The Film Room: Why The Patriots Should Be So Very, Very Afraid Of The Texans

[thunderkyss]

I thought Martin was doing pretty good for a while there. still don't understand why we took him out of the offense for a little while there. it was nice to see that end around, but we've had games where he got 4 or 5 targets then poof, he was gone.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

I thought Martin was doing pretty good for a while there. still don't understand why we took him out of the offense for a little while there. it was nice to see that end around, but we've had games where he got 4 or 5 targets then poof, he was gone.

Critical drops on top of not winning the physical battle to get into good position to catch the ball. He also slipped on at least a couple of plays, too.

[michaelm]

Originally Posted by thunderkyss

I thought Martin was doing pretty good for a while there. still don't understand why we took him out of the offense for a little while there. it was nice to see that end around, but we've had games where he got 4 or 5 targets then poof, he was gone.

I tailgate next to AJ (Alan Burge), and we were talking about KMart before the Bengals game.
I mentioned to him that I hadn't seen Martin run any end arounds in a while, and he said he couldn't remember any recent ones either.
Low and behold, Kmart had a pretty decent one in that game. 16 yards.
I'd like to see more of that.

Funny, I just looked at his stats, and he averages only 8.5 yds per reception, but 13.3 yds per rush.

[TheMatrix31]

Burge deleted his twitter? I knew I was missing something from my feed.

[panamamyers]

I disagree that the Texans have to play above their level and Patriots blow their level.
I think if both teams play as well as they can then Houston wins.

We are mistakenly thinking this is a great NE team because of what they did to the Texans. Then you look at the Rams game and the Colts game, and half of their point differential came off of those three games.

Go look at some of the boxscores over the second half of the season.

Jaguars outgained them by 100 yards of offense.
Bills outgained them by 140 yards.

Patriots got very luck to go 7-1 over the second half of the season. They didn't steamroll everyone. They got steamrolled by the Niners, and by all rights, probably should have been beaten by the Jaguars and Bills.

The first game, the Patriots got all the bounces. You can't expect all of those plays to play out the same way. It's a different game. It's not a DVR where we just replay the first game. Kareem falls on that fumble. Schaub doesn't throw a pick when Foster was wide open short....Just those two plays break the Texans way and Houston probably wins the game.

[ZPatsFan]

This has been an enlightening discussion and great analysis. Tommorrow is another day, and we will see two good teams go at it.

Whatever the outcome, I wish y'all a good time and a clean game wihout injury.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by ZPatsFan

This has been an enlightening discussion and great analysis. Tommorrow is another day, and we will see two good teams go at it.

Whatever the outcome, I wish y'all a good time and a clean game wihout injury.

I hope we have a great game to watch, and may the luckier team win.

[GRONKED]

Originally Posted by panamamyers

I disagree that the Texans have to play above their level and Patriots blow their level.
I think if both teams play as well as they can then Houston wins.

We are mistakenly thinking this is a great NE team because of what they did to the Texans. Then you look at the Rams game and the Colts game, and half of their point differential came off of those three games.

Go look at some of the boxscores over the second half of the season.

Jaguars outgained them by 100 yards of offense.
Bills outgained them by 140 yards.

Patriots got very luck to go 7-1 over the second half of the season. They didn't steamroll everyone. They got steamrolled by the Niners, and by all rights, probably should have been beaten by the Jaguars and Bills.

The first game, the Patriots got all the bounces. You can't expect all of those plays to play out the same way. It's a different game. It's not a DVR where we just replay the first game. Kareem falls on that fumble. Schaub doesn't throw a pick when Foster was wide open short....Just those two plays break the Texans way and Houston probably wins the game.

Lollll what are you smoking?

Steamrolled by niners? Idk, when i think steamrolled im thinkin more along the lines of what pats and packers did to you. Not a down to the wire 3 pt loss in which everything that could go wrong did.
Analyzing yards? I think how your team performs in crunch time, in must win games is more relevant.

@ pats. Yikes. Home vs colts...ugly but youll take it. Home vs vikes...uh oh. @ colts...

...

Texans can win, but they definitely "shouldnt". Itll take your best game of the season, and, going in at least, its been awhile since weve seen that form.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by GRONKED

Lollll what are you smoking?

Steamrolled by niners? Idk, when i think steamrolled im thinkin more along the lines of what pats and packers did to you. Not a down to the wire 3 pt loss in which everything that could go wrong did.
Analyzing yards? I think how your team performs in crunch time, in must win games is more relevant.

