Tag Archives: New England Patriots

NFL Dolphins @ Patriots Recap

01 Sunday Nov 2015

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I was really looking forward to this game, and whilst it did not turn into the contest that I hoped it would, there was still plenty of interesting things to see in this game.

The Dolphins may have lost a one sided game, but I thought their defence did a credible job, although you wouldn’t know it from the numbers. The Dolphins made the Patriots punt the ball six times, including a couple of short drives, and stood tough. They were able to get pressure on Brady with a pair of sacks, six quarter back hits, and they were able to affect Tom Brady more often than these numbers suggest. However, in the end they Patriots were able to work out what matchups favoured them, and the Dolphins defence got very little help from their offence.

The Patriots offence focused more on running the ball more than they did last week, but that was not exactly a difficult task. However, they still relied on Brady leading their pass attack to move the ball. He threw for three hundred and fifty-six yards and four touchdowns completing twenty-six of thirty-eight attempts. His usual targets led the team with Rob Gronkowski catching six balls for one hundred and thirteen yards and a touchdown whilst Julian Edelman caught seven for eighty-one yards and two touchdowns. However, the player that really caught the eye was Dion Lewis who the Dolphins struggled to cover out of the backfield all game and who gave them fits whenever he had the ball in space. It’s is hard to look so much quicker than other players in the NFL, but Lewis managed it and the Patriots certainly were able to use this at key spots to keep the ball moving. For his touchdown Lewis caught a short little dump off pass, but was able to run it in before the Dolphins who had all covered deeper receivers were able to react.

This was the real difference between the two offences in this game as whilst the Patriots offensive weapons were utilised in key spots, the Dolphins were unable to get their own into the game at the right moments. There we some good individual plays, but no one was able to stand out when required and once again the Dolphins got away from the run earlier than they would have wanted. Part of this is likely that they only managed fifteen yards from thirteen attempts, but a major part of their problems late in the game was having got behind in the first half, they spent too much time in defined passing formations, allowing the Patriots to rush the passer without fearing the run. This only served to highlight that the Dolphins’ offensive line is simply not that good in pass protection and they got caught out by simple blitzes and rushes when they were in multi receiver sets. As a consequence Tannehill was sacked five times, and whilst he threw some nice passes, he also threw a pair of interceptions. The commentators were talking about how the Dolphins needed to leverage Tannehill’s talent better in the passing game, but I think some of that is having balance in the offence. Gone are the days of running the ball to setup the pass as the base of your offence, if this even existed, you are more likely to setup the run with the pass by forcing the defence to respect your deep ball. In reality for most teams what you need is the balance to make the defence have to respect both eventualities, and be able to offer some level of deception. The Dolphins were not able to do that in this game and it cost them as too often it was all to obvious that is was another pass attempt that was coming.

The Patriots defensive strength is in their front seven these days, and this was easy to see with the way they shut down the Dolphins run game and got after Ryan Tannehill. They managed five sacks and ten quarterbacks in this game, with sacks being spread between ends Chandler Jones and Rob Ninkovich, with linebacker Dont’a Hightower and DB Devin McCourty also getting in on the act. The Dolphins were not able to move the ball consistently in this game and were frequently in poor field position, and the Patriots defence kept making plays when their offence did stumble. It is not often that you see a defence give up less than twenty yards in the run game, and yet the Patriots have been on both sides of it in their last two. However, they chose not to run the ball last week, where as it looked like they forced the Dolphins not to in this one.

The Dolphins came into this game with momentum after appointing their new coach, but this game was a dose of realism. The improved intensity may have helped against the two poor AFC South teams that they faced in the last two weeks, but they needed more in this game. They were unable to lean on their running game as they have since Dan Campbell took charge, and in the end were simply not able to get enough going on offence to keep up with the Patriots in this one. The worry would be that the problems on offence looked familiar in terms of play calling, I plan to ask Dan about that on the podcast this week.

The Patriots just keep rolling this season. On paper the defence looks thin in the secondary, but clearly this hasn’t hurt them so far and looking at the schedule they don’t appear to be facing any offences that would make them worry unduly. In this game Bill Belichick was able to take away the part of the Dolphins offence that had got them going again, whilst the offence continues to play well. This may not be the most terrifying of Tom Brady’s offences, but he has more than enough weapons to keep the ball moving through the air and looks as good as ever.

I was hoping to go through the coaching tape of the Eagles visiting the Panthers, but the travel to go see the final London NFL game is going to get in the way. Time to go see some live football in person.

Week 1 Steelers at Patriots

13 Sunday Sep 2015

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So we finally get to the start of the season, but we still can’t escape the deflategate saga, but after the opening parade of trophies and celebrations we could finally move on to football.

It was an interesting game with both teams transitioning on defence, but for me the game was won and lost in the red zone. The Steelers had no problem moving the ball as they were able to establish the run early, and actually generated more yards on offence that the Patriots. However, whilst they connected with a number of deep passes, their offence kept getting bogged down in the opponent’s half and they lost six points with Josh Scobee missing his first two field goal attempts. The Patriots however, after a first series stall, managed to get a two touchdown lead and were never really troubled by the Steelers for the rest of the game.

The Steelers offence looked good for the most part, and they certainly were prepared for Le’Veon Bell’s suspension, with DeAngelo Williams throwing off the years and running for one hundred and twenty-seven yards at an average of six yards per carry. The deep ball was also working against the Patriots rebuilt secondary, with several such passes going to Anotio Brown, Markus Wheaton somehow getting his feet in after Ben Roethlisberger was given an age to find a receiver, and Darrius Heyward-Bey managing to get behind Bradley Fletcher on a go route to gain fourty-three yards that was the Steelers’ longest play of the game. The problem is that they stalled at the Patriots’ twenty-six and twenty-eight yard line for the missed field goals, got field goals from the twenty-six and six yard lines, whilst only scoring two touchdowns.

The Patriots rebuilt their defence in the offseason, but appeared to be focussing on their front seven rather than trying to replace the cornerbacks they let go. However, right from the first series they appeared to be soft against the run, and given the success the Steelers were having, I was surprised to see them run a trick play early that gave Antonio Brown the chance to throw the ball, but which merely led to a sack. The Patriots were able to generate some pressure, sacking Roethlisberger two times in addition to getting Brown down, but at other times big Ben had plenty of time to throw the ball and they were beaten deep a number of time. What they were able to do though, was to bend and not break, as the defence managed to stop the Steelers as the field got shorter. We will have to see how this works as the season goes along, but they did enough in this game to get the job done.

