If Brady had played a game of the same quality of Bill's coaching tonight, I wonder how many here would be coming to defend him. I mean, he's still the greatest coach ever, but to say he wasn't a big part of the loss today is incredible to me.
SBLII: What Did the Butler Do?
- Thread starter ifmanis5
- Start date
So why do you believe Butler didn't play? You've been watching this team as long as I have, maybe longer. You see how BB operates. If not because he thought he had the best packaged to match up without him, why? I'd love to hear your guess.
Later on Rowe contradicted this and did say he was starting corner with Gilmore in practice.
I thought I saw some almost tackles in the first series... far more egregious than things I've seen all year.. a number of times players came up the middle and were held with an arm from behind that allowed Foles to get the ball out. I don't know if the Pats OL held less.. but the Pats offense runs on getting the ball out fast. Foles was def allowed extra seconds all game. TB doesn't usually use those extra seconds.. I'm trying not to be a complete homer. But some of the holds I saw were like the ones you only see allowed at the end of games.. where players are more or less tackled. I could be wrong though.
Isn't this the worst possible option, though? If it's a BB ego thing you can at least say ok this was an overly arrogant decision but he does this kind of thing all the time and usually it works out. But if BB was watching this game and legitimately thought that playing Bademosi and Rowe instead of Butler gave them a better chance to win the game then that is almost Grady Little-like stupidity.
He does, but Butler has at times in the past. We saw Bademosi playing some slot tonight, which I don't think we've seen all year. Why not Butler?
I do think the Jeffery / Smith pairing presented some problems with Butler's size but I thought the sensible solution was to kick Butler inside on Agholor.
I almost agree. Coaches and managers and GMs have been fucking their teams by doing stupid shit that they think is in the best interests of their team for as long as there have been coaches and managers and GMs. We've just come to expect better from BB because, well, he's consistently been better. Far better.
This was still a massive fuckup. I think it was a case of penny wise, pound foolish. Maybe he went into the game expecting his defense to be wrecked by Philly and thought he could gain some small advantage by pulling Butler completely out of the game plan. Maybe he thought Butler was such a head case that he couldn't handle a smaller role. No idea.
But there seemed to be an element of unwllingness to admit a fuckup here, when he started running guys like Richerds and Bademosi out there to get burnt.
Maybe they both took snaps with the 1's during the week? Then both the Rowe quotes I read still make sense.
I really need it to be disciplinary.
Or I need some Xs and Os. Because, while I am not qualified to carry Bill’s pencils, with a one point lead in the fourth quarter, it is impossible to fathom anyone truly believing that a package including Butler could be worse than what we were looking at. It just doesn’t compute.
There is something going on here. I need there to be something going on here. It can’t just be football.
I'm 100% on board with this rant. I think BB fell in love with his own brilliance.
Yeah.. if Philly doesn't convert on either of those fourth downs we're talking the complete opposite... and Foles was definitely still moving as the ball was snapped on his TD catch which I thought was illegal motion or at least an illegal formation. If the Pats had made that last drive and tied it we're basically back to what happened last year.
Edit: I meant won it on the penultimate drive.
At the end of the day, the defense was so bad that I have a hard time believing Butler would have made a difference. He makes a play on third down, fine, the Eagles just go for it on fourth and complete it anyway. The Patriots were not competitive in any respect.
Shh thought the Red Sox should cut Michael kopech when he broke his hand a couple years ago so his opinions should be taken with a large grain of salt
In a nod towards those who are mad at Belichick, lets say his ego cost them this game. How do you separate that from the same ego that got this team here, won them five other Superbowls and had them within a few freak plays of winning two more?
Again, its entirely fair to question what happened with Butler and to wonder what might have happened had he gone in.
I am not sure the 2017 Butler makes the difference in this one. Foles had good time to throw so receivers were able to break free even after some ok coverage (other coverage sucked of course). And Foles also made some great throws - something we need acknowledge here.
But let's say Belichick did cost the Pats this game because of course Butler would have slowed down the Eagles attack. Should the Patriots fire him? What is the point? This is Belichick and like any family member or athlete or coach of a team that you root for, you either take the good with the bad or cut ties with them.
Other than trying to figure out what the hell happened with Butler, I am not sure what a witch hunt gets you. And I dont think that makes me an "apologist". If it does, so be it. I stand by my point that while tonight sucks, I will take all that led up to it in a heartbeat after living through the late 80s and early 90s with this franchise.
Again, its entirely fair to question what happened with Butler and to wonder what might have happened had he gone in.
I am not sure the 2017 Butler makes the difference in this one. Foles had good time to throw so receivers were able to break free even after some ok coverage (other coverage sucked of course). And Foles also made some great throws - something we need acknowledge here.
But let's say Belichick did cost the Pats this game because of course Butler would have slowed down the Eagles attack. Should the Patriots fire him? What is the point? This is Belichick and like any family member or athlete or coach of a team that you root for, you either take the good with the bad or cut ties with them.
