The Game Goat Thread: Wk 12 @ Broncos

Penthouse:
Gostkowski - The Iceman
Ryan Allen - He was constantly pinning the Broncos inside their own 20. He was awesome.
Logan Ryan - If Gostkowski or Ryan Allen invite him up. Who knows? Ryan Allen probably wants friends. In truth, he was awesome all game and was beat on a couple of the most important plays. Stinks. I was going to give him a suite.

Doghouse:
Sorry but,
Chris Harper - didn't look like he belonged on the field, let alone as a kick returner. Hate to see guys' careers defined by one game without a real sample size, but I don't see him sticking.

The worst sports weekend of the year is behind us.

RedOctober3829 said:

Denver was down to one timeout. Once Gronk got the 1st down you run the ball to grind the clock down. Passing is extremely risky as you don't want to throw an ncompletion to stop the clock. Instead they threw 3 incompletions and only took a few seconds off the clock.

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The combination of the TO and the 2-minute warning means that the best-case scenario for the run-and-punt strategy is to get the clock down to 1:45 or so at the change of possession. That's not good enough to justify forgoing the chance to end the game with a first down.

I'm with PP in not buying a broad conspiracy to screw the Patriots with bad calls. The officiating this season has been universally awful.

That said, I believe 100% that other teams are bitching like crazy about Gronk and he is consequently getting the Shaq treatment. That's bullshit and really hurt them last night. I follow beat reporters for a number of other teams (including the Colts) and the universal reaction was that it was a terrible call. This is, IMO, more along the lines of Blandino et al bending to pressure from other owners as opposed to an orchestrated screw job.

As a side note, I wonder whether Brady's bitching at the refs is sometimes counterproductive. They can't enjoy getting shown up like that on national TV.

Overall, assuming that Gronk and High are ultimately OK there's nothing about that game that particularly bothers me. This team has a resilience that reminds a lot of the 2003/2004 teams. Odds were that they were eventually losing a game, and it took pretty much everything going wrong against a good team on the road for them to lose. I like their chances of winning out and maintaining HFA. Even if they have to go on the road for the AFCCG, I have no doubt that they can beat Denver or CIN on the road assuming reasonable health.

Anyone blaming Harper should direct their anger towards the ST coach. The only bad outcome that could happen on that play was a turnover or a penalty. You were already getting the ball with great field position even with a great punt. Harper should have been instructed to fair catch or let it drop.
In a snow storm with a 14 pt lead it was inexplicable that you would risk a muff for at best a 5-10yd return.

Also why has our running game become HB Dive exclusively? It is no secret that Derek Wolfe is by far the best run defender on D yet we repeatedly ran right into him. Why not run at the 250lb Miller with something off tackle? There was zero creativity in the running game besides the one play to James White. Call some counters or traps, basically anything that goes away from Wolfe would have been good.

maufman said:

The Broncos had a similar phantom O-hold call earlier in the game, but it came at a far less critical juncture.

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I was just about to mention this one too. I only saw part of the game on TV, and the two worst referee calls were this phantom hold and Fleming not reporting as eligible but oh wait I guess he did.

Papelbon's Poutine said:

I think the league wants whatever garners them the most attention and therefore makes them most amount of money. Beyond that I think they could give two shits.

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But did we not learn via Deflategate that there are people in the NFL HQ who have it in for the Pats?

I don't buy that the refs are the Supreme Court of the NFL, not influenced in any way by Park Avenue.

j44thor said:

Anyone blaming Harper should direct their anger towards the ST coach. The only bad outcome that could happen on that play was a turnover or a penalty. You were already getting the ball with great field position even with a great punt. Harper should have been instructed to fair catch or let it drop.
In a snow storm with a 14 pt lead it was inexplicable that you would risk a muff for at best a 5-10yd return.

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Agreed---I think if Harper is cut today we'll know he was told to fair catch and didn't do it. And if he wasn't told that, it's a major coaching failure.

