New England Patriots Links 12/28/09 - Patriots Get The T-Shirt: AFC East Division Champions!
by Marima on Dec 28, 2009 9:41 AM EST
in New England Patriots News
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Bill Belichick was pleased with the way his players won Sunday.
That was really a nice performance by the players today. I thought those guys really did a good job. We had a real good week of practice with the holidays and everything. But I thought they did a good job of being focused all the way through - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday [and they] just carried it right into today. I thought they played a real good football game today. The players stepped up. They made play after play. We just did a lot of things right out there. I'm really proud of them. I thought they earned what they got today. It's a good win for us, a real good win. Right now we'll just enjoy it here for a little while and then kind of figure out what's next. But it's good to walk off that field as AFC East Champions this year and I'm really proud of the way the players stepped up and played today.
Randy Moss comments about the fan on the jumbotron wearing his mask.
It was entertaining. You know, I had a lot of teammates wanting me to mess with the guy. He put a little humor into it and I enjoyed it, man. That's the thing about having fun. When things go right, you get the fans in the game, you get the players in the game, so it was a stadium full of fun today and I think we all enjoyed it.
Tom Brady answers whether Bill O'Brien's game plan was getting multiple positions involved on offense.
Yeah, everybody was involved. Randy [Moss] had three big touchdowns. You know, anytime he scores, that's big for our offense. He's such a great target. He made some good reads in there. A few of those plays were ad-libbed on those touchdowns. Bake [Chris Baker] had another one. He's made a couple of really good plays for us this year and we've just got to continue to find ways to spread the ball around to different guys. And Wes [Welker] was great as usual. He took some really big hits in there. The running game really complemented our passing game and I think that's what we're going to need going forward.
TEAM TALK
- Post Game Pressers: Bill Belichick (8 min.), Randy Moss (3 min.), Tom Brady (7 min.), Wes Welker (3.20 min.) Plus Transcripts.
- Post Game Quotes: Patriots.and Jaguars.
- Game Notes: Patriots vs. Jaguars. Team and player milestones reached and records set.
- Erik Scalavino notes the Patriots are playoff-bound following their 35-7 disposal of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
LOCAL LINKS
- Albert Breer wraps things up from Gillette and gives the coaches credit for making first quarter adjustments when Ron Brace was having trouble with Brad Meester. Myron Pryor filled in nicely for Vince Wilfork.
- Shalise Manza Young recaps the Patriots 35-7 pasting of the Jaguars, and their relief at clinching the division title with its accompanying playoff berth.
- Ian Rapoport reports the Patriots reclaimed the division title with their 35-7 beatdown of the Jacksonville Jaguars, noting 11-5 wasn't good enough last year but 10-5 is now.
- Karen Guregian observes there haven’t been many games this season where fans felt they saw the best of Brady or the Pats’ offense - but this was one of them.
- Robert Lee analyzes Sunday's game concluding that it was all Patriots on both sides of the ball.
- Jim Donaldson notes that good times rolled again in Foxboro and the Patriots will be playing another game at Gillette in the postseason.
- Mark Farinella notes this Patriots team looked like a team that deserves to go back to the playoffs.
- Dan Duggan notes yesterday's extraordinary performance has become the norm for Wes Welker, who broke his own team record for receptions in a season with 122. Even after missing 2 games, Welker leads the league and is tied for 3rd best in NFL history.
- Chris Forsberg notes Wes Welker broke his own franchise season record for receptions yesterday, catching all 13 passes thrown his way to bring his season total to 122.
- Mike Reiss reports the Patriots hit their season high 197 rushing yards against Jacksonville.
- Mark Farinella points out the safeties played a huge role in the 35-7 victory over the Jaguars, and that's one of the main reasons the team is returning to the playoffs.
- Mike Reiss lists who's up and who's down following the Patriots victory.
- Christopher Price offers ten things we learned and talks about the fun exchange between Randy Moss and the fan in the Moss mask.
- Mike Reiss presents ten fast facts from the Patriots' victory.
- Ron Borges offers the Best and Worst of yesterday's game.
- Steve Buckley talks about the return of the Moss Mask and the Patriots having a lot of fun at Gillette on Sunday.