Other than trying to figure out what the hell happened with Butler, I am not sure what a witch hunt gets you. And I dont think that makes me an "apologist". If it does, so be it. I stand by my point that while tonight sucks, I will take all that led up to it in a heartbeat after living through the late 80s and early 90s with this franchise.
I have no idea. If I had to guess, it's disciplinary, although not disciplinary as in he said to Malcolm "I'm benching you because you missed the team flight..." or whatever. Disciplinary to the extent that clearly Malcolm did something or maybe many somethings that Bill didn't like and finally Bill had enough. This is the same response Bill gave when he traded Jamie Collins last year, and a whole bunch of other times throughout the years "best interests of the team."
The problem is all of those other times (except deferring in fucking overtime in 2015, but I digress), Bill had time to be proven right. He was proven so fucking wrong, over and over and over again tonight, that either he literally lost his mind and forgot that one of his most important players was standing on the sideline, or Malcolm Butler wasn't getting in the game if he was the last healthy guy on the team.
When the team gives up a season high in pts and sits there 1B CB, the onus shouldn't be on the fans to figure out why. The better team didn't win tonight and it wasn't particularity close. Pats play their game and they win fairly easily. Brady had all day in the pocket. For PHI to win with 1 sack is mind boggling.
We can make this a 100 page thread. Problem is. The only answer we will ever get is that "I played the players who gave us the best chance to win" You expecting an "Oops, I screwed that up" admission?
right.. if the Pats move the ball on that last drive as they did all game it's an entirely different conversation.
edit: second to last damm it
I’m with you, and until I hear differently, Butler did something to undermine B.B. or the team. There is no other rational explanation.
This is nonsense. I've heard theories in this very thread that BB did it to send a message, for disciplinary reasons, because he wanted to wave his dick around, etc. Don't give me this stuff about "it's not on the fans to figure out why." Everyone else is throwing out reasons, I wanted to hear his.
My biggest issue with Butler being on the sidelines wasn't coverage. He's probably the best tackler in the entire secondary. I'm not sure it's even close, and if there was one thing tonight that stood out as the biggest problem for the defense, it was shitty fucking tackling. That's what's killing me about the decision.
I would also think that, but it isn't crazy to me that they wouldn't have him in the game plan is all.
The whole zero snaps on defense is pretty weird though. You would think even if he wasn't in the gameplan but dressed he'd get at least a few.
I agree that this is the likely real story. Butler did something that we likely won't learn about from the team and it cost him playing meaningful snaps in the game.
Someone in the media will get some type of vague scoop we'll dissect this week. but yes, nothing definitive will ever come out.
The point <-----------------------------
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I think I'm done here until tomorrow. Let things settle down and we can talk about this with less emotion.
Bademosi makes that one tackle and it is maybe a different kind of night for us. Butler can tackle and once in a while he can rip the ball out after a catch. The defense WAS awful, but, just a tiny bit less awful (but still awful) might have been enough.
Yep. So many missed tackles in key spots. Butler can’t fail to have helped.
To be clear, I'm not calling for BB's head. Far from it. The worst decisions he's ever made still result in him being the greatest coach of all time. That said, I'm allowed to be pissed tonight, and I'm allowed to think that Tom Brady, the team and the fans got fucked by a decision that never should have been made.
I agree on this.. seems like he's really fast to the ball.. and having him out there could have shut down some of those third or fourth down plays.
Flip side of this is we lose to SEA and ATL, two outcomes that were more probable than not, and we are approaching Bills territory
It would make a lot more sense if Jonathan Jones was healthy and they liked his matchup on Agholor or something.
Bademosi tackled really well when he played CB early in the year when Gilmore was out. He plays a ton of special teams, where usually guys have to tackle well. That was an unfortunate, lousy play.
Hell yeah. I don't care what anyone says about all their trophies. This one hurt as bad as the other two Superbowl losses because, like them, this was a winnable game. Unlike others here, I am just not sure that Butler playing is the delta between winning and losing. And I would prefer not to torture myself wondering about it too.
Oh so I'm Tony Mazz now because I have a legit criticism? Awesome work. No my opinion is, they've been in a beef over money for two years and something happened this week that was the boiling point. And Bill should've taken a step back and played his best guys. Because seriously, there is no logical reason for Butler to not play tonight. So it's either an injury or something illogical.
2007 was for an undefeated season. I think last year’s comeback should ease the pain of this one.
You can't play that game. It's also more probable than not that Tyree and Manningham don't make ridiculous catches and the Pats are 7-0 in Super Bowl going into tonight.
Would love an executive summary for those of us outside of the Boston market.
They gave up 41 fucking points
They gave up 41 fucking points
They gave up 41 fucking points
Pretty sure they never gave up 41 pts with Butler starting
I know we will probably never get a proper football level explanation. Wish we could, but in the end coaches’ decisions - and why they get paid.
Unfortunately the decision to keep #21 off the defense failed spectacularly. And in a one possession game, can’t afford many bad decisions.
Unfortunately the decision to keep #21 off the defense failed spectacularly. And in a one possession game, can’t afford many bad decisions.