This is fair, and FWIW, the Pats don't see Buffalo until December, so the head to head inside the division stuff, while revealing, in this case, is going to have a long time to develop. I'm going to wait to see where we are at Thanksgiving before getting anxious about how common opponents tell us things.
Let's be fair, though. He's playing for a functional team. Can we say that about Lawrence, Wilson, or Fields?
Well, Chicago was a playoff team last year so they SHOULD be functional. The other two, not so much. But this is the great advantage the Pats have, right? Solid team and a perfect place for a guy like Mac Jones to step in.
I think that is a feature, not a bug - as the kiddos say.
While both have been recovered by NE, he has fumbled twice. There has been some luck involved in Mac's favor on this point.
Absolutely and I am very excited about how Mac has looked so far! I'm just pointing out that the narrative would be different if one or both of those had been lost even though each recovery had essentially nothing to do with Mac's performance.
I hate this shit right here. The gotcha guy!
I think in both cases the OL who blew the block allowing the pressure was there to fall on the fumble.
How much of the play calling was conservative in nature due to the fact that Zack Wilson decided to open a bakery with all the turnovers? McDaniels probably figured with Jones only in his second game better to play ir close to the vest and not screw things up. The Pats did run a couple of trick plays early. I particularly liked the play where Jones threw a good block to lead to a nice gain.
Point taken on this, but I think it's worth distinguishing between run defense ability and run defense strategy. Belichick will make strategic decisions at times to emphasize pass defense at the expense of the run, whether that's playing two deep safeties, using a lighter front, playing extra defensive backs, etc. That was the strategy he used (as Giants DC) against the K-Gun Bills in the Super Bowl, and against Manning and Mahomes through the years. The Patriots seemed to be doing quite a bit of that yesterday (lot of nickel and dime, more snaps for Barmore / Wise vs Guy / Davis / Godchaux, etc.). On the other hand, there are times when the run is the biggest threat, and in those instances you want to have the ability to stop it; I'm thinking short yardage plays in Week 1 and the final drive where Miami ran out the clock. In that case, ability to stop the run was a problem.
Good point. On a related note, I'm anticipating that Lawrence Guy might quickly be finding his way to being benched. During camp, there was a reporter, I think it was Bedard, who noted that Guy was looking pretty terrible throughout, and both by my own eye test and by PFF grade he's been pretty horrendous through the first two weeks. Barmore hasn't really been any better against the run, but has already been productive as a pass rusher and is a rookie, so he can probably be expected to trend upwards as the season goes along. Davis has been solid in limited snaps, and so has Wise, I think, although he sort of plays a different position. If Guy's out there, is kind of looking like they don't have as much of a choice as to whether or not they want to stop the run.
Game 1: Guy 54%; Bentley 72%; 23 carries for 74 yards
My thought is more that the Pats may have told Mac that as soon as he has an open receiver, that's the throw. As he becomes comfortable, that can be expanded. Someone like Brady, when he goes through his progressions, is confident enough to bypass the first open guy he sees to see if there's something else and now he can come back to his first read.
