<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe you missed it but Ferguson not only punched someone in the face but he also stood on top of another player who was defenseless on the ground and beat the hell out of him too.</p>
<p>
*Belichick</p>
<p>What free agent receivers were available that would do any better? Lloyd declined 6 job offers already including the Patriots and is looking to retire. Unless the Patriots were willing to give up 20 mil + for someone there just weren’t many impact receivers on the market. As for Welker, Welker was offered a 4 year 8 mil per year contract last year and declined it, him being dumped was his own fault.</p>
<p>1) I thought that signing Amendola five minutes after free agency started with Welker’s agent holding out for #1 wide receive money was a very smart move. Basically a younger version of Welker.</p>
<p>2) I don’t think Belichick was counting on one of his two star TE’s turning out to be a serial killer.</p>
<p>These rookie wide receivers will come along over the course of the season. They were getting open tonight. That’s the first half of the battle…</p>
<p>Despite its flaws, I don’t see how NE isn’t going to sweep its division games for a base of 6 wins. If they go .500 for its non-division games, that will be 11 wins to top the division, probably a first round bye. And two wins away from the Super Bowl at Met Life where in my dreams they will go down for the third time against my Giants. </p>
<p>Incidentally, the hot ticket Super Bowl weekend will be Saturday night Heat vs Knicks at Madison Square Garden. The NFL glitterati will kill to be seen at courtside watching King James.</p>
<p>Wow, was that game ugly, on both sides.</p>
<p>The Jets are really solid against the run - they held Doug Martin (last year, 1400+ yards, 4.6 average) to only 65 yards (2.7 average) in week 1, and held the Patriots to only 54 yards (2.3 average).</p>
<p>It’s not clear how they will fare against a quality receivers, which the Patriots don’t have right now. Dobson and Thompkins were getting open, Dobson had 4 or 5 drops, and Thompkins had a couple as well. They pressured Brady a few times but got only one sack.</p>
<p>The Jets’ offense isn’t going to win them many/any games at this point… a rookie qb and set of receivers (led by a gimpy Santonio Holmes) and a pair of mediocre running backs aren’t scaring anyone. Gino showed some flashes, but he has poor pocket presence and makes bad decisions. He is not Luck/RGIII.</p>
<p>Hopefully the Patriots rookies have their home opener jitters out of the way, and in a few more games I think they will become pretty solid. It’s clear a couple of quarters of preseason is no substitute for in-game experience. Gronk will be back, hopefully Amendola gets back on the field.</p>
<p>Their weak early schedule is really helping them out. They will come around.</p>
<p>I hope Belichick is kicking himself over letting Welker walk.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Belichick offered Welker a 4 year 32 million dollar contract the year before and Welker said no. This is more on Welker than anyone else, especially since he was only able to manage a 2 year 12 million $ contract on the open market.</p>
<p>I’m an NE fan but I can easily criticize the moves made. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Amendola is hurt. Welker plays. Yes, he’s about 5 years older and he can’t play outside but he’s on the field. My belief is the signing issue is more complex. I think they felt they needed to move past Wes, that reliance on him limited them in the playoffs. I also can see he misread the market, as most free agents did, and wasn’t prepared when prices were so much lower. But the Patriots chose to sign Amendola right away - and I assume that relates to Josh’s time in StL - rather than let Welker see the market wasn’t near his expectations. Maybe they also thought that Julian Edelman would be a good slot fit - as he is - and that Amendola + Edelman gives them more flexibility than lining Wes up in the slot with Julian outside. </p></li>
<li><p>I don’t think about Hernandez. But even with Gronk back, their TE’s are Hman and the injured Sudfeld, who is a pass catcher more than a blocker, plus some guy they just signed. So thin at the position they line up Solder, a tackle, as a TE - so they have 3 tackles in the game. That makes them bigger but a lot slower. Weird change of emphasis from the inside passing game up the seams they were building.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t think it’s a matter of “getting open”. There are many components. For example, I didn’t see any of the rookies open on a slant except for one completion to Dobson where he motioned into the slot and ran an intermediate route, not a true slant. The kids have trouble getting off jams and that means the offense is forced to do more “run by the guy” routes. I don’t think much about the missed long balls because those are relatively low percentage plays anyway - and I was glad to see them try a few because that changes the defensive approach (especially if either wideout can go deep). But they need people who can work underneath that and right now only Julian can do that, which is why they had 2 or more guys on him. Given the conditions, I thought the kids were better. Some errors were obvious: turn your head on the break, Dobson. Others less so; on some plays, it looked like the receivers went too deep rather than react to the play on the field, etc. Hard to see that without looking at the overhead film on NFL Rewind.</p></li>