PedroKsBambino said:

Agreed---I think if Harper is cut today we'll know he was told to fair catch and didn't do it. And if he wasn't told that, it's a major coaching failure.

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Screw a fair catch. He should have been coached to get the fuck out of the way and let the damned thing drop.

maufman said:

It wasn't so much bad officiating across the board as two terrible calls -- the O-hold that nullified the long gain, and the D-hold that nullified the sack. .

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This is exactly right-- it wasn't a high volume of bad calls; it was bad calls at some of the biggest possible moments. Somewhat incredibly, they were only penalized 5 times the entire game, and yet 3 of them (the two mentioned above, plus Gronk OPI) wiped out critical plays on dubious grounds. Furious as that makes me, it doesn't support the idea of a referee fix, since there's no way the refs could have known that they were nullifying a key NE play in the moment they were reaching for their flags on the two plays mentioned by maufman. You couldn't call the D-hold knowing that Osweiler would be sacked a moment later, or the O-hold knowing that Martin would haul in the bomb from Brady.

Meanwhile, for most of the game Denver's D was without 3 starters: Ware, Ward, and Sylvester Williams, and the Pats O did not capitalize nearly as well as the Broncos when Hightower went out. Yes, I know Edelman, Amendola, Lewis, Gronk, etc. but still frustrating as hell to watch.

loshjott said:

Meanwhile, for most of the game Denver's D was without 3 starters: Ware, Ward, and Sylvester Williams, and the Pats O did not capitalize nearly as well as the Broncos when Hightower went out. Yes, I know Edelman, Amendola, Lewis, Gronk, etc. but still frustrating as hell to watch.

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Well, I would say they capitalized quite nicely on Ware being out, in the sense that Brady wasn't terrorized the whole night a la Buffalo. But I agree that it was sad to see the running game stuck in neutral the whole game even when up-the-gut defensive starters went out on the Denver side.

Still processing this game and trying to figure out how to talk about it.

That was a gritty effort from a battered team, and I'm hard pressed to make anyone a goat, perhaps beyond our 6th WR muffing a punt in awful conditions.

Sad about the loss of the perfect season, but thrilled to see the toughness and resilience of the entire roster. I think this game bodes well if they can get any kind of injury luck.

Deathofthebambino said:

You seem to think that one side should be required to play perfect football, otherwise, they deserve to lose. That's all well and good, but that's horseshit. The Patriots did what they needed to do to win that game tonight, and probably win it easily, and it was stolen from them by the zebras. .

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I think this is more true than not.

They certainly weren't perfect, but against one of the best teams in the NFL on the road the Patriots made enough plays to win last night. They also made enough plays to lose last night -- to be sure.

But between enormous phantom penalties called and legitimate fouls not whistled by yet another clown show refereeing crew (putting aside conspiracies, most NFL refs have been noticeably dreadful this season), I find it hard to be too harsh on the team for that loss.

Super Nomario said:

The defense was horrible tonight late. They gave up 23 points on the final five drives of the game. The three touchdown drives late all took five plays or fewer.

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I think that's a little unfair.

Doesn't the phantom call on Chung have to factor into this? That nullified an enormous sack making it 3rd and goal from the 19. No call there and the defense likely wins the game in regulation, despite the injuries and lapses in the secondary.

Edit: and finally, Brady on WEEI this am is a must listen interview. http://www.patriots.com/audio/2015/11/30/tom-brady-weei-1130-it-was-very-hard-loss

1) He was as upset after this loss as any in his career, and was too angry to watch Phladelphia film on the plane home as usual.

2) He has no idea what OPI is or how Gronk can avoid it.

3) He did not expect the clock to wind at the end of regulation and was not prepared for that.

4) He remains somewhat furious that the team had massive 3rd downs wiped out by penalty and that LaFell was "hooked" on the 1st play of OT and no flag was thrown.

