Read last week he was one of the most double teamed defensive linemen in the league.
The Game Goat Thread: Wk. 4 @ Green Bay
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Agreed. Good chance the Pats don't run the ball 33 times if Hoyer plays the entire game, and that means many more chance for Hoyer to be bad. Which he is. Bad. He's a bad QB.
There was the option of not doing the transparent and predictable run on first, run on second, vanilla drop back pocket pass on third before the punt in 4th and 5.
Sure, and if they did something different and a pass fell incomplete, or there was a sack, or a turnover, everyone here would have been screaming at them for not just pounding the ball down GB's throat and getting into field goal range.
Agreed. I didn't love the type of run they called on 2nd down, because it was a deep handoff and slow developing. But putting the ball in the RBs hands had been working all 4th quarter, it didn't make sense to ask Bailey to sling it in OT. Sometimes players just have to execute, and we didn't on 2nd and 3rd down.
Zappe had Henry open and couldn't pull the trigger. I'd say that shows the staff was right to be wary of him trying to do something "creative."
I’m not faulting them for not airing it out like they would have done with Brady.
“Creative” could have been a jet sweep - an effective play the Pats have all but eliminated from their offense this year. It could have been play action on second down - a couple of the plays Zappe did make were on play action. It could have been a designed Zappe run, he runs decently (better than Mac). Maybe third down in the gun is a direct snap to Harris - another long successful play that the Pats have abandoned.
They ran it twice and passed once, into a defense than knew exactly what was coming. Anything would have been better than that. Passing in first followed by 2 runs would have been better than that. Three straight runs, but with at least some effort to not be obvious and predicable, could have been better. Doing the one pass on a non-obvious passing down, ideally with play action, would have been better.
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The defense knew what was coming all game, and the Pats were still successful running them over. Zappe 100% shit his pants on third down, he immediately turned his feet the wrong direction and never had a chance. I actually wish they would have just run a draw and run it again on 4th if they got it within a couple yards tbh.
EJ, I think you're forgetting how vastly inexperienced Zappe is as a pro. They undoubtedly tried to keep it to plays they knew Zappe ran well in practice.
How much of the playbook was realistically in play though? It looked like they were trying to keep things pretty simple for Zappe which makes a ton of sense. We are talking about a guy who is probably not an NFL caliber QB and who was taking practice squad snaps up until a week ago.
Edit: Or what SJH just said.
Edit: Or what SJH just said.
Exactly. Look how Henry is open here. In the NFL that's wide open. Just a really poor play by Zappe.
View: https://twitter.com/ThatDaveBrown/status/1576733335476240384?s=20&t=aGbxoLP7zdggZMyscp-rrw
I think Romo was good yesterday talking through Zappe's game. He's gonna be nervous, etc. Zappe is a good thrower of the ball and was bouncing and missing easy throws. Additionally he locks in too much on his first or second read.
I would assume a week of first team snaps in practice will help in addition to some film review.
I would assume a week of first team snaps in practice will help in addition to some film review.
I mean, the guy comes from a small program, is a third string rookie, and was thrown into the fire at a moment's notice. He turned the ball over once - on a sack where he got flattened (thanks Wynn) - but otherwise took care of the football. He went 10-15 for 99 yards, 1 td, 0 int (good for a nice 107.4 rating!). He did fine, all things considered.
Now, with a full week of practice coming with the #1 unit, do I expect him to play better? Yes and no. Yes, because of course that should help prepare him better to start this coming week (assuming that is the plan, of course). But no, because I can imagine him taking a few more risks next week, which will inevitably lead to some mistakes.
And someone mentioned that he looks small out there. True enough. But he's 6'1", 220 pounds. He's not a small guy AT ALL. He's just dwarfed by those offensive linemen. He's just one inch shorter than Mahomes is, and Mahomes doesn't look short at all. Weird.
Now, with a full week of practice coming with the #1 unit, do I expect him to play better? Yes and no. Yes, because of course that should help prepare him better to start this coming week (assuming that is the plan, of course). But no, because I can imagine him taking a few more risks next week, which will inevitably lead to some mistakes.
And someone mentioned that he looks small out there. True enough. But he's 6'1", 220 pounds. He's not a small guy AT ALL. He's just dwarfed by those offensive linemen. He's just one inch shorter than Mahomes is, and Mahomes doesn't look short at all. Weird.