@ pats. Yikes. Home vs colts...ugly but youll take it. Home vs vikes...uh oh. @ colts...

...

Texans can win, but they definitely "shouldnt". Itll take your best game of the season, and, going in at least, its been awhile since weve seen that form.

Hey, I hope the Texans are saving some of the best for last.

But we may need to save the very best for the Broncos.

[GRONKED]

Originally Posted by 76Texan

Hey, I hope the Texans are saving some of the best for last.

But we may need to save the very best for the Broncos.

Fwiw if you beat us I think you make it to sb. Unless this is your sb and you noshow to championship game like the jets did in 2010 lol

[patfanken]

Originally Posted by klockWork

I got excited when I saw the title of the thread. Then I had to stop half-way reading through the battleredblog and realized this was just a gameplan against the NE defense? Really? This is NE defense we're talking about? Is this our biggest concern here? This is one of the worst D in the league for quite a few years now and if they weren't so fortunate with getting all those TOs in the season this would be a dead last rank defense. It shouldn't take an advance offensive gameplan to move and score against this defense. Just watch tapes of 31 other teams that does this every week.

Someone pm me when there's a thread on how to stop the Patriots offense. The rest of the NFL teams are still waiting on that thread also.

FYI, KW, the Pats D has improved... .quite a bit.

You have to get by the concept that total yds is what determines a defense's worth. This season the Pats ranked 25th in total yds. Pretty bad, BUT if you are a Pats fan, its a 20% improvement on the D that went to the superbowl last season.

You should also know that it tied for being the 9th best team in the NFL in the most important defensive stat. Points allowed. Ironically we tied with the Texans for that spot.

The thing thing that Texan fans should be aware of is that the Pats have one of the youngest and least experienced Defenses in the league. They start 3 rookies and have 5 playing in regular rotations. This is a defense on the upswing, and historically gets even better in playoffs.

Last season's defense was almost historically bad. Yet in the playoffs, playing against the best teams, it ranked 5th in most categories of the 12th team. I only point this out to mention that talent we have now is vastly superior to the talent we had then, especially in the secondary. For example the best overall DB we had last season was S Patrick Chung. this season he's just the #3 safety

I'm not saying that the Pats D is one of the top D's in the NFL (though I hope it will be over the next 2 seasons), but its better than its reputation, and like most Pats D's of the past, it will be a lot easier to move the ball up and down the field than it will be to score points

For the record, the Pats D in 2001 ranked 26th in total D, and the one in 2003 ranked 24th. Ironically both ranked in the top 10 in scoring and turnovers. Stats very much like this year's team. Those were defenses that won 2 of the 3 Pats defenses. In only 2 of the Pats 5 recent superbowl appearances did the Pats have a defense that ranked better than 24th in total D. BTW- I'm not sure what that means, but it is an interesting stat at least.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by GRONKED

Fwiw if you beat us I think you make it to sb. Unless this is your sb and you noshow to championship game like the jets did in 2010 lol

Yeah. I worry more about this matchup, but that is not to slight the Broncos nor any NFC team.

[patfanken]

Originally Posted by 76Texan

Did they really have somebody time every single of his passes?

And they referred to the Jets play-off game (but his completion percentage didn't suffer in that game); the Pats lost for various reasons, and not simply because of more men in coverage (it's more involved than tha.)

But unfortunately that pretty much was the case back then. By going completely against all his previous games, Ryan brilliantly created a game plan that both surprised and confused Brady.

While he had plenty of time to pass, Brady was constantly looking through his progressions and not finding people as open as they usually were. Remember Brady unlike say a Joe Flacco, is not used to throwing to receivers in tight coverage, (though he can). He's used to seeing his receivers OPEN. When he didn't he got rattled and impatient. Also the Jets played in nickel and dime coverages most of the game inviting the Pats to run the ball.....and they didn't.

Its not like the Jets blew the Pats out (a 7 point loss) and there where those dropped passes, untimely penalties, missed opportunities, etc that you can point out that would change the course of any ballgame. But in the end it was a great game plan. The Jets played their A game and the Pats didn't.

In hindsight it shouldn't have been as surprising as it did at the time. It was only year 2 of the Pats latest retool. Gronk and Hernandez were rookies and still working their way into the offense. Moss was traded mid season, and Branch wasn't an outside threat and isn't a guy who can beat man to man coverage.....and the defense wasn't very good. On the whole it was a flawed team that overachieved that year. Now 2 years and one superbowl appearance later, its STILL flawed...just less so.

