Ask Pats Pulpit

All of the Vikings loses were really close and all of the Patriots wins have been really close. So i expect another nail biter…it could go either way.
A desperate team is always a dangerous team

1) The Patriots come back to Gillete physically exhausted from 2 extreme difficult wins (one being 3000 miles away), and Adrian Peterson takes that to his advantage and runs his Nike cleats all over Wilfork and the Run D (kind of like Ray Rice did in the playoff game last year).

2) The Vikings come to town ready to prove themselves, but it falls just short, since the Patriots are pretty much unbeatable at home, and have 3 straight home wins this year.

Or it could be a little of both.

so i decided to post one over here.

the first time I noticed it was during OTA’s earlier in the year…and I didn’t seem to mind it.

Hey, he’s a multi-millionaire, a football star, AND married to one of the hottest women to walk this little spinning ball we call Earth. If he wants to wear his hair Don King-style, I wouldn’t have issue with it, as long as he is with his hair Sundays.

and are you going to say no to something a supermodel finds attractive?

he gives hope to rest of ‘normal’ sized people in this country.

Hopefully, Jared Allen doesn’t wake up before the game Sunday. That guy can be a beast. My wife thinks he just forgot his Wheaties.

Our pass game has been ugly as well at times, and we seem to no longer have that deep threat guy in Randy Moss. Where the heck did that guy go anyway?

I still don’t know if Woody is for real, but he keeps doing his thing and I’m becoming a believer. With Welker, Woodhead, and Edelman, it shall be “Death By Smurfs!”, or so we hope.

I really want Vollmer (Current RT) to play LT and and use Quinn the backup RT to play RT.

I expect we’ll give up 2 sacks — one on each side.

And I don’t care if Woodhead’s an umpa loompa. If he is, we’ll take two more for a complete set, please.

When you’ve got a rookie TE with the most receiving TDs and a rookie WR/TE with the most receiving yards on the team, it’s easy to forget that they’re still actually rookies. It’s only readily apparent when they mess up – like Hernandez having two drops in overtime two weeks ago. They’re still learning their trade, despite good production in the meantime.

Branch was a Seahawk until a little while ago, Woodhead was a Jet, and Tate’s only 7 games into his career. It’s definitely growing pains, but what they have done thus far suggests they’ll improve.

Have to give them their props

Stinking Jets.

people were a bit shocked. It was sort of like being in a good sleep (after a huge divisional win in Miami, first road win in a while), and then, just when you’re about to get into the really juicy part of your dream…suddenly someone punches you right in the face, and you wake up and your nose is bleeding.

As news came about of how Moss was “yelling at coaches”, and after his 15 minute monologue after Week 1, the thought around fans was his writing was on the wall. That quickly though? That wasn’t expected.

2 weeks after the trade, I’d say there are still a few folks who feel that Moss’s sole presence on the field would pay dividends for the other weapons Brady has to choose from (Woodhead, Welker, Branch, Hernandez, Gronkowski, Tate), and you could say after last week’s game, they were a bit justified. But it was becoming evident that the issues Moss had with his contract would bowl over to the younger guys in the locker room. With the transition the offense is going through, the staff didn’t want to take the chance of keeping him there.

For the most part…I think Pats fans are OK with it. Moss has technically not really been a part of the Pats’s principal plans for 3 games (the Dolphins game he had 0 catches), and they have won all 3 games.

imo they screwed the 4th and 2 call last yr

…because there are some plays that go in our favor that we have to shake our heads and go, “No way was that a good call, but we’ll take it anyways” and there are others that go against us when and we throw our remotes at the TV.

…and you’re trying to pick up a piece of paper. It cuts you. You pick it up again. It cuts you again. It keeps cutting you until you give up and do something else.

