we got embarrassed no doubt.... but i see a lot of good things on the defensive side of the ball. other than the first drive where it seems we were out coached and Jones took a bad angle covering Gronk our defense played really well against arguably one of the best qbs to play this game who btw is having one of his best seasons.. the problem is when our offense cant move the ball its only a matter of time due to exhaustion and taking risk that the defense start breaking down... if we were able to score on at least half of the defensive stops this game turns out way different. you could tell we were frustrating them and they couldnt find any rhythm... if you give any team that many chances with the ball they are going to find holes to exploit... x's 10 against the pats... im still excited about this team, we need to get better LB play against the run, aggressive play from our DB's... the offense is in shambles, oline and QB play needs to be a focal point. i feel like Miller is good enough to carry the run game and Juice is a great outlet receiver but the rest of our key position players need to step it up.. Stills is trying to come around and needs to take targets away from Matthews, i know Matthews has shown some good play but he is an average WR at best... if he is all we got then he is serviceable but he should not be the main target.... I am not a RT17 hater, i like the guy and wish him well but its time to take a hard look at him, bring in some competition and push him... Dan has this defense playing well, good enough to win this game, the problem was the pats had a better game plan taking away the short game and stuffing the run early and winning the field position battle all game... in the second half RT17 was called upon to make plays down field and he did but it was too late for our defense and the pats answered taking away all the momentum, after that it was obvious passing situations for us and with this line that is bad.... i think we can all agree that we are going to hover just below the .500 mark this season, to me that means its time for another rebuild from the ground up starting with GM-QB-Coaching staff... Thanks thephins.com for giving me an outlet to voice my opinion about the team i love...
The pats didn't stuff the run, we stopped running it. Lazor stopped calling running plays after the first drive. I've fallen off the lazor train this season. It was only 9-0 in the 2nd qtr and I don't think miller got the ball once. I could definitely be wrong but it looked like mathews ****ed up on both ints tonight. The first one he doesn't come back for the ball, just completely gives the CB the angle to the ball. The 2nd INT was just a mess of a play. No idea what that was. And we lost wake. Great.
I'm not so sure I agree here. I think our D played pretty well tonight for the most part. However, lets be honest here, we still gave up 36 (ok, 34 if you take away the safety) points. That's pretty hard to overcome in the NFL. The DL didn't really pressure Brady much at all. Everyone knows the recipe for a Brady disaster is pressure up the gut. They double teamed Suh, that eliminated him as a thread. Phillips/Mosely/Mitchell/Whoever was irrelevant at the other DT spot, and the DE's didnt do much. Wake had a sack, OV missed a sack, but over than that, they didn't accomplish much. The LB's... I thought were bad tonight and the main reason for giving up alot of yards/points. The Gronk TD was horrific LB play IMO. NE set them up perfectly though. Jamar Taylor. Walt Aikens. They just... aren't good enough to be starters, but they have to be unfortunately. I know the Offense didnt help, cant disagree there, but NE is a hard team to put up 30+ against. We gave up more than that, which really didnt help. There's multiple reasons why the offense contributed to that failure, absolutely. but that's another issue altogether.
They racked up almost 500 yards of offense on us. Most of those were during the last twenty minutes of the game. Offense gave us nothing which in turn caused the D to quit. Horrible night all the way around, i've got nothing good to say other than our defensive line did a decent job against a depleted Patriots offensive line.
So you are excited about this team, except for the play of the secondary, LBs, OL, and the QB. I guess that means you must be excited with our rookie kickers. I really don't understand what your excited about otherwise with this team, when you conclude that the team needs to be rebuilt from the top down.
The defense gave up points thanks to our inept offense and special teams setting up the patriots time and time again. If our offense can move the ball, the patriots would not have as many scoring opportunities. There is something called a game clock and time of possession. Its not like the Patriots would have scored 36 regardless if we put the ball in the endzone for more points. We secure the ball, we win the field position battle by converting first downs and taking care of special teams, the score likely ends 24-21 instead of the blowout number. Our defense stopped brady multiple times consecutively in the first half and we couldnt move the damn ball, it was inevitible that Brady gets a score. Defense gets no blame. Tannehill and Lazor deserves the bulk of it.
I'm the LEAST excited about the rookie kicker... he's now only made 71% of the his FG attempts this season (tied for 31st in the league) and has two missed PATs.
The tale of two teams. I don't really see this team winning any of the divisional games but we are in a tough division. The players didn't look like they played with any fire or intensity. I dare suggest that firing Philibin may have fixed this team for two weeks but I'm starting to think it's the players attitude and mind. If they go < 6- 10 this year, they should really consider cutting everyone outside of the brand names (Miller, Suh, Landry). I don't think the team should pay Thill franchise money until he starts leading his team to franchise wins. I don't think he's necessarily a problem but he hasn't helped either.
It has been that way for a long time. Campbell mentioned it about how we fluff up our feathers after a win and think how great we are, but get smacked back down the next week. Somehow that has got to be fixed. Great on paper doesn't do much on the field.
i am excited about the direction of this team... im glad there seems to be a culture change, it didnt show last night but we are headed i the right direction... some of the players need to be removed from this team... trade matthews, revamp oline and back up rb's, cut misi, and work on our defense this offseason, bring in a rookie qb around round 3 to show RT17 that his current play is unacceptable... rebuild is rebuild... there only a handful of players that should be the cornerstones... i love dan campbell, if it was up to me id bring in new coordinators, fire the gm, let dan and mike be the co gm's... i truly believe we found a coach, now lets build around him.... so yes im excited about this terrible team...