Papelbon's Poutine said:

THE LEAGUE AND THE REFEREES ARE NOT A SINGLE ENTITY.

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True but not very insightful or helpful to any discussion. I am not on the conspiracy side here but, Christ, the referees are employed by the NFL.

Waking up to the news that neither Gronk or Hightower are done for the year and a night to process the game make me feel much better.

For the pats to have lost a game this year it took a dropped punt from their 6th WR who is an undrafted rookie playing in this 3rd NFL game on the road, in prime time, in the middle of a snowstorm. As well as, at least 4 penalty flags (or no flag in the miller shot to Brady's head case) that we can all agree were at best weak ass calls.

And despite all of that it still took overtime to beat them.

Seemed like the offense went into "sandbagging the playbook/ let's try to force the ball to Chandler for a while" for a few series there when they could have taken greater control of the game.

I was pretty disappointed by White's performance. I had high hopes for him as "Deion Lewis lite" but watching him being taken down by arm tackles and having no explosive-ness was a letdown for me, especially in contrast to watching Denver's backs. I'm not sure if it was the run blocking or Blount but he looked awful too.

All of my other comments are 100% TINFOIL HAT comments that have been covered. The refs didn't call the game evenly.

Does anyone think the block on HT as dirty? He was running across the formation and a TE (I believe) goes low on him at a 90 degree angle. Just seemed dirty.

The Defense was in control of the game till that injury.

Was anyone else surprised no one on the O-Line went after Von Miller following his cheapshot on Brady? Not saying do something to draw a personal foul, but coming to the aid of your legendary QB in a hostile environment would be nice to see. It made me miss Logan Mankins, who surely would have gotten in Miller's face (remember their tussle during the 2011 playoff game).

I really just want a bye at this point, the one seed is a bonus. They really need the extra week's rest and avoiding injuries in an extra game. 4-1 guarantees a bye and probably gets the 1 seed. 3-2 probably gets them a bye, but it's certainly no guarantee. The Houston game is the one to circle on the calendar.

As for last night, no real goats. They battled, especially Brady on that last drive in regulation. Harper obviously had the big miscue, but that happens, especially given the circumstances. They had no fumble luck, either. The officials were abysmal in the last 5 minutes. There were four pretty bad/missed calls, all that hurt New England, during the final 5 (horrible hold call on Jackson negating 55 yard gain, next play leaping smash to Brady's head, Gronk OPI, Chung phantom call). Then the clock issue on the last drive. I saw comparisons to the Ravens replacement refs game, and I think that nails it. I don't remember watching a game with that many bad, game-changing calls at the end of a game. We all remember bad/controversial calls at the end of games, of course, but not that many and especially not consistently against one team. Still should have won, but whatever.

Got a sneaky feeling SD knocks off Denver at home next week paving an easier road to the bye.

C4CRVT said:

Seemed like the offense went into "sandbagging the playbook/ let's try to force the ball to Chandler for a while" for a few series there when they could have taken greater control of the game.

I was pretty disappointed by White's performance. I had high hopes for him as "Deion Lewis lite" but watching him being taken down by arm tackles and having no explosive-ness was a letdown for me, especially in contrast to watching Denver's backs. I'm not sure if it was the run blocking or Blount but he looked awful too.

All of my other comments are 100% TINFOIL HAT comments that have been covered. The refs didn't call the game evenly.

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I think you've got the playbook angle backwards. I think the gameplan called for throwing to the outside guy if he was single-covered by a LB. Brady figured Chandler could get open. But Chandler probably has little experience at go-routes in his career. But when he moved up to #1TE, those routes became his.


With Denver down to a single TO, I would have preferred just eating the clock with semi-futile runs, but I get why BB might have thought the defense was gassed. (Mayo and Freeny were on fumes) and tried to put it away with the offense.