- Albert Breer notes Leigh Bodden is happy to be going to the playoffs for the first time.
- Kirk Minihane says for the first time since 2006 the Patriots might be peaking as they head into the playoffs. In the past six weeks they’ve gone from Super Bowl favorite (or co-favorite) to playoff non-factor to the team that no one wants to play.
- Mike Reiss asserts the Patriots' impressive showing against Jacksonville offers reason for hope.
- Chris Forsberg notes Tom Brady's run of success against the Jaguars continued Sunday.
- Ron Borges points out that after clinching a playoff berth, anything more these Patriots do is a bonus.
- Mike Petraglia details Jacksonville's fourth-and-2 attempt from their own 35 yard line in the first quarter, and what Jack Del Rio was thinking.
- Boston Herald Patriots Notebook: The Pats D took away the Jaguars best weapons, then took away the ball; Fred Taylor (11 carries, 35 yards) played in his first game since October and came away with former teammate Maurice Jones-Drew's jersey; Patriots played without Vince Wilfork and his replacement, Myron Pryor, had five tackles; For the 4th consecutive game, the Pats didn't allow a sack or a hurry; Shawn Springs is starting to get his swagger back; James Sanders delivered the hit of the game on Marcedes Lewis.
- Mike Reiss lists the Patriots 2010 opponents along with the AFC East at home (Colts, Ravens, Bengals, Vikings) and away (Chargers, Browns, Steelers, Bears, Lions).
NATIONAL NEWS
- NFL Game Center Jacksonville Jaguars at New England Patriots. Recap, analysis, stats, drive charts and those nifty highlight videos.
- Tedy Bruschi (ESPNBoston) Caldwell and the Colts picked the wrong time to rest.
- Andrew Perloff (SI) Against the Grain: Week 16 notes.
- Matt Bowen (Nat'l Football Post) Sunday Rewind: Week 16.
- Charles Robinson (Yahoo! Sports) Colts throw in the towel on perfection.
VIEW FROM JACKSONVILLE
- Vito Stellino (Florida Times-Union) Another Jacksonville Jaguars season slips away.
- Michael C. Wright (Florida Times-Union) Fred Taylor makes some memories at reunion.
- Michael C. Wright (Florida Times-Union) It's no mas for Jaguars against Moss, Brady.
- Michael C. Wright (Florida Times-Union) How the game was lost.
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Not so sure about this...
…
Kirk Minihane says for the first time since 2006 the Patriots might be peaking as they head into the playoffs. In the past six weeks they’ve gone from Super Bowl favorite (or co-favorite) to playoff non-factor to the team that no one wants to play.
As much as I want to be that team, the Chargers are still the team no one wants to face. We’ve gone from non-factor to dark horse and that’s just where I want us to be.
Hire OC.
Best line...
…
Q: Is Laurence Maroney healthy and how much was his not playing due to the fumble in the first quarter?
BB: I think all our backs were productive today. They all had opportunities to carry the ball and play and they were all productive. Whichever ones were out there it seemed like they all made positive plays.
Hire OC.
The more I've learned about this
The more I doubt seriously that ‘punishment’ was at all in the picture. I think that BB gave LOMO a spell after the fumble to get over being bummed out, but after that, with the game well in hand he basically decided to give Morris and Taylor as many snaps as possible since those guys have missed so much of the season.
LoMo NEEDS the reps, though.
I’d be inclined to agree with you, given Belichick’s (more lenient) management style toward players as of late, but LoMo is the sort of RB that needs his in-game reps to stay effective, both short- and long-term. Giving him time off has never helped him. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that he cranks it up toward the end of the season; rather, he’s the type of back that gets stronger with more activity.
Methinks that three goal line fumbles is BAAAAAD news for LoMo’s prospective reps going into the playoffs.
I tend to agree.
My life has been a trivial pursuit. Trivia: where three roads meet.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
by SlotMachinePlayer on Dec 28, 2009 11:59 AM EST up reply actions
Brady returning to 03-04 mindset?