All that said, one of his first throws was originally chalked as a nerves-related turf-ball, but on replay turned out to be a well-thrown low liner that Agholor should have caught.
Eddie is right. In a world where "overmatched" means certain failure and having your QB throw is your only option then yes, it would've made no sense to go for it. In the world we actually live in, where overmatched means "doesn't look good enough to be a successful starting QB" or somesuch and RBs exist...they had options and some of those options would've worked. No doubt some of them would also have failed, just like punting did.
It's not like I'm expounding some whacky theory here - punt less (than Bill does) is about as consistent a view in the analytic world as you're going to get.
SJH has this one nailed. Zappe was bad. It sucks to have to say that about a guy who understandably is going to be bad. I am not mad or upset with how he played. It's just the reality for anyone in his situation.
View: https://twitter.com/tkyles39/status/1576973182421979137?s=20&t=112RMi7cm1usXrocZIZCUw
View: https://twitter.com/ThatDaveBrown/status/1576733335476240384?s=20&t=112RMi7cm1usXrocZIZCUw
He missed stuff all day and panicked way too much.
They could have not have asked him to throw at all and done something more imiaginitive in the running game. Can the guy not hand off on a jet sweep? Can he not run a QB draw or bootleg? Do we think that if they ran a direct snap to Harris, Zappe would get confused and leap in front of him and catch the ball? This must be an exceptionally limited guy. He made plays on play action passes earlier in the game - instead of that, they thought he'd fare better in a "must have it" sitution with the defense knowing 100% what was coming?
I think if they were so 100% conviced that he could not be trusted to throw, they should not have called on him to throw in an obvious passing situation. "We can't throw on second down when the defense thinks a running play is coming, because Zappe sucks. But we can throw on third down when the whole defense knows a pass is coming because... " It doesn't compute.
If it is as simple as "Zappe is bad," then you run the ball on 3rd and 5 in the OT.
I don't like the tense that this tweet is in. He *got* spooked, yes, 100%. But it's phrased in such a way as if to say, "This is who Bailey Zappe IS, so he can't be trusted moving forward." Which might be true, but very much might NOT be true. Yes he was spooked yesterday. And why wouldn't he be, given the situation he was thrown into?
And yet.... he finished 10-15 for 99 yards with a TD and no interceptions. So he took care of the ball, just like BB instructed him to, and with him at the helm, they had two really nice touchdown drives in the second half.
He wasn't terrible. He wasn't great, but given his abject inexperience and the fire he was thrown into, I thought he did just fine, all things considered.
Even if your QB is bad they just stopped you, they are going to load the box, and it's 3rd and 5. Zappe being bad and still trying to pass on 3rd and 5 after running twice because it is the best option are both still true.
They ran a jet sweep of sorts yesterday with Bourne(of Ahholor maybe) and it was a nice play. If you want to run it again you run the risk of a defense that's already seen that type of play sussing it out and blowing it up for a big loss (because that tends to happen on bad sweeps). Also, it was telling that Harris did the pitch to Bourne because I doubt the third-string guy is really up to snuff on anything more complicated than handing it to the RB.
The reality is that Harris was two yards short of that run being exactly what they needed because 3rd and 3 versus 3rd and 5 w/ Bailey Zappe at QB is a massive gulf. Sucks that it didn't work 100% but it's completely defensible.
He's a rookie QB from a college offense going into week 5 of year 1. Do you really think he can be trusted this year? His pocket presence was bad. They did a great job scheming some option looks for him and using play action. He also threw a lot of super short passes.
Henry was open on that third down and Zappe was late. On 2nd down they ran for no gain. Or am I misunderstanding the ?
I find all this curious. “Bad” is turning the ball over. “Bad” is getting your offense out of rhythm. ”Bad” is trying to zip that throw to Agolhor and either missing him entirely or throwing it to the defender.
What “bad” isn’t? Is managing two long scoring drives. Or missing guys where no one else can catch it rather than trying to force it.
No one is arguing the guy was Tom Brady out there. He absolutely missed a bunch of throws and looked like he had happy feet for a bunch of plays dropping back. And I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if he had a step backward next week if they called upon him. He’s young and super inexperienced.
But to say he delivered a net negative performance is wrong. He did fine under the circumstances and more importantly didn’t hold the team back in any meaningful way.
While all of this is probably true, the idea that our third string, can-barely-drink QB who just saw both of his predecessors knocked out of games with huge hits is "getting spooked way too often" cracks me up. We were one hit away from Rham or Agholor running wildcat indefinitely.
