The Game Ball Thread: Wk. 6 @ Cleveland

SeoulSoxFan

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What a second half! But seriously, you didn't think BB would lose to the Browns, did you?

The game balls go to the DL (including Davis Jr's incredible fumble recovery dance), Zappe, and Thornton.

And a fat one to BB for tying Halas for becoming the 2nd winningest HC of all time.

It's game ball time again!
 
Arroyoyo

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I’m just very happy to see a “cohesiveness” right now with this team. It sounds cliché, but they’re playing great complimentary football. Turnovers/punts on D followed by long clock-killing drives on offense that usually come away with points.

I’m REALLY impressed with Jack Jones. His coverage is sticky as hell. He seems like a pain in the ass for receivers; for some reason he reminds me a lot of Aqib Talib.

I’m also massively impressed with Zappe. The kid has complete control of the offense and his arm isn’t as weak as people have made it out to be. You can tell he sees the field well and the way he moves around the pocket is incredible. The only thing I worry about is his size, but so far that hasn’t been an issue as he’s found his passing lanes.

Also, how about the speed on the end-around to Thornton? We haven’t seen that kind of fifth-gear, hyperdrive separation on this team since…Moss?

Jack Jones
Zappe
Thornton
Rham
BB

If these guys are all real (the players, of course), with the cap space they have next season…
 
FL4WL3SS

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riboflav said:
Just one win from Sosh’s projected season win total.
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It helps when you have a QB playing well.

Also defense seems to have turned it up, they look elite right now. It felt like they were good in the first few games, but got gassed easily (especially having to make up for quite a few turnovers from the offense).
 
SMU_Sox

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The defensive line doing what they did with the injuries they had was outstanding. Zappe. The ILBs had a good day too. It's hard to single people out because so many guys deserve a ball this week.
 
Phil Plantier

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I thought the OLine was the difference. Stevenson only needed to make 1 guy miss on his TD. Zappe was pressured twice (by my own faulty memory) and fumbled one of those times.
 
Eddie Jurak

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1. Has to be Zappe. Last week I thought most of Zappe’s plays were of the “taking what is there” variety. Today he did more. Outside of one rough stretch in the second quarter he was good, even hitting throws in obvious passing downs when the running game was not working.

2. Wise. Sack, batted pass, incredible 4th and short stop. Pats D looked worse after he got dinged up.

3. Matt P. He adjusted well to the running game not working and started calling passes on early downs and the great draw call on 3rd and 10 where Stevenson scored. (Zappe was struggling at that point, and the Pats were in FG range, so even if Stevenson was stopped on 3rd and 10 they still egt to kick). The jet sweep is back!

Honorable mention: there are a long list of players who deserve a mention, but I will just mention one: Tyquan Thornton, who made an impact bigger than a glance at his stats would suggest (4 catches for 37 yards and a TD, 3 rushes for 16 yards and a TD).
 
SMU_Sox

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Arroyoyo said:
A lot of us are wearing egg on our face after this draft. It’s early, but if this keeps up and the talent we’re seeing is real…
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I hate immediate post-draft grades. It's a terrible idea. It makes 0 sense. To be sure there are always exceptions to this. Sometimes you can know if a team really screwed up or not. But look at their 2019 vs 2021 draft grades. They had the universal best or top 3 draft grade in 2019 and the worst draft grade in 2021. Meanwhile Jack Jones is looking great so far, Marcus is starting to get playing time, Strange is starting and looking solid for a rookie OG (Dane Brugler said he has been one of the best rookie OLs), and TT is already contributing! I didn't even mention Zappe who has been outstanding when not coming in cold off the bench.


ANOTHER THING. For those of you who wanted to bury BB for Joe Judge and Matty P running the offense? Take a lap (I will join you for being way too harsh on Zappe post the GB game). Patriots are moving the ball incredibly well. It's just another situation, like draft reactions, where patience is needed.

Edit: Sorry if this isn't clear but game ball to Matty P and Joe Judge.
 
Arroyoyo

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SMU_Sox said:
I hate immediate post-draft grades. It's a terrible idea. It makes 0 sense. To be sure there are always exceptions to this. Sometimes you can know if a team really screwed up or not. But look at their 2019 vs 2021 draft grades. They had the universal best or top 3 draft grade in 2019 and the worst draft grade in 2021. Meanwhile Jack Jones is looking great so far, Marcus is starting to get playing time, Strange is starting and looking solid for a rookie OG (Dane Brugler said he has been one of the best rookie OLs), and TT is already contributing! I didn't even mention Zappe who has been outstanding when not coming in cold off the bench.


ANOTHER THING. For those of you who wanted to bury BB for Joe Judge and Matty P running the offense? Take a lap (I will join you for being way too harsh on Zappe post the GB game). Patriots are moving the ball incredibly well. It's just another situation, like draft reactions, where patience is needed.

Edit: Sorry if this isn't clear but game ball to Matty P and Joe Judge.
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Great post and agreed on all points. I was hammering Marty P three weeks ago, as well as sharing an overly-pessimistic feeling that, outside Judon, there was just “average” talent on the team. But as the season has wore on it’s hard to deny the young players look really good from the past couple of drafts. There’s a real youth movement on this team that’s getting exciting to see unfold. I was wrong x2 and will double up on laps for that.

Last year’s FA signings sans Judon, Mills, and maybe Henry are still worthy of criticism, but this team has added some really nice talent as of late through the draft. That could change and maybe we’re getting a little too excited in the opposite direction (overly optimistic), but right now I see a bunch of kids that belong in the league and each have the ability to make big plays to win games.
 
