Game Recap: New England Patriots defeat Tennessee Titans, 59-0

I’ve seen fans from rival teams going to other sites just to try to stir them up against the Pats.

If Tom had come into this game putting 50 some points up against good defenses, there might be something to saying they should ease up in the first half. Every game this year has been close, however, painfully close.

Close win against Buffalo, who had a close win against the Jets.
10 point loss to the Jets, because Brady couldn’t connect.
10 point lead against the Ravens turned into a squeaker at the end. Ravens ended this weekend with a 2 point loss to the Vikings Favres.
10 point lead against the Broncos turned into a 3 point loss in overtime, because Brady couldn’t connect.
Then we start off with a 10 point lead in this game end of first quarter. I’m thinking, crappy field, no way we hold this. It’s going to be a fight.

Then the second quarter happened with Brady connecting at will. That didn’t happen in the first quarter.
Then half-time. Was that a fluke? Would the Titans adjust?
One drive from Tom to show it wasn’t a fluke and it was the battle of the backups.

Why was Welker in? Why didn’t they just run it?
They’ve got 4 game-day receivers (not counting Slater who hasn’t played WR this year). They sat Moss who got cracked in the head. Played Aiken and Edelman alot. But mostly, gave Hoyer a chance to throw to some real targets.
Eleven times. That’s all the passes he threw.
We had 4 game day backs. Morris got hurt. Maroney ran most of the first half. Faulk did pass blocking. Law firm ran most of the fourth quarter.
11 Yards per pass from Hoyer, 10 Yards per carry from Law Firm. What’s the difference? Blaming the corners for not stopping them vs the linebackers?

Hate if you want. Yell, “Karma!”, if you want. Say, “No Class”, “Cheaters”, “Beli-(fill in your own suffix)”, if you want.

We, the fans, are happy to see our team clicking for once this season. I’m sorry for the Titans fans. They deserve better, but they deserve it from their team: the players and the coaches. Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call to the organization and they will be a better team for it. If they come back and beat the Pats 118-0, so be it. It won’t be because of Karma, though, it will be because the better team played the game and earned the win. I won’t ask, “How could they dare score so many points on us?” Instead, I’ll ask, “How could we let them?”

was whoever is third on their depth chart. 0 yards, 0 turnovers. Well done, anonymous buddy!

There were a few negatives – inability to cut down some of those Johnson runs; generally iffy tackling technique (just because you’ve forced some fumbles this season doesn’t mean you have to decapitate the guy every time – wrap up tackles, dammit!).

Otherwise… the whole running up the score thing makes no sense. Scoring a lot of points is insulting to a team, apparently. Putting in your third stringers for half? three-quarters? of a game isn’t? Not trying to score points because the other team is awful isn’t slightly patronising? Ugh. You may as well install a mercy rule, or give them a towel to throw in. Maybe Lendale White would stomp on it afterwards.

As long as the contracts (and therefore, livelihood) of players and their families is predicated on good performances and statistics, any coach who tells his players to stop trying is basically defrauding the players out of the chance to earn what they’re worth. It might be fine in high school and amateur leagues, but if you’re being paid to throw 3000, 4000, 5000 yards in a season and the coach tells you to start taking knees, your agent ought to demand a trade.

Offense:

1) Running backs. Sammy Morris got injured. Is it serious? What does this mean for the backfield? A lot more BJGE? Will BJGE finally get the chance to show what he really has? LoMo had a great day, but that could be a result of bad conditions and a bad defense; I’ll see how he does after the bye before claiming his greatness. However, If SaMo is gone, that leaves us with Faulk, LoMo and BJGE. We have 3 weeks to get healthy, so hopefully the injury isn’t too serious.

2) Receivers. We’ve had no questions with Welker and Moss, so this isn’t about them. Edelman and Aiken saw more game time and I was impressed by Aiken’s play. I feel like he can take the 3rd receiver position while Edelman takes the slot opposite of Welker. I’m pretty happy with this result, but what does this mean we do with Galloway? Can we trade him? Would anyone be interested? We have him under contract so will we keep him around? Also, we didn’t need to get our TEs to catch balls against the Titans, but I still feel like they’re a weapon that we’re not addressing and using to its full potential. If we start utilizing our TEs, our offense will reach an even higher level of proficiency.

On the defensive end…

1) Running Defense. I’ve already talked about my thoughts on running defense. I think the defense still needs to do a better job of stopping the big run, as its been said. The main thing that needs to happen is a better job on the initial contact. A lot of time, the RB manages to escape from the first contact, who should have made the tackle at the line of scrimmage, or behind, and scurry for extra yardage. Fortunately, apart from the Vikings, all the top teams are really pass based offenses. That’s not to say they can’t run the ball, but they are all pass first…

2)…which leads to our Secondary. They have been phenomenal. Butler played admirably in the conditions and I like him playing opposite to Bodden. Meri and McGowan have provided a better 1-2 Safety tandem than I could have ever imagined. They smothered their receivers and made them paranoid of reaching for the ball with their huge hits. If they continue to play at this level of strength, where they’re causing turnovers and they’re getting into the receivers’ heads, then our secondary will be great for years to come.

This is pro football so if a team wants to run up the score, it is their right. It might be a bad strategy in the long run – teams might come back angry next time – but other than that, I can’t see anything wrong with it.

But the thing is: The Patriots cannot be criticized with it this time. Brady was pulled halfway through the THIRD quarter and there was no scoring in the fourth quarter. Could the Patriots have dropped 70 on the Titans on sunday? Of course they could, but they didn’t and why would they?