Ed Hillel said:

I really just want a bye at this point, the one seed is a bonus. They really need the extra week's rest and avoiding injuries in an extra game. 4-1 guarantees a bye and probably gets the 1 seed. 3-2 probably gets them a bye, but it's certainly no guarantee. The Houston game is the one to circle on the calendar.

As for last night, no real goats. They battled, especially Brady on that last drive in regulation. Harper obviously had the big miscue, but that happens, especially given the circumstances. They had no fumble luck, either. The officials were abysmal in the last 5 minutes. There were four pretty bad/missed calls, all that hurt New England, during the final 5 (horrible hold call on Jackson negating 55 yard gain, next play leaping smash to Brady's head, Gronk OPI, Chung phantom call). Then the clock issue on the last drive. I saw comparisons to the Ravens replacement refs game, and I think that nails it. I don't remember watching a game with that many bad, game-changing calls at the end of a game. We all remember bad/controversial calls at the end of games, of course, but not that many and especially not consistently against one team. Still should have won, but whatever.

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Oddly enough, the clock thing may have been a correctly applied bad rule.

(d) If there is an excess team timeout after the two-minute warning, the game clock is started as if the
excess timeout had not occurred.

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http://static.nfl.com/static/content/public/image/rulebook/pdfs/7_Rule4_Game_Timing.pdf

Penalty: For the second and each subsequent excess team timeout after the two-minute warning:
Loss of five yards from the succeeding spot for delay of the game.
(c) The player must leave the game for the completion of one down, unless:
(i) the injury is the result of a foul by an opponent; or
(ii) either team calls a charged team timeout.
(d) No yardage penalty will be assessed for the first excess team timeout, but a 10-second runoff of the
game clock may be applicable pursuant to (f) below. At the conclusion of an excess timeout taken
while time is in, the game clock shall start with the ready-for-play signal. For any excess timeout
charged to the defense, the play clock is reset to 40 seconds.
(e) If the Referee has already called an excess team timeout in that half for a team, any subsequent
excess timeout for that team will result in a five-yard penalty. (Such penalty shall be considered a foul
between downs and will not offset a foul by the defense or be part of a multiple foul by the offense.)
(f) If an excess team timeout is charged against a team in possession of the ball, and time is in when the
excess timeout is called, the ball shall not be put in play until the time on the game clock has been
reduced by 10 seconds, if the defense so chooses.

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dynomite said:

Still processing this game and trying to figure out how to talk about it.
I think that's a little unfair.

Doesn't the phantom call on Chung have to factor into this? That nullified an enormous sack making it 3rd and goal from the 19. No call there and the defense likely wins the game in regulation, despite the injuries and lapses in the secondary.

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The call was a little ticky-tack, but the refs didn't give up 75 yards in the first three plays of that drive to set up the first-and-goal. The one thing they couldn't do there was get beaten deep and they got burned immediately twice. It was unfortunate timing that the flag wiped out what was just about the defensive line's only good play in the last 20 minutes of game action, but it was also a problem that they made so few plays late in the game.

Old Fart Tree said:

This sounds like it was the perfect game to not have watched.

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I went to bed before it started, woke up randomly with 4 minutes left and decided to watch, wish I didn't do that.

I'm mostly with PP here on the officiating. It was bad because officiating is bad, not because of any kind of bias. While I don't expect favors from the officials, excess timeouts are rare enough that I think given that Belichick and an official are chatting anyways, the official could have said "Bill, so you know, the clock is going to run when we place the ball".

I don't want more fouls called, so while we can always find examples of egregious non-calls, calling all of those would make for 5-hour football games so we just have to live with it being kind of random. It sucks when that randomness results in really ticky-tack stuff, but in the long run it figures to even out.

While obtaining HFA should be a goal for this team, I like that they are being pretty conservative with injured guys. It will lose them a few winnable games because this team is really, really good, but if they can get a bye with Lewis and Solder the only significant losses, they will be in great shape in January.