The Patriots on offence on the other, hand were highly effective at what they do, and it was the usual suspects. The reinstated Tom Brady threw for two hundred and eighty-eight yards with twenty five completions from thirty-two attempts. The majority of these passes went to Julian Edleman and Rob Gronkowski, with Gronkowski being the kind of red zone threat that the Steelers struggled to find. Their was no sign of the early wobble that troubled the Patriots last season, and I go back to the loss of their long time line coach Dante Scarnecchia and the resulting adjustment as a possible cause for this. They ran the ball fairly well with Dion Lewis, and with Brady they always have a chance, but I might be a little concerned for them if Gronk or Eldeman were out for any stretch of time.

The Steelers defence looked off for most of the night, there were flashes of what they were trying to do, but there appeared to be a lot of miscommunication and they did nothing to allay the fears regarding their secondary. It will be interesting to see how the defence progresses as they gain experience in the changed system, and they will have been happy to see their first round draft pick Alvin Dupree pick up a sack in his first game.

Finally I want to look at two specific plays that caught my eye during the game. This season I will be working on a series I will call adventures in film. I’ll be looking at a game from the previous week once the tape becomes available, and picking out certain plays from the Thursday night games when I write up that game.

The first play that struck me was a beautifully timed completion to Danny Amendola. The Patriots lined up shotgun with five receivers, three on the left and two on the right. The Patriots snap the ball and the Steelers rush with four. Danny Amendola is the closest receiver to the line on the left side with Gronkowski and then Edleman outside him; Amendola runs an out then up route whilst Gronkowski runs a hitch that sets a pick to get Amendola open whilst Edleman runs a go route. Ryan Shazier has a relatively clear path to Brady, but on receiving the snap Brady takes a further three step drop and then floats a ball over the trailing William Gay for an eighteen yard completion before anyone can get to him. It was a lovely play, and I don’t know how a defence can counter it with Brady getting rid of the ball so quickly and given that the safety has to honour the go route of Edleman.

The other play I wanted to look at was the sack by safety Will Allen. The Patriots line up with 11 personnel (ie one tight end and one running back) in a shotgun formation with Gronkowski the right side tight end and running back Dion Lewis to Brady’s left. The Steelers are in a 3-3 nickel with single high safety coverage and a linebacker playing as one of the down linemen. Will Allen just times his run to perfection so he’s moving when the ball is snapped but no one accounts for him as a pass rusher. Thanks to William Gay rushing from the nickel corner spot on the same side as Allen, running back Dion Lewis picks up Gay, leaving Allen a free run to the quarterback. What caught my eye about this play initially was the timing of Allen’s run, but in looking at it on coaching tape, it also demonstrates that although the defence maybe changing, the zone blitz is not done in Pittsburgh. They may have sent a corner and a safety, but it was a classic overload of one side whilst all four linebackers dropping into coverage, so the defence only actually rushed four, sticking to the aim of the zone blitz to generate a pass rush safely.

How the Super Bowl was Won

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

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The NFL media are already moving on to the offseason, but I wanted to go through the coaching tape of the Super Bowl and have some things to say before I take a little break and start preparing for the next year.

It might seem an odd place to start, given that one of the things I do as a writer is create narratives around games, but the first thing I want to look at is the narrative surrounding Tom Brady and complain. To me it seems reductive and absurd to place as much emphasis on how many Super Bowls a quarterback wins when weighing his career as has been done since Brady won his fourth. There is no doubt that Brady has had an amazing career, and deserves to be in the conversation with the very best who have played the game, but his legacy should not rest quite so heavily on whether an undrafted rookie corner back makes a great interception at the end of the game or not. The game of American football is one of teams and coaches, and whilst playing quarterback is one of the most complex tasks we ask of an athlete, and there is perhaps no more important single player on the field of play, the quarterback simply cannot win games on their own even if they can possibly lose them. Just look at what happened to Aaron Rodgers this year, or Dan Marino across his career for evidence of how outstanding quarterback play doesn’t guarantee you a Super Bowl ring, Peyton Manning would have a few more if it did.

The other frustration coming out of the Super Bowl was the narrative surrounding the Seahawks play call that led to Russell Wilson throwing an interception from the Patriots’ one yard line with twenty six seconds left on the clock. Now I don’t like the call, and running the ball would seem to be the answer in this situation when you have one of the great power backs in the game, but it was Pete Carroll’s aggressive nature that got them into the position to win this game, as how many coaches would have had the conversation he did with Russell Wilson with six seconds left in the first half and agree to throw the ball to try to get the touchdown and risk not getting any points, so it shouldn’t be a surprise when he makes another aggressive call. You can’t divorce the result from the call when evaluating a play, but given the sensationalist nature of society which seems to mean that everything is either the best or worst thing to have happened, ever… then call maybe wasn’t as bad as some would have you believe. Still, you run the ball there don’t you? I would.

So what did I learn from watching the game back on film? Well everybody is saying that this was an instant classic, and I agree. We had two well coached teams that played to very high standard, and who gave us an exciting close game that went back and forth. Either team could have won, and with a few different bounces of the ball could have done so.

The first big story of the game for me was health, and specifically that of the Seattle defence. As people have be tweeting and writing, it wasn’t so much the Legion of Boom as the Legion of Wound. We already knew that Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas were injured, and Kam Chancellor came into the game with a knee injury, but all three injuries were more serious than they were letting on and are facing various surgeries this offseason. In the actual game they all played very well, with perhaps a few occasions where Rob Gronkowski got away from Chancellor enough to make plays being the most obvious effect. However, it was the cumulative effect of the injuries on defence that got them in the end.

In the first quarter the Seahawks couldn’t get anything going on offence, and so their defence spent a lot of time on the field, holding true to Caroll’s bend don’t’ break philosophy and coming up with a huge end zone pick when Brady let fly with a pass vaguely intended for Julian Edleman. The pass was not a good one, but this play almost turned the game in the Patriots favour in a strange way. Jeremy Lane took a couple of steps back to drop into a zone coverage, and intercepted the ball, but on the ensuing run back he landed awkwardly, breaking both bones in his forearm and putting him out of the game.

