I thought the Pats tackled extremely well all game except for that 45 yard play by the fullback where the entire team seemed to miss. Seems like every time Flacco checked down, there were multiple Pats there to make a stop and not give up any YAC.
You JUST realized that???? How does any pat fan not have next week lit in neon on his calendar since the schedule was announced? This revenge beating is only #2 in the list after crushing the Giants in the Super Bowl.
He didn't exactly miss Edelman on the long pass. Edelman stopped running down the field and there was contact from the defender. The INT was bad, but let's be fair here. He was pretty damn good for almost all of the game.
Except for Shea McLellan pulling a Jordan Todman and booting the ball into the end zone on one of the punts.
Yep, and they also gave up a garbage time 7 to SF, and 7 to the Rams. They could easily be leading the league in points allowed
Ravens are 28th in rushing offense, 86 ypg (after last night's game). Also 28th in rushes attempted. More like Patricia schemed knowing they'd need to sling it all game.
As others have pointed out, he was off early. Threw behind some guys or just missed. Also the int. But putting up 406 yards on the top D in the NFL...hitting all those guys perfectly on the run...scoring when they needed him most...only a Pats fan could consider not giving him a game ball after that performance. He locked up the league MVP in my eyes last night.
May be two sides of the same coin. After awhile, the hits leave a cumulative mark that causes the player to play just a hair differently. Edelman, in his age 30 season, is up to about 500 targets. Welker had over 100 more, but I think 500 and 30 give or take 50 and 1 is about when Welker turned from Superman to "still really good."
I said it in the game thread and I'll repeat it here, at what point do we stop looking at points allowed as a meaningful stat for measuring how good the defense is?
Sure, we can look at other measures but points allowed, in my opinion, is the only measure that matters. I don't really care how many yards they give up. If they keep the other team out of the end zone they did their job.
It's a very meaningful team stat. It is not a great way to measure how well a defense is playing, as last night demonstrated quite well.
It looked to me like Edelman had separation but TB led Edelman into the defender and he had to adjust his route.
I would agree with you in that the defense the last few weeks has improved. I think a couple of factors play into this. One is that the linebackers have settled down into roles into which they can succeed. KVN and Shea have played well and been used properly. The front four(especially the ends) have gotten to the passer at a better rate than in previous weeks. Also, Matt Patricia has gotten away from the soft zones and has been much more aggressive in his schemes. I've been calling for this the entire year from Patricia and it's made a huge difference. Opposing QB's aren't allowed to sit back comfortably in the pocket anymore and pick a zone apart. Their decision making has sped up and more mistakes have been forced.
They were disguising their rushers and the players that were dropping all night. I'm not saying that they were playing press man and scrapping zones because obviously that didn't happen. But earlier in the season the zones were vanilla. The last few weeks have been different.
I agree with you that the INT was frustrating. He had plenty of time, and could have just as easily went down or threw the ball away.
I think another reason the defense has been better that we haven't touched on yet is that they are getting to the QB with rushing 3 or 4 more consistently than earlier in the season.
I'm still waiting for the replay of Butler's penalty for getting yelled at by Steve Smith.
This was looked at before, nearly every year the Pats finish better in points allowed than yardage or other stats. I know that part of it is due to their offense, and part of it is due to their special teams, but they are doing something that doesn't show up in the numbers that makes this happen year after year.
They mixed up the rushers and underneath coverage really well but I suspect a big part of the performance was simply playing better zone fundamentals down the field. Its hard to see this stuff on the game feed but Flacco continually looking downfield and then checking down is an indication that the coverage was effective. That compares favorably to several earlier games this season when opposing QBs seemed to have little trouble finding holes in the downfield zone coverage.
Agree with this 100%.
Technically true of course, but 25-38, 3 TD, 1 INT, 116.8 Rtg looks pretty damn otherworldly to me, especially against this defense.