I’m glad to see that the offense seems to be returning to the mentality that the best receiver is the open receiver. I know there has been a good deal of chatter throughout the sports blogosphere about how focused Brady and the offense have become on Moss and Welker (especially Moss, as evidenced by Brady’s seemingly constant lobs to Moss in double, triple and even quadruple coverage).
Even though the Pats are mote talented at WR than they were in the era of Branch, Patten, Givens and Brown, the offense has been more one-dimensional. Belichick wrote the playbook on shutting down one-dimensional offenses, and then fell into his own trap. It’s good to see the team (hopefully) getting back to its successful core offensive philosophies.
Still 50% of the passes went to Welker
of course that’s because he gets open.
My life has been a trivial pursuit. Trivia: where three roads meet.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
by SlotMachinePlayer on Dec 28, 2009 11:10 AM EST up reply actions
Exactly.
You can’t fault TB for throwing to an open receiver, even when that open receiver is the same guy 50% of the time. And it never seems like Brady has tunnel vision on Welker, as he often did with Moss earlier this season and late 2007.
It becomes a problem, though, like in the Saints game, when they find out a way to blanket him. That is where the under-utilization of 3rd WR and TE becomes disastrous. Including Edelman/Aiken and Baker/Watson in the gameplan is going to be clutch in the playoffs.
But what is he?
Is he just a Welker clone, or does he bring more to the table? It appears he can run deeper routes, but does he bring the rights skills to the table to sufficiently complement the existing offensive weapons?
Honestly, I don’t think another Welker-esque player helps this offense. I think there needs to be a Tate/Stallworth out there, running the streaks and keeping that 3rd DB off Moss’ deep slant routes.
you're right, in that if he needs his own specialty
unless he can just get open. There’s value in that alone.
Keep the faith!
I'd like to see him and Welker on crossing routes across the middle.
One 5 yds out, the other about 10. See who defense bites on and go to the other guy.
Another good option is to line them up bhind each other (like Welker does with Moss) and let them split at some point down the field. See who the defender follows, and hit the open guy.
You could line Welker, Edelman, and Moss all on one side and have them split off (sometimes Moss takes an underneath route to see if the safety follows) combined with some soft “picks”, someone will be open.
My life has been a trivial pursuit. Trivia: where three roads meet.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
by SlotMachinePlayer on Dec 28, 2009 12:07 PM EST up reply actions
Well, actually, having more 'threats', whether flanker or slot
spreads the defensive coverage.
If Edelman develops into even a Welker clone then his mere presence in a 4-WR set really opens up the defense.
Much of this season, the ‘problems’ stalling the offense have been that defenses have been only giving cursory coverage to Aiken or Edelman (when they’ve even been healthy) and focused entirely on Moss and Welker. The Carolina game, where Aiken was inactive and Edelman was still in a cast was probably the prime example of how focused defenses become when we have no other recieving threats on the field.
The Saints offense is a good example of how having multiple recieiving threats helps the team overall. It spreads the coverage and prevents loading the box – thus helping both the passing and running games.
You don’t want to be running 4WR all the time, but you need it at times and when you run it you need the defense to respect all 4 guys.
Ideally, if Edelmand and Tate prove to be legit, you are looking next year at a 4 WR set of Moss – Welker – Edelman – Tate. That looks pretty good, if you ask me.
Welker underneath left, Edelman underneath to the right
At the moment, Welker’s playing safety valve half of the time. If Edelman got regular snaps opposite Welker, it means that the defence has to key on both of them to completely shut out Brady’s underneath options – if shutting down Welker is difficult (and only two teams seem to have done it this year) shutting down Welker and Edelman is nigh on impossible. Also, having both on the field means that either one has a significantly greater chance of breaking it – if they run underneath options on both sides, just imagine how spread out the field will be. If they don’t spread, the one of them is open. If they do spread, then the middle is open for a TE or the other WR to run through the middle, or even a RB draw or pass through the guts. It’s another matchup issue to give opposition D co-ordinators nightmares – a field that isn’t just deep (as long as Randy/Brady is still going) but also wide – guys who can tear it up on the flats. Spreading 11 guys over a box 50 yards deep and the entire width of the field wide means there’s gaps everywhere to fill with TEs and WRs.