As a result of this, Tharold Simon came into the game as the nickel corner, although it was Byron Maxwell who slid in to cover the slot receiver with Simon on the outside. This in of itself might not have been a problem, as he did well when matched up against Brandon LaFell going deep, but he did not have the lateral quickness to keep with the shifty Edleman. This being the well coached game that it was, Bill Belichick and Josh McDaniels were not going to miss this opportunity, and you could frequently see Edleman coming across the field with Smith trailing behind him. This use of slot receiver style quick underneath routes both attacked the weak areas of the Seahawks scheme and played to the strength of Brady.

The other injury on the Seahawks defence that helped the Patriots offensive performance was the loss of Cliff Avril in the third quarter, slowing a pass rush that was already struggling to reach Brady. The Patriots o-line did enough to keep the passing game working, but it was the quick drops and passes by Brady that won this game. The Patriots couldn’t run the ball except occasionally when it was setup by the pass, but the accumulation of these injuries to the Seahawks defence helped enable it.

So if the defence of the Seahawks couldn’t stifle the Patriots enough to win, what happened on the other side of the ball? This year’s Patriots defence was the best they’ve had for years and their secondary was more than enough to cope with the Seahawks’ starters. In fact for most of the game, the Seahawks moved the ball in bursts. Their running game was pretty effective, although I was surprised that they didn’t run Rusell Wilson more, but they struggled to maintain drives. However, for a while it did look like the MVP was going to be a receiver who had never caught a pass in the NFL before this game.

The six foot five Chris Matthews announced himself in the biggest game of his career with a forty-four yard catch over the five foot ten Kyle Arrington, and this match up was such a problem that Arrington ended up coming out of the game for Malcolm Butler, and Brandon Browner begged for the assignment of covering the tall Seattle receiver. Matthews caught the touchdown that tied up the scores at half time, and finished the game with over one hundred yards receiving and that touchdown, but he did struggle once the Patriots adjusted. That said, the Seahawks really should have won this game, even if the Patriots did have the upper hand for arguably three quarters.

It will be interesting to see how Pete Carroll picks up the pieces of the aftermath of this game, and build a team next season having lost coaches and with everyone second guessing that play call.

The Patriots will probably roll on, but they have their own offseason moves to make, and at some point Tom Brady might stop being able to do this.

I am going to ease off a bit as we head into the offseason as I want to do a self scout of what I did with the blog this year and come up with ways to improve for next season.

I will leave you with three plays that jumped out on me as I watched the tape. I’ll begin with the first Juliain Edleman catch against Simons, where he started as the outside receiver, ran a drag route across the field, caught the ball and went for twenty-three yards. Second was a screen to Shane Vereen that caught my eye as I was generally unimpressed by the Patriots o-line in the run game, but centre Bryan Stork did a really good job of getting out to the linebacker on this play so Vereen could go down the sideline.

The final play that stands out, in a year of impossible catches, was Jermaine Kearse catching that deep ball, despite Butler making a good play on the ball and it bouncing off three parts of Kearse’s body before he was able to reel it in. It may not have been better than the Odell Beckham catch, but it’s a pretty good way to leave the 2014 season.

Super Bowl Preview

01 Sunday Feb 2015

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It has been a very strange build up to the Super Bowl, with the news dominated by the seemingly endless leaks regarding deflated footballs, except we don’t actually know yet if the balls were deliberately tampered with, just that they were under the regulated pressure. Right now I can’t bring myself to care too much about it as I want to be looking at the upcoming game which should be a fascinating contest. What I will say is that yet again the NFL is demonstrating that even though they are a billion dollar business, that regulation and investigation does not seem to be their forte. I cannot understand why this investigation is being allowed to go on for so long and overshadow the showcase game of the football season.

The Super Bowl will be fascinating contest between contrasting teams and coaches, who will approach the games in different ways, but there are also a number of similarities.

The Patriots are famously adaptable, and it would be foolish for anyone to attempt to pre-empt what Bill Belichick has planned for this game. The Patriots dynasty has been built on Belichick’s attention to detail and the way he prepares his team to do whatever it is that he believes will win the game that week. It was interesting to her Ross Tucker on his podcast talk about one of the ways that this attention to detail manifests itself, in that rather than talking about the need to say run the ball against a particular team, Belichick would say there were three key things to win a game such as stopping a particular receiver running crossing routes on third down. Not only would he identify these specific key battles, but the players would be drilled so that when this situation occurred in the game, the players knew precisely what they had to do.

If Belichick’s teams are defined by their adaptability and tactical ingenuity, then Pete Carroll deliberately keeps his system straight forward as he believes in keeping his players unencumbered by the system so they can play faster. That’s not to say that he isn’t running a modern playbook, but part of the philosophy that he believes is key to success is to limit the number of reads a player has to make so they can be free to play.

However, even though they have their philosophical differences, there are similarities between Belichick and Carroll as both are defensive minded coaches, who’ve worked through a similar era, and have failed as head coaches before they attained success. What’s more, discussing Pete Carroll made Bill Belichick unusually verbose during this year’s media day, as he said that looking at Carroll from afar had made him a better coach, a rare complement from the famously tight lipped Belichick.

This should be a tight game as we have two very closely matched teams, who both had slightly stuttering starts, but as their personnel coalesced and got healthy managed incredibly strong runs. They have differing personalities that reflect their coaches, with the Patriot players staying tight lipped on message, where as the Seahawks are given the freedom to be themselves and so are a much loser group as a result. Neither are necessarily fan favourites with the repeated wining and various pushing of the rules by the Patriots leading them to hated in a lot of quarters, whilst the brashness of some of the Seahawks can rub people the wrong way and there have been a number of PED suspensions for this team. However, both are undeniably well coached, and whilst the game may not be the offensive spectacle that some would desire, there should be some fascinating football to watch.