Super Nomario said:

The call was a little ticky-tack, but the refs didn't give up 75 yards in the first three plays of that drive to set up the first-and-goal. The one thing they couldn't do there was get beaten deep and they got burned immediately twice. It was unfortunate timing that the flag wiped out what was just about the defensive line's only good play in the last 20 minutes of game action, but it was also a problem that they made so few plays late in the game.

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They were also undermanned playing in the cold/altitude and had to repeatedly bail out the offense. The lack of the offense to establish anything after the 1st Q was a huge part of the loss. The multiple inexplicable deep passes combined with runs into Derek Wolfe's waiting arms were puzzling. I realize they were severely short handed but they seemed to run extremely low percentage plays for most of the 2-4th Q and didn't give the D a chance to collect its breath.

My heart breaks for Harper. I was hoping TB12 would get the ball to him ASAP after that happened.

It sure felt like the D was playing a pretty impressive game…until it didn't.

Meanwhile, the refs suck. Awful. Whatever - something to overcome. Team showed mental toughness even in defeat.

UP: Brown, Butler, Ryan, Gronk, Brady, Gost, Freeny, Chandler
DOWN: heart-breaker, stripes

Papelbon's Poutine said:

If you think the NFL office is competent enough to pull off some kind of screw jobs via the refs, well you just don't understand the state of the league. Refs sucking is not some kind of payback to the Pats. They suck a lot, in a lot of games. The crews that went on strike a couple years ago looking for better pay aren't going to try to act out the Ginger Hammer's vengeance script.

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Honestly, if you believe this, you are naive or in denial.

If you don't think a billion dollar company has the ability to sway things their way, I don't know what to tell you.

Edit: A labor strike from 2012 doesn't have a damn thing to do with last night. Nothing even has to be said to the refs. They know which side of their bread is buttered on. A Patriot loss, coupled with propping up Osweiler as the next big thing, is good for (national) ratings. Also, refs are regular guys. Not full-time, as we all know. You think, if approached, a cool extra hundred grand in your bank account (which is pennies to the NFL) is not enough to call an extra holding or PI call in a game?

j44thor said:

They were also undermanned playing in the cold/altitude and had to repeatedly bail out the offense. The lack of the offense to establish anything after the 1st Q was a huge part of the loss. The multiple inexplicable deep passes combined with runs into Derek Wolfe's waiting arms were puzzling. I realize they were severely short handed but they seemed to run extremely low percentage plays for most of the 2-4th Q and didn't give the D a chance to collect its breath.

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Pats had to have had a theory on the playcalling. But I'm not certain I see all the pieces of it clearly, even a day later.

I sort of get the outside passes---as Collinsworth noted, they were getting LBs (mostly) in unfamiliar spots with those, and that is a reasonable percentage bet. Denver largely stuck with its scheme, and that's why the particular Pats players who were in the places where it made sense to throw largely didn't change (and was often Chandler).

The use of the run game was a little inconsistent to me---they didn't do it regularly enough to truly wear down the defense or run the clock and with the exception of late first half I couldn't come up wtih a game-situation theory for when they chose to run 2-3x per series vs zero. Effectiveness obviously a constraint here, though would have liked a Blount run or two on the second to last possession.

They had some success with in routes, and didn't use as many as I'd have liked. Pressure might be a contributor there, but for the most part it just seemed like they were preferring the outside passes (which were largely deeper and lower percentage) and given the premium on possession/1st downs in the last 15-20 minutes of game time I would have liked to see a couple more throws inside. Bolden/chandler/white (in theory) starting outside and cutting in seemed like the one area they had some success, and they didn't really go with it often.

Papelbon's Poutine said:

Honest question : did you watch all 14 games today in comparable intensity and are able to compare the performance of the refs across the board?

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Papelbon's Poutine said:

Oh, well I didn't realize you firmly believe they have gotten the shaft for three straight games. In that case, by all means, continue to rail on about Goodell sitting in the booth and having a direct line to the refs every play. That sounds extremely reasonable.

