New England Patriots Links 2/15/12 - 2011: One of Belichick's Best?

Its not as though we NEED a deep threat – the SB was one or two plays away from a win, few of which were deep plays. Furthermore, we are capable of end-of-game drives, as shown against the Cowboys. On the other hand, though, we did have trouble against the Jets, Steelers, and Giants. The only reason we didn’t lose to the Jets this year is because their offense has taken a major regression. I think we should get a deep threat, but when you’re 13-3 and a few plays away from an SB win, I don’t think theres anything you really “need.”

It was part of the Steelers game plan, and the Giants twice. Guys on their team have said so. Two of those losses didn’t matter, one did. Do we just hope we don’t face them again?

Okay so the elite teams? What was Baltimore forgotten? Brady didn’t have a good day passing, but he put some excellent drives together that helped led them to scores. Who knows what would have happened if Brady didn’t just decide to throw it deep (out of nowhere) for an INT, or if Woody didn’t fumble.

And if you remember, we faced elite talent in the regular season in 2010. And we beat most of those talents. In the superbowl we had bad breaks that aided to our loss. passing had not much to do with it. Catching the Ball did though.

That’s fine until there is only 56 seconds on the clock at the end of the game, and we can’t burn large chunks of yardage quickly. That’s we could have used versus the Giants twice, and Buffalo once.

Didn’t help us in 07 vs. the Giants either.

Also there was TWO drops? Lets face it, ANY team is going to have difficulty driving the field with less than a minute to go. Having a deep threat would have helped us there of course. I never said it WOULDN’T. But we could have drove down the field WITHOUT a deep threat. If Branch caught the damn ball on the last drive, the situation would not have resulted in a 60+ yard hail mary.

Hell, I’ll go as far to say that IF Welker caught it and IF we scored a TD on that drive, or IF we won the superbowl, NO ONE here would be crying for a deep threat (not saying you are by the way). The game was important, yes, but you have 3 games to judge your cause. Which all were losses. I have two good seasons of judgment where our offense was top 3 and hard to stop without a deep threat. You can throw in the playoffs of course, but its obvious its not as much as the offensive scheme more than the execution. Which we can improve on.

Do we absolutely NEED a deep threat? No. It just makes it a lot harder to win in some circumstances. If we play perfectly, we might even be able to compensate. I mean there are one armed pitchers out there, and some of them are pretty damn good, but would they be better with an extra arm? Funny how you don’t see those guys in the majors, although my aunt dated a guy that had one arm in the minors.

Right. In SOME circumstances. If circumstances suggest under two minutes, even the 07 team can have difficult.

All I’m arguing for is more tools in the toolbox. Not to throw away tools we already have.

And I’m arguing that its fine if you want the tools. Just saying you don’t absolutely NEED them which you yourself agreed with above.

Why does it have to be one or the other? It doesn’t. I also don’t want JUST a deep threat. I just want a well rounded receiver that can ALSO be a deep threat. In fact, I think the more well rounded the guy is the better.

Agreed. But I would absolutely love if we got Jarius Wright or Joe Adams. They are not tall, but both are blazing fast and they are playmakers. May not be deep threats, but our offense will still be top 3, and will still be able to compete with most teams in the NFL.

They did get away with a bit of a hold on the TD pass by I think it was Waters, but complaining about holding non-calls in the playoffs is basically a fools exercise at this point.

That 1st Pats drive was a clinic. I have to say, when the Pats offense is clicking (which seems to be highly correlated with the o-line giving Brady impeccable protection) it is one of the most amazing sights in football. It is close to seeing that Saints offense at 100%. This isn’t about Brady vs. Manning or anything, but when I see the Colts offense (Manning era) and Packers offense play exceptional, I always think “Man, is Manning or Rodgers on fire”, compared to when teh Saints or Patriots are on a roll, I think “Man, is that a beautifully designed offense.” This isn’t a knock on Brady or Brees (who, to me, are #2-#3 in the NFL right now – Rodgers is #1), but more a compliment of Sean Payton and BB/BOB as schemers of offense.