article explaining the rule had been altered, the league perhaps sensing that there would be a lot more discussion about Rule 9, Section 1, Article 3 following Sunday’s controversial call. </p>
<p>The following sentence in the explainer was eliminated: “Team B players not on the line of scrimmage at the snap cannot push players on the line of scrimmage into the offensive formation.” </p>
<p>The sentence now reads: “Team B players cannot push teammates on the line of scrimmage into the offensive formation.”</p>
<p>Despite all the technology and training, the refs in the NFL keep on missing plenty of calls, and the worse ones are the ones that are “judgment” calls. </p>
<p>In the Eagles-Cowboys game, there were a number of awful non-calls. And it was not about bias or giving an advantage to the local teams as it seems to be democratically imposed on both teams. Considering how most eyes are fixed onto the QB and the receivers, how is it possible to miss late hits, and especially to the head? </p>
<p>It is a given that this stuff happens in the NCAA, but the NFL does have resources to make changes. Perhaps assigning a couple of officials with access to the images could make immediate calls on simple issues like late hits, roughing the passer, and intentional grounding. For instance, how could the ref not see how Peyton threw the ball away in the games against the Cowboys? 90,000 people saw it as it was simply egregious.</p>
<p>I saw that too, but I’m ok with it since it favored the Broncos. Apparently, team loyalty affects my perception. :)</p>
<p>But what I didn’t see but only later saw in that game was how the Romo interception actually played out. It wasn’t just Romo being Romo, it was Romo’s left foot stepping on one of his lineman’s foot and throwing him off balance so that he threw an interception. Romo could not have done anything different with that big foot in the way.</p>
:(</p>
Put while on a recent vacation, in one hotel room with one TV, my hubby had a story about the Manning family on TV. I was mesmerized by the details of the father and the three sons and kept asking my husband to flip back to that channel instead of watch whatever football game was on at the time. ( I know, true love.)</p>
) And he was almost in tears as he was telling the story.</p>