<li><p>I again want to say the color announcer was incredibly awful. Even at the end when Talib stepped out of bounds, the color guy was talking about him “dancing around” when all he did was run upfield a bit and then step out - possibly because the coaches were yelling at him to do that from a few feet away. After stepping out of bounds, he hops up in excitement and is hit even further out of bounds by a Jets player aiming at his knees. I use this example because what I heard repeatedly was a guy who reacted rather than analyzed, who wasn’t good at looking at the replays and amending his words. Given the few NFL games each week, you’d think they’d have better.</p></li>
<li><p>I was impressed with the number of intelligent defensive plays. One that stood out was when Hightower broke up an option and Ninkovich stayed in his position to make the tackle. Rob is really good at understanding his position. The secondary also played well and I’m not talking about the interceptions. I think people in NE fail sometimes to understand that receivers do get open, particularly now that football commenters have learned about “angles”. They seem to think getting to a guy as the ball arrives is equivalent to catching a fly ball: it really stands out when you misjudge the angle on a fly ball and miss it. Football has many more variables, notably that there is another guy who can accelerate or decelerate and a ball that can be thrown harder or higher, etc. and you have to run to a spot or chase to an area when you are adjusting to all that, not the much more readable ball off a bat.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Our receivers right now should be:</p>
<ol>
<li>Hernandez (TE/WR)</li>
<li>Amendola</li>
<li>Edelman</li>
<li>Dobson</li>
<li>Vereen (RB/WR)</li>
<li>Thompkins</li>
<li>Boyce</li>
<li>Slater</li>
</ol>
<p>TE:
- Gronk
- Hernandez (TE/WR)
- Fells/Ballard/Hooman whoever</p>
<p>From that Belichick put together a pretty nice receiving core however injuries and legal issues decimated the projected depth chart, knocking out two TEs, and 3 receivers (total of 4 players). I don’t know of any teams that would be able to weather that.</p>
<p>All these, “the sky is falling” posts are great. The Patriots looking pretty bad the last two games, still just became 2-0 in their division. Their roster is fine, as much as it pains me to say, Belichick is still one of the best. They probably weren’t going to beat the 9ers or the Seachickens in the super bowl with Hernandez.</p>
<p>I wish NFL fans would scream louder for Suh’s head. I don’t even have kids, but I know that ever single little boy who will play football in the country thinks that it is normal to behave like absolute punks on the field. Another thing is that a team can be down thirty points, and if a receiver makes a play it’s common place to jump up and talk a bunch of crap to the winning team. This blows my mind.</p>
<p>Thing is no one ever knows from early weeks how it will end.</p>
<p>Last season the Ravens were struggling and looked like they might fall out of the playoffs. Both Super Bowl wins for the Giants came after mediocre regular seasons and the 2007 win came after Coughlin was in danger of being fired for the team’s poor performance.</p>
<p>^Antonio Pierce was on the radio tonight, and asked about Sunday’s game, guessed that the Giants would lose, which would make them 0-2. Asked if that were something to worry about, he replied that they were 0-2 and won a Superbowl, so no.</p>
<p>Truthfully, I’d be happily surprised to see a Manning-Manning/Superbowl at the Meadowlands, but if there’s one of them there, I think it’s most likely going to be Peyton.</p>
<p>On the other hand, something like only 12% of teams who start 0-2 make the playoffs.</p>
<p>Generally if you are 0-2 it is because you are bad, not because you haven’t gotten your crap together yet.</p>
<p>LOL. As I said, not expecting to see the Gints Manning there this year. (to start with, no running game.)</p>
<ol>
<li>Hernandez (TE/WR)</li>
<li>Amendola</li>
<li>Edelman</li>
<li>Dobson</li>
<li>Vereen (RB/WR)</li>
<li>Thompkins</li>
<li>Boyce</li>
<li>Slater</li>
</ol>
<p>TE:
- Gronk
- Hernandez (TE/WR)
- Fells/Ballard/Hooman whoever</p>
<p>Of all the people in the list, only Hernandez is the solid receiver on the roster. What does everyone say when Amendola was signed? They said that he cannot stay on the field and that has proven to be true after the very first game of the year. Gronk had so many surgeries over the last year, how can anyone be sure where he will be then or even now? Edelman was an after thought, at one point they don’t even want to sign him, he went out to the open market and no one gave him any deal so he came back and took a discount money. Shane Vereen is not a receiver, why is he even on this list? We didn’t even know whether he would even get much playing time, he was a back up to Ridley. Fells/Ballard or whoever did not even make the team and don’t get me started on the rookies. That is not a great group of receiving core that BB put together.</p>
<p>The Patriots won in 2001 after staring 1-3. So yeah, it can take a while for a good team to get good. And I remember the Lions winning their first game and then losing the next 15. That was a fun year in Detroit.</p>
<p>On Wes Welker, they may have offered him a big contract a few years back but when it was time for them to match the Broncos deal (2 years 12 millions), they refused. No question that there was some strange and personal between Welker and Belichick, but it seems they could have had Welker back if they really wanted to and really not for a crazy amount of money.</p>
<p>
You are talking about them winning all their pre-season games and then going 0-16 in the regular season, correct? I feel like that would be a better example if you aren’t.</p>
<p>I retract my Michigan won’t get embarrassed statement. </p>
<p>Akron??</p>
<p>Every team has a game where they drop the ball, at least they still came out with the W.</p>
<p>Best quote of the day so far by Nick Saban, head football coach for Alabama, in response to a question:</p>
<p>“It’s about how well we do in this (referring to the football field) 53 yard by 100 yard triangle”.</p>