Perhaps the unit to discuss in this game is the Seahawks defence, who if you stop to listen to its players is the best of all time. It is so hard to compare units across the ages, and so I’m not sure I would go that far, but this unit is very, very good. They ended the season on top of the DVOA stats and led the league in both points and yards allowed through the regular season. The defining part of this unit is their secondary, the legion of boom, three of whom are as good as any player in their league if not the best. They are most know for their three deep zone coverage, with Earl Thomas roaming the field as the deep safety, both corners locking down their respective sides of the field and Kam Chancellor stalking the centre of the field looking for the big hit. The front seven do not blitz that often, but by default align as a 4-3 under defence, meaning that the lineman slide to the side so that the strong side linebacker can line up over the tight end. From this alignment they will be aggressive, with the majority of the front seven have one gap assignments, meaning they can push up the field to make the play, but they won’t be trying to trick the Patriots with complex pressure packages. They will trust their system to cope with what the Patriots will throw at them.

So what will the Patriots throw at them? If the Seahawks are defined by their defence, then the Patriots are characterised by their offence, and their quarterback who is playing to win his fourth Super Bow at his sixth attempt. The question is how will they attempt to attack this defence, and a couple of way have been suggested. One thing that they won’t do is challenge the Seahawks on the outside as they don’t have the explosive kind of receivers to do this. In fact, as good as both team’s secondarys are, they’re almost wasted on the receiving corps that they are facing in this game. One way to challenge a zone system is to attack the seams in between the zones, and with a tight end like Rob Gronkowski this would look like a definite possibility. The other thing I’ve repeatedly heard suggested is given that both Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas are carrying injuries, that the Patriots could use the short passing game to move the ball and test their ability to make tackles, this seems to be popular as last time these teams met the Patriots ran over fifty passing plays. That said, as much as Tom Brady loves running long drives of ten to fifteen plays, chipping away at the defence, this is not the team that you want to be trying this against as they are just too good. However, if there is one area that you can attack the Seahawks, it might be in the run game as since losing defensive tackle Brandon Mebane to injury, they don’t have that top level run stuffer in the middle of the defensive line. The truth is though, that perhaps more than any other team, we won’t know what the plan is until we see it, and even then it is very likely to change throughout the game. That is the flexibility that Belichick and Brady to the game.

The Seahawks however, are a lot more of a defined prospect on offence. Although Pete Carroll is not afraid to be aggressive and is fond of the odd trick play, the bread and butter of this team is the run game. This is partly out of necessity as the Seahawks’ receivers are not a dynamic unit, but mainly because the duel threat of Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson is so very hard to defend. In Lynch the Seahawks have an amazingly physical runner, whose yards after contact numbers are almost absurd compared to the rest of the league. The duel threat comes from the read-option that they run, and Wilson’s ability to make the right decision and challenge the edges of the run defence. Like any system, there are benefits and drawbacks to the read-option, and one that I particularly dislike is the punishment it leaves your quarterback open to if they keep the ball and take the hit. However, if you watch Wilson when he runs the ball, he very rarely takes a hit as he is brilliant at getting the yards available and getting down or out of bounds before the hit comes. In fact in general Russell Wilson’s decision making is excellent, and the Seahawks have done a brilliant job of making the most out of his skill set whilst working round his limitations, as given how tall Wilson is you could not make him a pocket passer.

The Patriots defence has been much improved this year despite losing Jerod Mayo for the year in week six and not getting a great year out of Vince Wilfork. They retooled their secondary in the off season, and have caused many teams a problem by using the newly acquired Brandon Browner and a safety to bracket the top receiver, and leaving their other free agent signing Darelle Revis to lock up the second receiver. This is the exact opposite approach to the Seahawk corners playing their sides, and one of the fascinating parts of this game will be watching how the Patriots’ secondary play. The cover two defence, was in part created to defend the read-option attack, but it is not something that the Patriots use, or many teams in the NFL these days so it will be interesting to see what Belichick and his staff come up with. One of the key players in run defence could be Jamie Collins, who runs as well as any linebacker in the league and could be used to spy Russell Wilson, and Collins actually has the athletic ability to chase him down Wilson if he does keep the ball. The problem is that the Patriots have been vulnerable to the run at times this season and this is not the team that you would want to face with that weakness, as Lynch could just keep ploughing the ball up the gut to see if the Patriots can stop it for the whole game.

I am really looking forward to this game as it should be a very competitive, and importantly well coached, that is too close to call. Whoever wins this game looks to secure a legacy with the Seahawks trying to win back to back Super Bowls, and the Patriots looking to get Belichick and Brady their fourth. Neither feat has been achieved for many years. I look forward to watching it live as a fan, and going through the coaching tape next week to write the final blog of the 2014 season.

The Week Before the Super Bowl

24 Saturday Jan 2015

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It has been a slightly odd week post the Conference Championship games, a mixture of the break in routine and the stories floating round has made things feel a little out of synch. I’m going to go through the games from the weekend and some of the other major stories floating round, but will look at the Super Bowl next week.

It feels like a slightly odd week to be trying to add value when there is such focused coverage, and the Pro Bowl is the only game of football this week. A game incidentally, that I have never watched before, although I may watch it back on rewind next week. The major story after the games has been the woefully monikered deflategate, but let’s look at the actual games first.

The first game of the day was a pretty one sided affair for fifty-five minutes, that exploded into an improbable comeback and eventual win for the Seahawks. The majority of the focus has been on the failed onside kick recovery, but there was more to this loss than that as some have been writing. The Packers were pretty dominant for the first fifty-five minutes, but the seeds of their downfall were sown as early as the first quarter. Twice in the first quarter the Packers drove down to the Seattle one yard line, but came away with only a field. I can understand kicking the first field goal, but you need to think about going for it on fourth down the second time you are down there as one of the key things in modern football is red-zone efficiency. More than that though, even if you fail you to convert, you pin the opposition against their own yard line so the down side is not that bad.

The real problem with the field goals, was it spoke of the conservative approach that Mike McCarthy and his team brought to this game, and when you add to the one touchdown scored out of the first three trips to the red-zone, an incredibly conservative approach to running the clock out, a defender who just gave himself up after the final interception, not testing Richard Sherman when he was playing cornerback with one arm, successfully disarming the Seattle offence for most of the game then going into a prevent defence, and meekly trotting up the field to kick a field goal rather than go for the touchdown when you have Aaron freaking Rodgers… well we know what happened.