While I think something similar would be the best way for the Texans to attack the Pats, It wouldn't work as well as it did in 2010. First Brady has seen it (the Pats haven't scored less than 29 points against the Jets since), and they have a much better running attack now (Danny Woodhead was the Pats leading rusher in that game in 2010)

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by patfanken

But unfortunately it pretty much was the case. By going completely against all his previous game, Ryan brilliantly created a game plan that both surprise and confused Brady. While he had plenty of time to pass, Brady was constantly looking through his progressions and not finding people open. Remember Brady unlike say a Joe Flacco, is not used to throwing to receivers in tight coverage, (though he can). He's used to seeing his receivers OPEN. When he didn't he got rattled and impatient. He missed open RB's. The Jets played in nickel and dime coverages most of the game inviting the Pats to run the ball.....and they didn't.

While I think something similar would be the best way for the Texans to attack the Pats, It wouldn't work as well as it did in 2010. First Brady has seen it (the Pats haven't scored less than 29 points against the Jets since), and they have a much better running attack now (Danny Woodhead was the Pats leading rusher in that game in 2010)

I rewatched the Jets games 3 times recently. I saw it differently; Brady was never rattled. The run game wasn't the problem either. They ran the ball better than the Jets.

[76Texan]

Originally Posted by patfanken

FYI, KW, the Pats D has improved... .quite a bit.

You have to get by the concept that total yds is what determines a defense's worth. This season the Pats ranked 25th in total yds. Pretty bad, BUT if you are a Pats fan, its a 20% improvement on the D that went to the superbowl last season.

You should also know that it tied for being the 9th best team in the NFL in the most important defensive stat. Points allowed. Ironically we tied with the Texans for that spot.

The thing thing that Texan fans should be aware of is that the Pats have one of the youngest and least experienced Defenses in the league. They start 3 rookies and have 5 playing in regular rotations. This is a defense on the upswing, and historically gets even better in playoffs.

Last season's defense was almost historically bad. Yet in the playoffs, playing against the best teams, it ranked 5th in most categories of the 12th team. I only point this out to mention that talent we have now is vastly superior to the talent we had then, especially in the secondary. For example the best overall DB we had last season was S Patrick Chung. this season he's just the #3 safety

I'm not saying that the Pats D is one of the top D's in the NFL (though I hope it will be over the next 2 seasons), but its better than its reputation, and like most Pats D's of the past, it will be a lot easier to move the ball up and down the field than it will be to score points

For the record, the Pats D in 2001 ranked 26th in total D, and the one in 2003 ranked 24th. Ironically both ranked in the top 10 in scoring and turnovers. Stats very much like this year's team. Those were defenses that won 2 of the 3 Pats defenses. In only 2 of the Pats 5 recent superbowl appearances did the Pats have a defense that ranked better than 24th in total D. BTW- I'm not sure what that means, but it is an interesting stat at least.

The Texans actually allowed fewer offensive TDs than the Pats.
And the Texans played against more high scoring teams.

The Pats pass defense did improve with the addition of Talib and the emergence of young Dennard.
But they didn't face as many good QBs as the Texans did in the second half.

There's no telling how effective those two CBs will be though - due to their recent injury.

The Texans need to break down Dennard's Film tapes in college.
They might want to test him deep enough times.
He can be a liability there.

[michaelm]

Originally Posted by TheMatrix31

Burge deleted his twitter? I knew I was missing something from my feed.

I didn't notice it, but yep. I messaged him on Facebook to get the 411. No reply yet.

[michaelm]

Originally Posted by patfanken

FYI, KW, the Pats D has improved... .quite a bit.

You have to get by the concept that total yds is what determines a defense's worth. This season the Pats ranked 25th in total yds. Pretty bad, BUT if you are a Pats fan, its a 20% improvement on the D that went to the superbowl last season.

You should also know that it tied for being the 9th best team in the NFL in the most important defensive stat. Points allowed. Ironically we tied with the Texans for that spot.

The thing thing that Texan fans should be aware of is that the Pats have one of the youngest and least experienced Defenses in the league. They start 3 rookies and have 5 playing in regular rotations. This is a defense on the upswing, and historically gets even better in playoffs.

I get your overall point, but I think it's a bit intellectually dishonest to cite the number of rookies, then say they (Patriots D) historically get better in the playoffs.
You count three rookie starters, and five
rookies in significant rotation, and they don't have a playoff track record.