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Papelbon's Poutine said:

Yeah, you all need to go to sleep and take a step back. Game thread this is not.

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Thank god you're here to reel everyone in. We all need you on that wall.

Can you keep your contrarian act somewhat muffled once in a while?

SeoulSoxFan said:

The ref who called this an offensive PI:

It's not even that Gronk extended or didn't extend his arms, it was the defender that bumped Gronk.

On the Chung DPI:

@RefereeJimD That's an awful call and not a foul..... No visible restriction

Sure there are bad calls on every game but this was a series of 3-4 literally game-changing nut punches in a row.

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See, here's my biggest problem with the Gronk OPI. The players have noticed that the league is targeting Gronk, and they're taking advantage. Bruton is clearly acting on that OPI, and the ref's bit hook, line, and sinker. He was willing to throw his arms up in the air and allow separation to milk a flag because he knew he was going to get one. Think about that for a minute. A player was willing to give up a reception because he knew he was going to get an OPI flag. That kind of shit is not supposed to happen.

Eddie Jurak said:

Screw a fair catch. He should have been coached to get the fuck out of the way and let the damned thing drop.

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This times ten.

maufman said:

And as part of that grand conspiracy, they let the Pats get off to a 10-0 start -- aided by a controversial call that went in the Pats' favor and against one of the league's most recognizable stars, on a play that was reviewed in New York??

You need to put down the Internet and get some fresh air.

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I don't think they "let" them get to 10-0. I think they let it play out for awhile, and made adjustments. Just my personal opinion. We can agree to disagree, and yes, perhaps I do need to put down the internet and get some fresh air. But what happened last night just didn't pass the smell test.

As far as the call you are speaking of...you need to build somebody up before you tear them down.

The upshot of all of this is that I don't fear Denver at all in the playoffs. I think Brock Star is a mirage.

j44thor said:

They were also undermanned playing in the cold/altitude and had to repeatedly bail out the offense. The lack of the offense to establish anything after the 1st Q was a huge part of the loss. The multiple inexplicable deep passes combined with runs into Derek Wolfe's waiting arms were puzzling. I realize they were severely short handed but they seemed to run extremely low percentage plays for most of the 2-4th Q and didn't give the D a chance to collect its breath.

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The O had their struggles, but we knew they would going in. The D had to win the game for the Pats, and when the chips were down they came up very small. Altitude and fatigue were a factor, but damn, they completely collapsed down the stretch.

PedroKsBambino said:

Pats had to have had a theory on the playcalling. But I'm not certain I see all the pieces of it clearly, even a day later.

I sort of get the outside passes---as Collinsworth noted, they were getting LBs (mostly) in unfamiliar spots with those, and that is a reasonable percentage bet. Denver largely stuck with its scheme, and that's why the particular Pats players who were in the places where it made sense to throw largely didn't change (and was often Chandler).

They had some success with in routes, and didn't use as many as I'd have liked. Pressure might be a contributor there, but for the most part it just seemed like they were preferring the outside passes (which were largely deeper and lower percentage) and given the premium on possession/1st downs in the last 15-20 minutes of game time I would have liked to see a couple more throws inside. Bolden/chandler/white (in theory) starting outside and cutting in seemed like the one area they had some success, and they didn't really go with it often.

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I haven't looked at the All-22, but isn't the Occam's Razor answer that Denver started flooding the middle areas and taking away the short in-breaking stuff? I give Belichick / McDaniels / Brady more credit than to think they went away from what worked on the first drive and just started bombing up the sideline to Chandler because they just felt like it.

PedroKsBambino said:

The use of the run game was a little inconsistent to me---they didn't do it regularly enough to truly wear down the defense or run the clock and with the exception of late first half I couldn't come up wtih a game-situation theory for when they chose to run 2-3x per series vs zero. Effectiveness obviously a constraint here, though would have liked a Blount run or two on the second to last possession.