You have to give the Seahawks credit for their part in the comeback, but even on their overtime touchdown the Packers were for some reason play zero safety so there was no one over the top to help. Their excellent secondary was nicked up with Earl Thomas dislocating his shoulder and only coming back in the second half once it had been strapped up, and Sherman’s injury in the fourth quarter. But what was worse for the Seahawks, was that their offence really didn’t get going until these last few moments. Apart from a few glimpses from Marshawn Lynch, the Seahawks had done very little and Russell Wilson was having a nightmare, he threw four interceptions, fumbled the ball, and still came away with the win. He will need to play a lot better than that next week if he wants to win his second Super Bowl.

If the first game had amazing drama, then the second had an old fashioned thrashing. You have to give the Colts the credit they deserve for winning the two playoff games that they did, but just as they were making us question the distrust of their talent, they got battered by the Patriots. I wrote about the Patriots mutable nature when it comes to game planning, but in this one Belichick and his staff were definitely working on a plan of if it’s not broke, don’t fix it. The Patriots ran up over 170 yards of rushing in this game, with LeGarrette Blount repeatedly looking as if he had nowhere to go, but as Colts defenders over pursued he was able to get yards. The Colts clearly still have a lot of work to do if they are going to build a team capable of winning a Super Bowl around their clearly amazing quarterback, as they will need to compete with the NFL elite to have a chance of doing this and the roster is not ready for this yet.

If the game itself was a very one sided affair with not a huge amount to write about, the aftermath has seen a flurry of words and outrage when it was revealed on Monday that a number of the balls used by the Patriots’ offence were under the official designated pressure. This would make the ball easier to grip and therefore to throw and catch, but let’s be honest, this had no effect on the result of this game. The problem right now is perception as this is not the first time the Patriots have been embroiled in an issue of cheating, but the truth is we don’t know what happened and whilst the NFL doesn’t exactly have the best track record in investigation, we really don’t have much choice but to let the investigation run its course.

The Super Bowl is going to be a fascinating matchup between two teams that really divide opinion amongst fans, but I’ll look at that more next week.

NFL Conference Championship Preview

18 Sunday Jan 2015

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My overriding emotion after last week’s games was one of sadness, and not because there are now only three competitive games left, but the way Peyton Manning and the Broncos played left me feeling down. I’ll take a look at the teams leaving us before examining the Conference Championship games.

The were a lot more points scored in the first game of the weekend than I was expecting, but to take a fourteen point lead, have the Patriots level the score, get another fourteen point lead, the Patriots level once more, then take another lead, and yet finally lose the game must really hurt. The Ravens were able to move the ball well, running for over a hundred yards and passing effectively, but Joe Flacco threw two interceptions. On both of these, the safety came down to intercept balls thrown to Torrey Smith. What I didn’t know was that the first interception came whilst the Ravens were running a play that had worked in the first quarter, but flipped to the other side. If you get a chance, watch this video on the Patriots website with Belichick breaking down some key plays from the game, it’s one of the more fascinating tape segments you’ll see all year, and I owe a thanks to the excellent Michael Carlson for tweeting the link. The part that surprised me about this game was the defence, with the Terrel Suggs and Elvis Doomerville having quiet games, but whilst the Patriots were very pass heavy, Brady was getting the ball out of his hands before the pass rush could get there.

The Ravens are going to be a very good football team again next year, they have a lot of players already in place, are keeping their coaching team in tact, and they can reinforce the secondary as well as get players back. I’m getting worried already.

The Panthers gave a really good account of themselves in a really difficult place to play, but this game demonstrated that they are a team on the up rather than one pushing for a championship. There was more scoring in this game than I was expecting, but at the end of the day they simply were not talented enough to compete with the Seahawks when it mattered most. This will be an interesting offseason for them as they will have a little more cap room to play with, but the Cam Newton contract will be key, and to a large extent determine how they continue to build this team going forward.

The Cowboys benefited from officiating in their Wildcard game, and then suffered in this one, although the rule as it is currently written was enforced correctly. I thought Dez Byant had made the catch, although the bobble at the end made me think he was down inside the one. However, as soon as I saw the ball move on the replay I thought it would be overturned. This is the problem with replay, as whilst you want calls to be right, and replay helps you get this, as fans we want to see football plays and Dez Bryant made an excellent play. In fact, the Cowboys played really well in this came and could have won it.

There was not a lot of pressure up the middle from the Cowboys’ defence, but Rod Marinelli really took advantage of Rodgers limited mobility and there were several times when you could see huge spaces that he couldn’t run into. However, once the Packers adjusted in the second half, putting more receivers on the field to spread the defence, Rodgers was able to move the ball through the air and finished the game with over three hundred yards passing.

The Broncos fell out of the playoffs with a limp display that has led to the firing of Jon Fox. There are questions surrounding Peyton Manning’s arm strength, the extent of his leg injury, and whether he will come back next season. Selfishly I would like to see him come back as I still enjoy watching him play, when he’s not facing the Bengals, and as recently as three games ago he managed a terrifying third quarter in Cincinnati that makes me think that if can get injury free, he can still be effective. However, whether he can get that healthy, stay there, and still has the will power to go through everything required to play football only he will know. As much as anything, I would like a better end to his amazing career than this damp squib of game.

Whilst Manning struggled, so did the rest of the team. One of the few bright sparks was CJ Anderson who managed eighty yards on eighteen carries, and whilst there several drives that consisted of short runs on first and second down with a missed fade pass on third down, given Manning’s struggles in the pass game and these figures, a commitment to the run game could have kept the game closer. The big surprise for me on the other side of the ball however, was how little pass rush Von Miller and DeMarcus Ware managed as they managed no sacks and barely any pressure. This is a good team, but with so many free agents and now coaching upheaval, in addition to the status of Peyton Manning, the offseason could be something of a soap opera in Denver.

But enough of the teams that have left us, there are three more games to go so let’s get to the Conference Championship games:

Packers @ Seahawks

DVOA                                    Packers                        Seahawks

Overall:                       4th                                1st
Offensive:                   1st                                4th
Defensive:                   18th                              1st
Special Teams:            30th                              17th

The Seahawks very much took care of business last week, scoring more points than I thought they would whilst conceding more. In truth they got less out of Marshawn Lynch in the running game than I was expecting, but Russell Wilson was solid in the passing game and added twenty-two yards of rushing. They may not be a unit full of high-powered names, but the Seahawks skill players are playing very solid football and Russell Wilson continues to impress as a quarterback. They will be hoping to have a better day in the run game, but the Packers defence is not as fearsome prospect as the Panthers have been in recent weeks and they could have some success.