Token southern hemisphere guy - 14,688km from Foxboro. That's 9128 miles, for you heathens.
by Comedic.Sans on Dec 28, 2009 8:35 PM EST up reply actions
yeah, you could tell the TV announcers were 'WOW'ed by him
on that nice catch and run.
As he gets healthier and more experienced, he is going to be a hell of a nice addition to this offense. We will eventually need another deep threat to complement / replace Moss – hopefully Tate will be that guy.
That's a natural result of the constant double-coverage on Moss
Even in a game like this where the Jags couldn’t play exotic 7+ coverages, they still (like every team against the Pats) kept a Safety over the top to help on Moss. You have to. If there is no Safety over the top, then Moss would score 5+ TDs against all but the absolute top cornerbacks. So teams instead choose the slow death of Welker catching a dozen balls.
You know that Brady’s most typical read progression is going to go something like Moss – Welker – Aiken/Edelman – TE/RB. So with Moss often doubled, Welker gets the actual toss the vast majority of the time because unless he gets doubled as well (see: Saints game) he is typically going to be wide open. And when the OL and running game are working as well as they were yesterday, the LBs have to play close to the line and their was even MORE room for Welker in the middle.
The cool thing about this game is that, again because of how the OL and RBs played, Brady was also able to hit 6 other guys for receptions.
With all the records Welker is breaking
the most phenominal part of it is that he missed two whole games.
He is at the top of the league while being two games behind everyone else. Makes you wonder what he would be doing had he played those two games. It also makes you wonder how much better the Pats would have played early on had he suited up.
My life has been a trivial pursuit. Trivia: where three roads meet.
The more you know, the more you know that you don't know.
by SlotMachinePlayer on Dec 28, 2009 11:09 AM EST reply actions
How Brady got his groove back.
Welker has been huge in helping TB put things back together. I think the two games he missed really set TB (and, consequently, the entire offense) back. I remember a few plays from the first Jets game in particular that really seemed to bother Tom, and they likely wouldn’t have happened had Welker been there. The first was a 3rd and long-ish, and they threw to Edelman, who dropped the pass. The other was a similar 3rd situation, and Galloway dropped the pass. Both routes were classic Welker routes, but the receivers were not up to par (though it appears Edelman has progressed [and healed]). I think this really shook TB’s confidence, especially given everyone’s lofty expectations at season’s beginning.
Although only small events in the bigger 16-game pciture, I think plays like these, resulting directly from Welker’s absence, set them back considerably.
Yeah - you just KNOW that if he had played those first two games
and even if he only had about 5 receptions in each, he’d be at about 132 receptions – well within striking distance of the record by Harrison.
And if he had put up ~10 in each …. he’d be blowing by it.
This was probably the best game that the Offensive Line has played all year
If the Pats are ‘peaking’ it in large part has to do with getting healthy – especially at the O-line.
Brady was not touched and had a ton of time all day – he actually used a second read on one of the TDs to Moss (the one that started with a big double-pump that was really a pullback because of the safety, according the Brady). you can’t do that without a ton of time.
The RBs had giant holes to run through all day, no matter who was carrying the rock. This prevented any 7 man coverage schemes so in order to double Moss or Welker, that left other guys open – hence Brady threw the ball to 6 other guys for a change (including 3 – count’em THREE to the tight ends!).
The additional protection time also allowed Brady the luxury of going deeper into his progressions to find those other guys wide open.
The Jags defensive line is not a sub-par line. Their front 7 is actually very, very good. So this was a very good performance by the Pats O-line.
Glad you mentioned the O-Line play
Brady looked so smooth, like didn’t even break a sweat, even ducking under that one defenseman. It looked almost choreographed, lol.
Keep the faith!
The cameras.
Brady isn’t that good. We just stole the Jags’ defensive signals using illegally placed video cameras the last time we played them….in 2006. And they CLEARLY haven’t changed since that game. So Brady knew it was coming. It’s not talent or hard work or anything like that…it’s cheating.
That was my best ’Phins fan impression. Hold the applause, please.
*clap* *clap* *clap*
well done sir! You almost outdid your goal. I almost thought you were a Steelers fan, let alone a Dolpin fan!
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