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On paper they should have been able to run up the middle after Williams went out, but you still have to be able to block and the Pats OL can't. I can't fathom how poor the OL would perform without Brady covering for them so much with the quick passing game.

Moving on to things that actually happened, I think this was a defense that was gassed from the short week and high altitude, but the real key was Hightower going out. Andy Guyader runs a website called TheQ5.com and builds visual game maps using play by play data in terms of success rate and so forth. Here's the map for last night's game:


Denver's offense (green line) had largely been below average until Hightower went out, but look at the trend afterwards. The Denver defense was generally pretty average, as you would expect from a team that gave up 24 points, but the offense, except for a brief period in the late third quarter, clicked for pretty much the entire game once Hightower was gone.

Really, what this tells you more than anything else is that without Hightower in there, this is a defense that is going to have issues. If Collins comes back, that likely remedies a number of problems, but Hightower is a critical cog for them and needs to be healthy if this defense is going to be playoff-worthy.

Erik Hanson's Hook said:

Honestly, if you believe this, you are naive or in denial.
Edit: A labor strike from 2012 doesn't have a damn thing to do with last night. Nothing even has to be said to the refs. They know which side of their bread is buttered on. A Patriot loss, coupled with propping up Osweiler as the next big thing, is good for (national) ratings. Also, refs are regular guys. Not full-time, as we all know. You think, if approached, a cool extra hundred grand in your bank account (which is pennies to the NFL) is not enough to call an extra holding or PI call in a game?

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Are you hypothesizing that this actually happened?

Erik Hanson's Hook said:

I don't think they "let" them get to 10-0. I think they let it play out for awhile, and made adjustments. Just my personal opinion. We can agree to disagree, and yes, perhaps I do need to put down the internet and get some fresh air. But what happened last night just didn't pass the smell test.

As far as the call you are speaking of...you need to build somebody up before you tear them down.

The upshot of all of this is that I don't fear Denver at all in the playoffs. I think Brock Star is a mirage.

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The trouble with conspiracy theories is that to pull this off, everyone in the NFL front office and in the officiating crews would need to keep the secret. What in the modern internet era makes you think that secrets that big would not eventually leak? Deadspin or TMZ Sports would probably pay a nice fat stack to any insider willing to drop an anonymous dime on Gooddell ordering that type of thing.

Also, it's worth noting the fans of EVERY team have fans who swear up and down the the League is out to get them and is using the refs to fuck with games. Last week Denver played the Bears and Chicago was penalized 0 yards all game even though there were some big non-calls that happened in moments that either stopped Denver or allowed Chicago to keep moving the ball. Tons of internet typists claimed that as rock solid evidence of the League's anti-Bronco bias. And let me tell you that there are also tons of fans of other teams (including Denver fans) who swear up and down that the League is 100% in the bag in favor of NE and uses the refs to keep them winning and re-establish the shine on their golden franchise.

All of that is bullshit.

Shitty refs are gonna blow calls. Right now, refs, in general, are shitty. Personally I think the rulebook has gotten so convoluted that the refs are being asked to watch for 139 different potential infractions on every damn snap and they cannot possibly handle the mental calculations required to process all of that info as the game whips by them at top speed. Shitloads of holds never get flagged (I can find you film from last night of Von Miller being held a bunch without flags - same of NE players being held). Pass interference calls are so damn inconsistent that no one seems to know what players can and cannot get away with. Late hits get missed. Other hits that are borderline or on time draw flags. There is simply too much for refs to process. They should probably add 4 more people to each team and give those refs individual penalties to monitor (e.g. one guy who watches for holding on every play, one guy focused only on pass interference), but that's not happening so we're stuck with shit referees and frustrated fans.

Every team's fans hate the refs and think they're out to screw them.

joe dokes said:

With Denver down to a single TO, I would have preferred just eating the clock with semi-futile runs, but I get why BB might have thought the defense was gassed. (Mayo and Freeny were on fumes) and tried to put it away with the offense.