The Packers defence had some worrying moments last week, and whilst it was a great play by Julius Peppers to knock the ball out, it did look like DeMarco Murray was about to rip off a huge run with the defence opening up before him. In fact the Cowboys moved the ball pretty well and were certainly able to run the ball. This is perhaps not surprising as they were only ranked twenty-fourth in rush defence by DVPA through the regular season and this could be a real problem for them in Lynch get going.

The Packers are constructed for their defence to do enough to win, relying on their excellent offence, but in this game they are facing the best defence left in the playoffs, and probably the best in recent week. The Seahawks got some of their linebackers back and have been playing great defence for weeks now. Their secondary is incredibly strong with Kam Chancellor having an amazing game last week, demonstrating amazing agility to leap over the line in an attempt to block a field goal as well as getting a pick six. It will be interesting to see how they do against a Packers team who did not throw to Richard Sherman’s side of the field in their meeting on opening day back in September, but who have come on a long way since then. I would expect them to be aggressive early in the pass rush to test Aaron Rodgers movement and see if they can disrupt him in the passing game.

The Packers offence is different to where it was at the start of the season. Their o-line has coalesced and changed since the start of the season and has been playing excellent football. However, there is marked difference in the Packers home and away performance, and it has been talked and written that at home they are able to go through a number of plays to find the right one due to how quiet the stadium is. This is very much not going to be the case in one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL. The other problem for the Packers is that Aaron Rodgers played brilliantly last week on one leg, but it was clear that his calf injury was forcing him to play a different game, and whilst he could get away with this against the Cowboys defence, I’m not sure he will able to this week. You might think that it would be a good idea to rely on the run more to protect him, but although the Seahawks defence is famed for its secondary, they are still ranked second by DVOA in rush defence, which is in fact one place higher than their pass defence. There were some moments from Eddie Lacy, but he didn’t look that impressive for stretches of last week’s game and the Packers could do with a big game from him. However, in the passing game, whilst they did not get a strong game from Jordy Nelson last week, this didn’t matter as they got one hundred yard games out of Randall Cobb and Davante Adams so if they can spread the field again, maybe they can find a matchup they like,

This will be a fascinating game that I suspect the Seahawks will win due to their home field advantage and the difference in the way the Packers play away from home.

Colts @ Patriots

DVOA                                    Colts                            Patriots

Overall:                       13th                              2nd
Offensive:                   19th                              3rd
Defensive:                   7th                                12th
Special Teams:            15th                              7th

There have been talks of a possible second passing of the torch game for the Colts this week, with Andrew Luck having beaten Peyton Manning and now facing Tom Brady.

The matchups in this game will be interesting because the Patriots as a team are so mutable, you never know what Belichick and his staff are planning. Last week they abandoned the run game in the second half, ran plays with four linemen, and dusted off an options play the type we haven’t seen from them in years. That said, earlier in the year they pounded the Colts using extra linemen and racked up 246 rushing yards that included a two hundred yard, four touchdown day for Jonas Gray who has barely been heard from since. We don’t know if Belichick will revert back to the run attack this week, or if he will try to do something else, so from a tactical point of view this will be a fascinating game.

The Patriots offence had to rely on deception to get the win against the Ravens last week, but the Colts are a different proposition. They have looked very good in the playoffs so far, but the Patriots will offer a far more balanced challenge, Although talk of his demise were premature, Tom Brady doesn’t have the same ability to go deep he had when Randy Moss was running those go patterns, but he does have receivers that suit this offence, and Rob Gronkowski is a matchup nightmare for every team in the NFL. That said, they will miss their centre Bryan Stork, and one of the first things to look for is whether the line problems the Patriots suffered at the start of the season will resurface as they have to shuffle this unit.

The Colts defence has looked excellent for two weeks in a row, but the Bengals were missing too many receivers for Andy Dalton to excel, and the Broncos were strangely limited even taking into account the issues affecting Peyton Manning. The Patriots may be shuffling their line so there could be issues, Brady has his weapons and this could stretch this defence. They played great as a unit last week, and Vontae Davis was all over the field, but the Patriots don’t really have a single threat for him to man up against and at six foot and two hundred pounds, he doesn’t really match up with Gronkowski. This has been a tough tackling unit that has been really well coached, but I wonder if they get exposed against the Patriots like they were earlier in the season, two hundred yards is a lot to give up in the running game.

The Patriots defence has been a talking point for its fans as it has been as good as they have had for a long time, but it didn’t exactly catch the eye last week. The secondary that has been much improved did manage to get two interceptions last week, but as unit they gave up a lot of points and go against another good unit this week. That said, the Colts offensive line is not as good as the Ravens and so there is more chance of the Patriots getting a sustained pass rush. It will be interesting to see how much of this will come from Jamie Collins who is excellent at both pass rushing and coverage. What he is doing could well be a key as to what the Patriots think is the priority in this game and how they plan to get to Andrew Luck.

This leads us nicely to the Colts offence, which is only slightly more than Andrew Luck. Up until a couple of weeks ago I was only really impressed with four Colts players and three of them play in this offence. I don’t know if Andrew Luck will supplant our current great quarterbacks as some have been saying, as there are just too many variables, but he has certainly started his career in spectacular fashion. The throw he made to Donte Moncrief against the Bengals with defensive linemen round his feet was nothing short of spectacular. I have been pretty impressed with two of his targets, but whilst TY Hilton has an amazing knack of getting open, he drops too many balls, and Luck’s numbers would be even more impressive if Hilton had held onto some more of the very catchable balls that he has dropped. That said, I have been very impressed with his tight end Coby Fleener who has caught fifty balls for seven hundred yards this season, and seems to be good for several big plays a game whenever I’ve watched the Colts. However, the problem is that their o-line is not very good and whilst they could triple team Carlos Dunlap against the Bengals, I think they will be challenged more this week. But then again, I thought that last week and it didn’t materialise against the excellent pass rushers of the Broncos so only time will tell.

I am not sure how this game is going to go, as my instinct says that the Patriots should take care of business at home, but their o-line shuffle worries me and the Colts have been on a real run recently. That said, I’m not that impressed with the talent spread against their roster, and whilst they have been coached really well and are playing very tough football, I can see them coming up short against the elite teams in the league, and the Patriots are very definitely one of those.