That’s the Patriots offense. Tom Brady will throw passes the following way:

Wes Welker – Slants/Screens within 5 yards of the Line of Scrimmage.
Brandon Tate – Out/Hitch/In 10 yards from the LoS
Deion Branch – Hitch/In/Out 15 yards from the LoS
Aaron Hernandez – Screen 5 yards from the LoS, Hitch 15 yards from the LoS
Rob Gronkowski – Dump 3 yards from LoS, Fade in the End Zone
Danny Woodhead – Dump 3 yards from LoS

The main purpose of the offense is to maximize yards after catch (which is the opposite of our defense which focuses on eliminating yards after the catch). They’ll throw to receivers who have space with a blocker or two in front of them in order to pick up 5+ yards after the receptions.

When the O-line was a strength, he grabbed Randy Moss, a field stretcher, and went vertical.
As the O-line has declined, he switched to multiple TE formations, and more short patterns.

When the D-line was dominant, he got more pressure with pass rush.
As the D-line has dropped off, he’s added speed in the secondary.

In the mind of Belichick, there is a goal that he’s trying to accomplish. The reality is, though, that your team likely won’t meet that standard. He emphasizes the strengths of the players he has, and chooses formations that cover their weaknesses.

Likewise, he will try to take away your strengths (Peterson, and Harvin come to mind), and make you beat him with your 3rd and 4th options (which Favre can do).

The game plan last week won’t look anything like the game plan this week. One game may feature WRs, others TEs or RBs, etc.

Most times they run a 3-4. Other times they switch to 4-3 (sometimes for whole games). Sometimes they run the Joker front.

From 2007-early 2010, they had an offence that was a threat to score in one or two passes, basically due to Randy Moss. That’s fine, but it means that unless your D can get off the field one way or another (ie – turnover or giving up a quick TD), they’ll be on the field a long time. In other words, a high-scoring offence works well when you’ve got a risk-taking D.

However, the Pats had a pretty consistent defence – bend-but-don’t-break, allow underneath chain-moving passes and then tighten up in the Red Zone. That’s the wrong type of D to pair with a quick-scoring O, because it means your D is on the field the entire day.

Now they’ve gone back to their old dink-and-dunk game, which can churn out loooooooong drives (they had an 8 minute scoring drive last week against a good Chargers D), and that’s a great balance with a bend-but-don’t-break D. They can control clock on both O and D by playing conservatively if they wish, and with Brady at QB and some real speedsters on O, they can score quickly if necessary.

1) Accuracy

2) Decision Making

3) Pocket Presence

Any chance they split snaps ala McNabb/Vick last year?

or what’s left of it.

They'll score.

Go get a Bieber/Brady haircut, watch some Twilight movies, and let the grown-ups talk football. Also, get off my lawn : )

or get upset. Methinks you think to many thoughts of yourself.

good luck Pats, hope you guys lose.

Personally I feel good about this game I think our offense is starting to click more and more. If we can get Favre on enough medication where he can feel no more pain I think we have a good shot of using AD and Harvin to pull your secondary up and hit Moss for something deep. The second thing I see about this game is that teh Vikes D is set up like your’s to take away the YAC. We do worse with people who are going to throw th eball deep against us as our linbackers and Corners are invarilably better than our safeties. But everyone in that back field can lay a lick. You have a lot of weapons out there and I think Brady will be playing better than Brett, but I don’t think it’s enough to deny us the win we need very badly.

Good luck to you all and I hope for a good, fun injury free game.

Although I will pay to see Allen sack Brady then cut his hair off on the field.

deserve each other!

You transitioned from predicting a win to outright picking a fight really quickly! I think you need to look over the responses to your posts again and calm down a bit… It’s like you posted here, went to a different site, got into an arguement, then came back here thinking it was us and went a little crazy?

Remember, the Dr. prescribed those meds for a reason! TAKE THEM! :)

if/when Favre’s season goes bad, it goes really bad. He’d be riding a 110 passer rating, 70% completion rate and 2:1 TD-Int ratio until some indeterminate point of the season, and then start throwing 4 Int games willy-nilly.

Did it with the Packers (last throw was a pick), Jets (last throw was a pick), last season (last throw was a pick), etc.

Good luck to your team for the rest of the season. Your team looks pretty solid and I’d rather the Pats win the AFC east than the Jets. Love to say we’ll see you again this season but we got a big, big hole to dig ourselves out of.