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Why? Even with no TO, ca. 2 minutes is plenty of time for any remotely competent offense these days. And driving the clock down to this region actually reduces the probability that they will score too fast, as of course actually happened in the game.

When defending a one-score lead in an endgame situation, there's really little benefit to eating clock for its own sake until you get well inside two minutes. As a rule of thumb, I would estimate that it makes most sense to try to end the game on offense unless going run-and-punt can get the clock inside 1:15 (if the opponent needs a TD) or 45 seconds (if the opponent needs a FG).

RedOctober3829 said:

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NFL DMCA'd the video

Super Nomario said:

The call was a little ticky-tack, but the refs didn't give up 75 yards in the first three plays of that drive to set up the first-and-goal. The one thing they couldn't do there was get beaten deep and they got burned immediately twice. It was unfortunate timing that the flag wiped out what was just about the defensive line's only good play in the last 20 minutes of game action, but it was also a problem that they made so few plays late in the game.

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So if the refs made some BS penalty call that wiped out Butler's INT in the Super Bowl, would you have made this same argument? I realize that change of possession is different from 3rd and goal at the 20, but the logical conclusion one can draw from the bolded part of your quote is that if the defense lets the offense get to the 10 yard line, then all bets are off.

Where am I? What I mean is I turned on local sports radio (49er country) and I heard complete bitching about how the refs cost the 49ers the game (home game vs. AZ). The lead guy finally said "I can't spend my life complaining about NFL referees." The other two still jumped all over him. AnyNFLtown, USA.

Super Nomario said:

I haven't looked at the All-22, but isn't the Occam's Razor answer that Denver started flooding the middle areas and taking away the short in-breaking stuff? I give Belichick / McDaniels / Brady more credit than to think they went away from what worked on the first drive and just started bombing up the sideline to Chandler because they just felt like it.

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Agreed we need clearer data---reviewing the plays and the all-22.

That said, I do not think the flow was that they had success in the middle and then switched to the outside. I think their primary 'read' all game was outside (Gronk's initial TD was that way, for example), and my comment is that they perhaps should have looked to more inside routes (and/or had those higher in the route tree) a little more than they did. So I don't think occam's razor applies here, the point was a lot more subtle than switching out of something that worked to something which didn't---I agree that is un-Pats like and unlikely to be the case.

On the running game, I don't think they showed a lot of success there and the question was more whether they should have accepted a couple more low expected value runs to manage the clock in the 4th quarter. Pats are obviously very sophisticated in making these decisions---as noted initially, it's as much that I didn't really fully understand the flow they selected and I often can.

maufman said:

It wasn't so much bad officiating across the board as two terrible calls -- the O-hold that nullified the long gain, and the D-hold that nullified the sack.

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I thought the O-Line hold was the right call. They're also more likely to happen when release takes so long and there's a chance of a coverage sack. Was right in front of Brady, too. Basically, a perfect storm.

There were some egregious ones that got missed the other way (a Pats player basically got tackled on a TE screen) but in-line stuff is just hard to officiate.

A game that has the Gronk play as OPI and the Thomas push off as DPI or holding, whichever it was, is just silly.

I don't buy the conspiracy theories. It's just the week to week incompetence. The one place I will concede to the conspiratorial folks is Gronk. There is no doubt they have made up some Gronk rules to lessen his dominance of the sport. That is a shame and it forces Belichick to coach around it. (hopefully this year)

I think McDaniels is in his best season. He has been brilliant, but I think he was off his game last night. Some real strange choices, but credit to Denver's defense. They could not even pretend to run against them.

When the money was on the line, Ryan and Butler got beat. Its as simple as that, and again, credit to Denver and their QB. Kid is pretty good.

Hightower is a critical loss and it showed when he was out.

Overall, it's a tough loss, but they fought hard and I think it is a testament to them that they almost pulled it out. Just a tough team who will be there at the end.

And Ghost is a beast.