NFL Divisional Playoff Preview – Saturday Edition

10 Saturday Jan 2015

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There was only one close game over the wildcard weekend, but for the most I still found it enjoyable, although it was another painful end for the Bengals. In a league where only one team wins it all, thirty one teams end in disappointment so lets take a moment to say goodbye to the four teams we lost before going on to look at this week’s games.

As was feared, the Cardinals ran out of steam with too many players injured and a disastrous third string quarterback that couldn’t move the ball. What I didn’t expect was the dreadful performance of Cardinals’ punter Drew Butler, which you can ill afford if your offensive is not moving the ball. There was only so much that Bruce Arians and his staff could do despite the excellent job they have done all year.

The Steelers felt the loss of Le’Veon too much to get the balance they needed in the offence and their defence couldn’t play up to the level they needed to win this game. It would seem a overhaul is required in the Steelers secondary with Ike Taylor and Troy Polamalu coming to the end of storied careers, and Michael Mitchell has not been convincing all season and was not good in this one.

The most painful paragraphs of this whole blog are these concerning the departure of the Bengals for another season. All I wanted from this season for it to be a success, was for the playoff drought to finally end. However, this was not a healthy year with major pieces of both the offence and defence injured, but the major issues being discussed after the game were the usual questions surrounding Marvin Lewis and Andy Dalton.

I think people often underestimate the huge turn around Lewis has affected in Cincinnati, who for years were dreadful. He has created the structures that enabled this team to become one of the most talented in the league, who now draft consistently and considered one of the better teams in the league at this. There’s no getting around the game management and tactical issues that people raise, but he is by far not the only coach who suffers from these problems and I don’t see a coach that makes me leap out and say they should replace him. I also believe in consistency and given the injuries, plus the breaking in of two new co-ordinators I feel like another season is more than fair. There simply aren’t that many teams who have made the playoffs every year for the last four, yet alone in a division as competitive as the AFC North.

As for Andy Dalton, he is not as good as Andrew Luck, but then few quarterbacks are. Nor have many won forty games in their first four seasons or taken their team to the playoffs in each of those seasons. The big game jitters are a worry, but with something more like his full set of weapons and a burgeoning run game that is part of a coordinator’s plan to help him, Dalton can win games. The contract is not the horror that is frequently quoted, and after next season he is pretty easy to cut from a salary cap point of view. However, I think a second year working with Hue Jackson will see improvements, and even a functional quarterback is not easy to come by so the question for those who would get rid of him is, and replace him with whom? I would much rather have the Bengals’ current quarterback situation than say, the Bears.

The final team leaving this week were the lions, whose own playoff woes rival the Bengals with twenty-three seasons separating them from their last playoff win, and an eight playoff game losing streak that is tied for the longest in the league. If there are questions about Andy Dalton, then surely more must be made of Mathew Stafford who is now 0-17 in road games where the opposing team finished with a winning record. This might be one of those slightly made up stats, but it speaks to the mistakes that pepper his game, and whilst he has tantalising physical skills that allow him to make some amazing plays, he had ample support from his defence this year and still couldn’t get the win this weekend. Unfortunately, the offence just wasn’t good enough and it will be interesting to see what happens to this team in the offseason, particularly with Suh on his way.

So having waved goodbye to four more teams, we should take a look at what should be a brilliant set of games.

Ravens @ Patriots

DVOA:                       Ravens                        Patriots

Overall                        5th                                2nd
Offensive                    9th                                3rd
Defensive                    6th                                11th
Special Teams 2nd        2nd                                5th

The Ravens will be heading to New England knowing that they have beaten the Patriots in the playoffs on the road, and will have no fear of them.

The Patriots got off to a rocky start this season, but we should have known better than to question if this was the end of the Brady/Belichick era as having gone 2-2 and losing heavily to the Chiefs on Monday night football, the Patriots won seven straight and finished the season 12-4.

The Patriots offence struggled to begin with, as protection issues meant that Tom Brady did not get the protection he needed, but these got cleared up and as Rob Gronkowski got better over the course of the season so did the offence. They don’t have the classical receiving corp that one would expect for such a high ranked offence, but the structure of the routes in this offence does not demand that and they are a threat to whatever defence they face. The Ravens defence has been good, but they were only twentieth by DVOA in the regular season against tight ends, so the Patriots may well be able to make very good use of Gronkowski in this game. They will need to as the real weakness for the Ravens is their secondary, but if there is a shortcoming in the Patriots offence, it is that they don’t have the receivers to stretch the field and take advantage of this, but I wouldn’t bet against Brady taking the short passes he can get and slowly whittling away to beat the Ravens.

If it is business as usual for Brady and the offence, things have looked a lot better for the Patriots defence this year. They reconfigured their secondary, and server times this season they double teamed the opposition’s best receiver and smothered their second receiver with Darelle Revis who really returned to from this season. They have made great use of Akeem Ayers, who has been a revelation since his trade from the Titans, and they’ve been effective in both the pass and run game, improving their overall ranking by nine places from last season, and giving Brady the support that he has been missing for a number of years.

That said, the Ravens offence has also improved a lot this year under new coordinate Gary Kubiak as I mentioned last week. That said, whilst they did enough to win last week, there are questions about Tory Smith’s fitness and Eugene Mornoe is listed as questionable and could be a huge miss for the Ravens. However, Joe Flacco maintained his impressive record in the playoff, but it will be interesting to see what his receivers can do against the Patriots secondary..

The Ravens’ secondary may be questionable, but they did okay last week and there front seven are really good. In Suggs and Doomerville they have two outstanding edge rushers, but the real problem for Brady could be Haloti Ngata, who gets excellent pressure through the middle and could really cause Brady problems this week.

I still expect the Patriots to win this week, but no one would be surprised if the Ravens nick it and I think this should be one hell of a game.

Panthers @ Seahawks

DVOA:                       Panthers                      Seahawks

Overall                        11th                              1st
Offensive                    18th                              4th
Defensive                   3rd                                1st
Special Teams            29th                              19th
The Seahawks season were another team that had a shaky start to the season that they turned around, although this time it was on the defensive side of the ball. However, in the opening game of the season they looked excellent as they battered the Packers at home and everyone though the Champions would be strong all year.

