The Game Goat Thread: Wk.16 vs Cincinnati
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Patricia isn't good.
But he gets way too much heat for the play calling than is deserved. It's the same story as it has been forever around here - "call the play that works!" It's been the same refrain with McDaniels and others before him. Play calls can be audibled out of and ultimately execution is on the players.
He clearly isn't organizing the team optimally and using resources the best. I'd prefer someone else have the job.
But the play calling bit is badly overstated, and I don't think you plug in any OC in the league and see too much of an improvement. Mac is a bottom 10, some weeks bottom 5 QB, and the rest of the talent around him is mediocre too.
But he gets way too much heat for the play calling than is deserved. It's the same story as it has been forever around here - "call the play that works!" It's been the same refrain with McDaniels and others before him. Play calls can be audibled out of and ultimately execution is on the players.
He clearly isn't organizing the team optimally and using resources the best. I'd prefer someone else have the job.
But the play calling bit is badly overstated, and I don't think you plug in any OC in the league and see too much of an improvement. Mac is a bottom 10, some weeks bottom 5 QB, and the rest of the talent around him is mediocre too.
Super confused by the dislike of the run on 1st down there by a few people on here. NE had 3 timeouts, a minute left, and the ball at the 5 yard line.
They were completely in the drivers seat and getting stopped on a run to let the clock get down to 30-ish seconds was not a bad outcome at all.
Obviously they shouldn't take getting a TD for granted, but running for a TD also was definitely plausible. I thought 1st (and maybe 2nd) down runs were 100% the way to go with Burrow on the other side. The fumble was just an unforeseen result.
I will freely admit to being in the Josh sucked category. He looks like an offensive god compared to the current brain trust. I was never so wrong about anything in my entire life.
Mac was terrible again today. 12 offensive points and 6 of those on a miracle ricochet. He’s not an NFL QB.
He has no real experience coaching offense, he implemented an entire new scheme in training camp he has no coaches with experience in, doesn’t play the best players, doesn’t get plays in on time and isn’t good at playing calls. It’s really a complete package.
Which ever coach (and I assume that to be Patricia) that has decided that Bourne should be stapled to the bench for whatever slight occurred in preseason. Or that he’s not super intense during practice.
The guy obviously can show up and perform in key moments during the game. Get him on to the field more and you might actually win some games.
The guy obviously can show up and perform in key moments during the game. Get him on to the field more and you might actually win some games.
And the throws he does hit go to non-NFL quality receivers. The deep ball to Thornton was on the numbers. Besides Bourne, nobody on that team can make a difficult catch.
Need to make sure he’s stapled to the bench for making mistakes or a bad attitude else it’d show Mac (mistakes and bad attitude) Rham and Meyers (bad mistakes) that there are consequences.
5 years ago Mac, Rham and Meyers would be on the bench not playing for the two game losing plays by Rham, Meyers even worse game losing mistake and Mac sucking and being an ass.
If that were isolated, sure.
But the team has all year looked shitty in every conceivable way offensively. Stupid penalties, bad situational awareness, predictable playcalling, no Bourne,
There really aren't a lot of times that 4 runs in a row is a good idea.
Nobody wants to be in the position of defending Patricia here. He sucks.
But there's not a lot of objective evidence around what he's responsible for personally, and I think overall fans overrate both the impact of coaching and their ability to evaluate it.
There are a lot of other much more clearly observable problems with the players on offense.
Patricia stinks, not going to get any argument from me or many others there. But in that specific situation running was definitely the best decision.
Despite the result, it's safer than a pass, still has the potential to score, and also has the benefit of running the clock if they didn't get a TD.
We were honestly close to "should the Bengals let the Pats score a TD territory?" there.
He didn't implement a new scheme. It is Bill making the strategic decisions for this team, just as he always had.
The only issue I had with the run call is that this is an offense that repeatedly has demonstrated an inability to organize itself in time-crucial situations. Running 30 seconds off the clock is not a bad strategy, unless it compresses the time remaining that the offense has to gear itself up for making a play.
I think I'd rather gamble on my defense, which had pitched a second-half shutout, being able to come through with more time remaining than expect the organizationally-challenged offense coming through on second or third down with 30-40 seconds remaining ... even with the timeouts
And nobody’s arguing that Patricia has an elite squad of offensive talent to work with. Whatever scheme that he and or Bill have come up with is obviously not working well. Continuing to say that the players are just not executing is not the full reason why this team is struggling. Everyone on the offense on the field and the coaching staff deserves part of the blame pie. Except Bourne. He rules.
I'd like to say he was being smart situationally because if he caught either odds are the game is over.
Not catching those balls, on purpose or not, helped
That would be BB and MattyP. Bourne called out the offensive schemes and game plans preseason and early on, and that's not The Patriot Way. Apparently, the Patriot Way is reclaiming staff fired by other teams and showing the league what mistakes DET and NYG made. Whoops.
GOATs are the coaching (both sides of the ball - 1st half, the D was horrendously unprepared), Rham (few positive carries, the killer fumble) and the STs (kicking and punting).
But if you have 3 timeouts and 1st and goal at the 5, it's almost impossible to run out of time or have time issues.
It could only theoretically happen if you run a few plays, don't get a TD but get a defensive penalty, and then a new 1st and goal situation.
With fewer timeouts it's debatable, but when you have 3 TO there it would be crazy to be concerned about running out of time.
This is my main gripe. 75% of the time they seem to be struggling to even get lined up, get motion in and Jones is constantly making adjustments and calling out coverages and then frantically clapping 1 second left praying they get the snap off. Guys aren’t even read to do their job at the snap.