Cellar-Door

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Someone I was very critical of the first few weeks.... Patricia has been great in playcalling the Zappe games, play action, some motion, getting creative with playmakers...basically all the things we complained about early he's been doing
 
Van Everyman

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sal16cal said:
Am I crazy? This offensive system looks way more dynamic than with Mcdaniels last year.
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Cellar-Door said:
Someone I was very critical of the first few weeks.... Patricia has been great in playcalling the Zappe games, play action, some motion, getting creative with playmakers...basically all the things we complained about early he's been doing
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It seems to me this year they have had a number of plays with guys just WIDE open. Not sure if it’s the design or the way they are calling the game but I don’t remember this many plays with guys consistently open in prior years.
 
Garshaparra

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This team, and era, remind me more and more of 2000-01. No, Zappe is not Brady, but he's got decent talent to throw to, an OL coming into its own, and a terrific, smothering defense. As for the era, there are very few truly good teams, and many bad ones, due to a dearth of quality QBs with quality receivers. A lot of cap space problems are coming home to roost league-wide. That means good coaching is the X factor, and we're seeing it work here. Well done, BB and his whole staff.

Game balls to Zappe, the entire defense minus Bryant (again!) and a special thanks to whoever tries to pick up 4th and short against this team.
 
Ed Hillel

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What does Steve Belichick have to do to get a mention? This kid might be genius spawn.
 
Jimbodandy

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Not enough game balls to give out. OL and DL were fantastic. Great coverage overall, great against a decent run attack. On offense, skill positions were all contributors. Great team win.
 
SMU_Sox

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Van Everyman said:
What was your sense on his performance today? I felt that there were at least a few drives where he looked more like a rookie than he has in the past few games.
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Without rewatching it my take on it was Cleveland went from basically playing a ton of quarters and two high concepts on defense before this game to rushing more on passing downs and playing single high man behind. This allowed them to load up the box as well against the Patriots. I mention that because Zappe and the offense had a lot of short passes designed to punish their aggressive defense. He hit his deep shots when they were there. The only drive I thought he looked bad was the drive after the strip sack. Another issue was he might have been late on some throws. Overall though I can’t knock his game today. Again I think he was throwing shorter passes by design/defensive-counter.
 
BusRaker

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Take away the penalties and it could have been a repeat of the 45 to 7 game last year. Great to see the tight ends getting involved in the passing game. Courtesy game ball to folkie for the end of a great streak
 
gammoseditor

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Game ball to Belichick for building a team with depth. Going into the game missing Mac Jones, Damien Harris, Agholor, Guy, Jonathan Jones, and losing Bourne and Barmore during the game the team kept on rolling.
 
Eddie Jurak

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gammoseditor said:
Game ball to Belichick for building a team with depth. Going into the game missing Mac Jones, Damien Harris, Agholor, Guy, Jonathan Jones, and losing Bourne and Barmore during the game the team kept on rolling.
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Maybe game ball to Matt Groh, too? 2022 is already shaping up as a hell of a draft.
 
j44thor

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BusRaker said:
Take away the penalties and it could have been a repeat of the 45 to 7 game last year. Great to see the tight ends getting involved in the passing game. Courtesy game ball to folkie for the end of a great streak
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Take away the CLE player touching the onside kick while OOB a fraction of a second before the other CLE player possess it and we could have an entirely different finish to the game. Still think NE would win but things would have tightened considerably. Game Ball to that CLE player for sure.
Overall great win but they really need to clean up the OL penalties.
 
chilidawg

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gammoseditor said:
Game ball to Belichick for building a team with depth. Going into the game missing Mac Jones, Damien Harris, Agholor, Guy, Jonathan Jones, and losing Bourne and Barmore during the game the team kept on rolling.
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Great point. That's a lot of frontline depth to lose. Coaching staff has gotten the rookies up to speed and ready to contribute.
 
BaseballJones

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The Pats currently rank:

- #12 in points scored per game
- #13 in yards gained per game
- #7 in points allowed per game
- #13 in yards allowed per game
- #5 in point differential
- #14 in giveaways/takeaways

After a slow start (24 points in their first two games), they've averaged 29.3 points per game over their last four.
 
Smiling Joe Hesketh

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The point differential shocks me, but I suppose I should be surprised after big wins the last two week.

Let's give a shout out to OC Matt Patricia, who might actually....know what he's doing? Great game plans and playcalling the last two weeks to support the rookie QB.
 
Norm Siebern

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Van Everyman said:
His postgame remarks about this were also pretty cool. In case people don’t know Bill’s history on this subject:
View: https://twitter.com/gordonedes/status/1458815674592210951?s=46&t=aBzzm3x8f1WV8KxjkI_lwg
Edit: And apparently Bill did this six years ago too:

View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/785523568746516480?s=46&t=aBzzm3x8f1WV8KxjkI_lwg
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Thanks to all the posters who posted these tweets. This is the Bill Belichick that no one sees, because he doesn't do this to be seen. This is why Belichick is the GOAT.

The Belichick haters can stick up their collective asses.
 
DJnVa

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I wasn't in the game thread, so maybe this was discussed and I had the game on mute for a bit--on the play where Henry was pushed out of the end zone before catching the pass---why wasn't that a PI penalty and also, I thought if you were pushed out you could re-establish and catch the ball?

Gracias.
 
Smiling Joe Hesketh

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DJnVa said:
I wasn't in the game thread, so maybe this was discussed and I had the game on mute for a bit--on the play where Henry was pushed out of the end zone before catching the pass---why wasn't that a PI penalty and also, I thought if you were pushed out you could re-establish and catch the ball?

Gracias.
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Curran cleared this up on Twitter. Zappe was out of the pocket so that protection against being pushed OOB goes away.
 
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