par for the course with magoo...intelligent football related discussion and analysis...what i've come to expect from him...nice work
couple points from me...
20 personnel package sounds great but i don't think i ever recall seeing bush and thomas in the same backfield during the preseason...not even once...it was one or the other...doesn't mean it might not be a wrinkle in tonights game though...and your breakdown seems sound to me
First of all, thank you.
Second of all, as for 20 personnel... I didn't see them run it either. Not once. And they may not. There are all kinds of ways to exploit the way a defense reacts to Bush. Every time he takes the field the defense has to make a decision whether to counter him with a corner or a linebacker or even a safety, and every one of those responses has inherent weaknesses. The 20 personnel and formation thing is just a way to do it as sort of a sub-offense set of plays (run hurry-up) that keeps the defense honest relative to the run or pass. Pure speculation by me. It's just something I think might work.
devin mccourty is absolutely awesome...super sweet feet at the combine explosive...after revis right now i'd have to say he's the 2nd best boundary cb in the afc...he showed that well last year...just slightly ahead of vontae who i have as 3rd
Interesting. I've never really thought about ranking the CBs. But McCourty would definitely be up there. Jonathan Joseph would have to be in any discussion as well... Leon Hall would be up there too, though not as high as Joseph. Joe Haden also flashed some serious skills as a rookie... definitely played better than I thought he would. And let's not forget about Jason Allen, either. :D
a gap blitzes if you watched pouncey this preseason were the one thing in pass pro i saw him struggle with...combo blocking with a guard and not recognizing the delayed lb blitzing up the middle til too late...definitely something i would want to test if i was beli with pouncey...great point
Agreed. And it lines up with the fact that they've had Jerod Mayo blitzing a lot this preseason. Much more than in the past.
sean smith over hernandez when he's flexed out makes great sense to me...that big wr/te is what smiths tools are better suited for anyways...not as quick twitch as the little speedy quick wrs smith should be able to match his feet and stay in his hip and use his length to disrupt plays...but i think if you go that route you can't hide carroll as the coming on boundary cb opposite vontae...
i'm not a huge fan of ochos game anymore i think age has caught up he's crafty and all and i think vontae can lock him or branch down pretty much hell i'm more afraid of branch but whoever gets carroll with their veteran seasoning and craftiness can probably make some hay when smith shifts over hernandez...so i'd look for brady to try and exploit it...maybe we provide a little more shaded over the top safety help to carrolls side
i don't agree with putting your best cb i assume you meant vontae over welker...we need him on the boundary...i think the better thing to do is let sapp press welker and jam him at the los and then let a crafty ilb with such a feel for the passing game drop reading bradys eyes for anything underneath on that side...sort of double him without doubling him by dropping the lb after the snap occasionally...i like burnett being able to jump in front of anything late over the middle and underneath
Yeah, I don't disagree. Anything you do leaves open other things. If you're going to cover Hernandez with Smith, then that pretty much means you're going to have Nolan Carroll out there against anything but a power look. Shading the safety is probably the way to go, but Carroll was so shaky in the preseason and the Patriots' receivers are so crafty, as you say, it makes me nervous. Fortunately, with Moss (and Brandon Tate) out of the picture I'm not scared of any of the Patriots' receivers going deep.
i don't agree that vontae lacks top end speed...he ran 4.4 flat pretty much at the combine at 200 plus lbs and has eye popping quick acceleration and explosion and closing speed
I just meant truly elite deep speed. It's not a knock against the guy. It probably doesn't matter though. He's every bit as fast as Revis, which means he's fast enough. The short arms thing bothers me more, but the mental lapses thing bother me more than anything.
i think we're gonna see a lot of 2 te sets with 2 wrs and a single back tonight...keeping gronk in to help solder over wake and hernandez flexed out with ocho and branch the 2 wrs...i also expect a lot of no huddle from the patriots to keep us from being able to sub in fresh d line personnel...i hope our guys conditioning is up to par cause the pats o is gonna test it
I heard a statistic yesterday than the Patriots had two or more tight ends on the field for more than 600 offensive snaps last year, which was 200 more than the next closest team. It's definitely their base set now. One reason I think we matchup with their defense fairly well is that we have some big guys (Dansby, Burnett, Sean Smith) who are also really good athletes in coverage. Most teams don't have people of that caliber on their team. Another factor I didn't cover is the fact that Nolan has had pretty good success against Brady in the last two years. In the first Patriots game and in the Pats game against the Broncos the year before, Nolan's defenses frustrated the hell of out Brady... as much as any team's frustrated him.
Great analyses, though.
Running perimeter to the rescue!! Just bush and not Hillis