I'm not thinking about running out of time, I'm thinking about a team that has trouble getting plays off in time coming out of a timeout. Game-specific, you're right; but just watching this offense operate this season, I guess I saw the shortening of the game as potential for disaster. More of a philosophical preference on my part, than what actually transpired.
I didn't hate the run in principle but hated the lack of imagination on the call.
Also, anyone on the Bengals coaching staff entertaining the idea of letting the 2022 New England Patriots score should be fired into the sun.
I've been out all day and haven't seen the game at all, but to this point...I mean...it was just last week that the Pats were in the same spot and *passed*, and everyone here was screaming for them to just run the frigging ball. So they run today and.........
I mean, I agree with the general idea that the Patriots offense is unorganized and stinks.
But if they can literally take a timeout before 2nd, 3rd, and 4th down and are still unable to organize each of those plays in time.... that's pretty incredible.
I like Mac’s compete btw, but the lack of physical skills and panic when the first option is taken away makes it hard to watch. That one throw to Thornton he dropped, but that last play on 4th…somehow Thornton got behind the defense, it was inexplicable. Yet Mac took a massive crow hop, aired it out, and it went like 35 yards and was a bad underthrow. Just too many missed opportunities all around, but Mac is maybe the biggest issue.
I said "close to" for a reason
But honestly the Patriots were 100% in the driver's seat there.
If NE had a competent offense with 4 plays and 1st and goal from the 5 (and the Bengals having no TO), letting them score wasn't totally crazy.
Based on what we've seen this season, would you put money against it happening? And there's no way of knowing that on a pass play on that first down, there wouldn't be a false start, or a sack, or some other calamity anyway.
Back in the Seattle Super Bowl, I remember some talk that Belichick didn't call a timeout because he thought not doing so might force the Seahawks into a mistake. No way of knowing, of course, but it's conceivable that the Bengals didn't let the Patriots score there (and I asked about it in the game thread) because they thought the Patriots were the type of team that would make a mistake in the moment.
Fair point, I would definitely not put any money on this Patriots team being able to do simple things correctly on offense.
But as far as deciding what plays to run on that sequence... it would be insane to consider the possibly they wouldn't be able to run a play on time out of a timeout as any sort of decision making data point.
Optimist
Meanwhile, the ref call on "forward progress" backs up what a lot of posters in here have been saying
View: https://twitter.com/MikeReiss/status/1606778090533052416/photo/1
Bengals 22-0 first half, Pats 18-0 second. Bungals served this one up on a silver platter only for Rhamondre to drop it. I attribute the second half defense to a combo of Steve's adjustments, Cinci abandoning what worked for them in the first (pass, pass and more pass) and a nice completion to MARCUS JONES. Yeah after watching 20 years of Thomas Fucking Ice Brady it sucks to lose these. We made Burrow. Mixon, Chase look pretty mediocre at the end of the day.
If even Folkie makes those kicks we still lose (we would have still been going for a TD with the minute on the clock) IMO so the goat is the Rham snatching defeat from the jaws of a probable (2nd and goal from the 6 in 4 down territory) victory.
If even Folkie makes those kicks we still lose (we would have still been going for a TD with the minute on the clock) IMO so the goat is the Rham snatching defeat from the jaws of a probable (2nd and goal from the 6 in 4 down territory) victory.
Great job by the defense in the second half. They kept the Pats in the game in a big way. Allowing just 22 points to the Bengals is pretty solid work especially when getting very little help from the offense.
I think Rham is getting too much heat, when he is 4 yards behind the LOS going backwards and being held up only to have a second guy punch the ball out how is that not forward momentum stopped? I've seen countless fumbles called dead because of forward momentum stopped that were way less obvious than what we saw at the end of the game. The very reason the rule is in the books is to prevent a defender from holding up a player and letting the defenders just rip the ball away. Easy to say Rham should have held onto it but in that situation I'm not sure what he can do.
We've also seen running backs spin away and gain more yards. His legs were going, and that was what the officials noticed as well.
Journalists keep showing up for these post game conferences. Like Bill, I guess they have to. A time-wasting shit show.
Did say they should have. Suggested one reason they didn't was perhaps that they could force a Patriots mistake
Why? Because even when he played he hasn't been great this year. He has a shitty attitude and the team traded for Parker. Meyers, Parker and amazingly agholar beat him out. The guy has talent but he isn't exactly seen around the NFL as a great receiver.
It was the right play. Look, we often want to blame dumb ass coaches, stupid players, evil refs etc. We are fans. I think it is worth nothing that the core of this time as currently constituted is pretty green with a few exceptions.
This weapons argument is a bit much. This team scored 48 offensive TDs in 2021 this year they have 26. Unless you believe it was N’Keal Harry who was responsible for that output, it’s essentially the same crew. I would bet they would be better with AJ Brown, and I know the offensive line has sucked but this is the line BB went with. Did anyone see the plays where the TEs were injured? I am not a professional football coach but I believe it’s generally considered poor offensive football to have receivers right on top of each other on pass routes.
Just because Agholor has gotten more run doesn't mean he beat out Bourne. Bourne, to me, clearly has a wider, more useful skillet. Agholor has maybe a 50/50 shot at even being in the league next year. Maybe Bourne has a shit attitude, I don't know. But the reason Agholor has played more isn't football skill.
On the last extra point, I was watching the flags at the top of the post. They didn’t move at all yet the ball moved in a crazy way.
Could the long snapper cause the ball to move in a crazy way? I didn’t see the wind moving the flags at the top of the pole.