However, there were problems on defence with players adjusting to new roles on the defensive line and injuries at linebackers meaning they had young players out there. As the season continued they got players, and for weeks now they have looked like the terrifying team from last year and they managed to finish 12-4 to get the number one seed.

The Seahawks offence is built around the run game, but whilst they are deficient in receivers, yet Russell Wilson continues to impress with both his arms and legs. There doesn’t need to be too much written about how good Marshawn Lynch is, but he’ll need to set the tone for the Seahawks offence to be effective.

The Panthers have played the Seahawks close in their last few meetings, but these have all be in Carolina, I can see this as being a close game as the Panthers have a defence that can keep the Seahawks close, but I don’t fancy anyone to go into Seattle and win.

This could particularly be the case as Cam Newton still misses too many simple throws that you have to convert to compete with the best teams. It is rare that you will see a good quarterback with such little touch, everything is just fired in. It also doesn’t help that they lost rookie defensive tackle Star Lotulelei to a broken foot that he picked up in training this week. His numbers may not be amazing, but he had really come on late in the season and he protected Thomas Davis and Luke Kuechly so they could make plays at the linebacker position.

I wouldn’t write of the Panthers, but they are the team that I would be most surprised about if they won.

NFL Week 7: Jets @ Patriots Recap

19 Sunday Oct 2014

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The curse of the Thursday night game is now officially broken as we had a close game for the second week in a row, and it was a good one as well. The Jets lost a game that they could have won, their game plan was sound, and they made enough plays to win, but sadly they also made the mistakes that cost them the win. My watch list for this game was Darelle Revis and Tom Brady for the Patriots, whilst for the Jets I wanted to look at their defence and the development of Geno Smith.

I wanted to look at the defence of the Jets as I think that Rex Ryan is an excellent defensive coach, one of the best in the game. Unfortunately, my claim that he could coach a group of people off the street into a serviceable defence is being somewhat undermined by the performance of his secondary, which has been a talking point throughout the season. After week six the Jets were ranked nineteenth by DVOA, and I can see why. Their front seven were excellent, limiting the Patriots to sixty-three yards, although this was on only from fifteen carries and so this does yield a 4.2 yard per carry average. However, they were causing problems for most of the game and limited the Patriots to 323 yards of total offence.

The problems were in coverage, and against a team with better receivers they could be in trouble. Why Antonio Allen stepped up in coverage, letting Shane Vereen getting behind him in a three deep coverage, I do not know. The sight of Tom Brady rolling right shouldn’t be that worrying for a defence and it was a very easy touchdown to give up. They also lost Rob Gronkowski in zone coverage several times as he slipped between the linebackers and safeties. The Patriots could have made more use of Brandon LaFell as the Jets’ corners seemed to be giving themselves a big cushion when covering him, leading to two receptions in the opening drive, but he only got two more for the rest of the game. However, the Patriots did manage two more passing touchdowns with a nice move by Shane Vereen getting him between Demario Davis and Calvin Pryor, and Danny Amendola getting open with a double move on Antonio Allen. This seems like a second mistake for a touchdown by Allen as the Patriots were on third and goal from the 19 yard line, so I question why he bit on the double move, giving up the touchdown, rather than playing safer and possibly saving his team four points that could have won them the game.

But it wasn’t just the coverage issues that cost the Jets the game. They won the time of possession battle by over twenty minutes and in the first half they had four scoring drives to the Patriots three. The problem is that the Patriots managed two touchdown drives, where as the Jets came away with four field goals. This is the problem the Jets seem to be having, they are finding ways to lose the game rather than win. They had a touchdown called back for a holding penalty, leading to a field goal, again losing four points that could have won them the game. They were even in a position to kick a winning field goal on the last play of the game, admittedly a fifty-eight yard one, but had it blocked.

So let’s take a look at the respective quarterbacks. If you just look at the pass completions and yardage, there wasn’t that much difference between Geno Smith and Tom Brady. However, Brady threw for two more touchdowns and won his team the game. That said, whilst the competitiveness and understanding of the game is still there, I can see why there have been questions about Brady’s play this season. The line gave him time in this game, but the ball doesn’t seem to be coming out of his hand quite like it did in the past, and there were also balls that were off target. There were a couple of drops, but this is not the most talented group of skill players he’s had to work with. I understand that the Patriots success has been built on long term planning and their draft strategy, but when you have one of the great quarterbacks to have ever played the game, it would have made more sense to take make sure that you maximised your return by surrounding him with talent.

On the evidence of this game there has been improvement in Geno Smith’s game, and he gave his team a chance to win. He didn’t turn the ball over, and repeatedly got first downs with his legs when required. However, he doesn’t have great receivers to work with, in fact only seven of his twenty completions went to wide receivers, and it was mainly the running game that kept the Jets in this game, with a combined 218 yards. As well as Geno’s thirty-seven yards, Chris Ivory ran for 107 yards and a touchdown, whilst Chris Johnson chipped in with sixty-one yards. The touchdown pass that stood was a nice throw to Jeff Cumberland, who was covered pretty well by Patrick Chung. The problem is that Geno Smith had the ball with just under a minute left, and he could only get his team into position for a fifty-eight yard field goal. The greats drive their team into a position to win in that situation. I am not sure he will ever get to that level, but it’s too early to give up on him yet.

The final player left to look at is Darelle Revis, who looked to have a very solid game. He only shows up with two tackles and one pass defence, but he was very good in man coverage. He was basically covering Eric Decker whenever the Patriots played man, and Decker only managed four catches for sixty-five yards. One of these was over Revis when he was going for an interception, knowing he had safety help and another one was against zone coverage where Revis wasn’t on the coverage. Decker did beat Revis on one in route, getting enough separation in his break to make the catch, but Revis did well and generally the Patriots held up well in pass coverage.

The problem was that they struggled in run defence. There was talk of this before the game with them having lost Jerod Mayo for the season last week, and it did seem to come to pass in this game. They can’t keep giving up five yards a carry and expect to win games.

The Jets are having a long season, and I’m not sure how they are going to turn it round. They could have won this game, but the problems are more to do with talent and you can’t fix that during the season. For the Patriots, I’m not as sure that all the problems are fixed, and whilst I can see them winning their division, they are going to have to play better if they want to make an impact in the playoffs.