I mean he's a third string guy as a rookie for a reason. He's not SUPPOSED to be seeing the field this year. If they have to rely on him for more than another week or so, then yeah, it's big, big trouble for the season's hopes. There's no team in the NFL that could long survive too many weeks with their third string rookie at the helm.
So no, I don't really want him to be the QB for the rest of this year. Am I ok with him being the QB for another week? Maybe. I mean, if Hoyer and Mac can't go, the options are either Zappe (who is raw but at least has been practicing in this system with this terminology) or a veteran with much more experience, but who hasn't been practicing at all in this system.
I mean, it's not a good situation for the Pats to be in, but again, no team would be in a good position having to give their 3rd string QB a lot of snaps.
Exactly. People saying, "Just let Bailey sling it" missed the point that they HAD NO OTHER OPTION AT QB if Zappe went down. And he DID take a huge hit (thanks to Wynn's blown block) so I'm sure BB was like, look, you have two jobs here: (1) don't turn the ball over, and (2) don't take a big hit because we have no other quarterback besides you at this point.
To that end, yeah, Zappe did his job.
Zappe was better than roughly 2/3 of Cam Newton's starts.
In his first game since Western Kentucky.
With no prep time.
At Lambeau Field.
So if Cam (or thereabouts: Glennon, Mullins, etc... and Hoyer for that matter) is the best they can do off the waiver wire there's no reason not to continue to give Zappe the opportunity to improve.
In his first game since Western Kentucky.
With no prep time.
At Lambeau Field.
So if Cam (or thereabouts: Glennon, Mullins, etc... and Hoyer for that matter) is the best they can do off the waiver wire there's no reason not to continue to give Zappe the opportunity to improve.
And better than Brian Hoyer in this recent debacle, even though Hoyer was much experienced, playing at home, and had been the back up since roughly forever.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/boxscore/_/gameId/401220221
That was what they ran when they got the ball after the GB TD late in the fourth quarter.
Second and 6, play action pass, Zappe sacked for a 9 yard loss.
You won't believe this, but Patriots twitter went wild with they should've just kept running the ball! We were running it down their throats! Patricia is an idiot for calling a pass.
The answer is always when something doesn't work, they should've just done something else. They did the something else, and that didn't work either.
Well, he should have had a second delay of game before one of those scores, which wasn't really managing the drive very well. And they didn't move the ball on any of the other drives. As discussed there were bad calls either way but if they call that one, it's first and 20 and I doubt they get a TD on that drive and they're playing from behind for most of the game, so he might have to pass more.
Zappe can keep you in a game when your defense is playing well and your run game is getting 5 per carry. So can 25 other backup QBs. Obviously no one expected him to be great so it's fine but it's OK to say he's bad right now.
Bad is not just limited to those options. If he hits Agholor in stride it's a TD.
FWIW PFF gave him a 51 grade for his performance. That's a below average to bad grade.
The coaching staff had a great day improvising schemed touch plays for him as well as utilizing play action. He took 3 sacks in 18 dropbacks. He was responsible or partly responsible for 60% of his pressures!
We talk about how box score scouting can be incredibly misleading and I would point to this game and Zappe as one of many prime examples of this.
Quick edit: I don't have any personal animus against Bailey. I don't hate the guy. None of this is personal.
If my argument was so bad, there wouldn’t be a need to mischaracterize it.
My point was: if you are going to throw it, is it better to do it with play action on a running down or do it with no deception on an obvious passing down?
I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp.
The fact that Zappe was average to below average and didn’t completely shit the bed felt like a nice surprise. He was definitely being viewed on a curve. I assume you looked at his college tape pre-draft. Do you view these things as correctable or consistent with his scouting report?
I guess I'll push back a little on the defensive performance. My biggest issue is they havne't been able to get stops after the team gets a lead. It happened last week against Baltimore and again in the 2nd half yesterday. GB answered every NE score with a score of their own on the following possession. They were up 24-17 wtih 11:00 left in the 4th quarter on the road with a 3rd string rookie QB. Feels like a spot where you'd like to be able to lean on the defense to close it out.
I mentioned in another thread but that 3rd down conversion to Cobb with 10:31 remaining was such a bummer. Would have gotten decent field position and a chance to go up 2 scores.
The twitter poster will prove himself right because with Hoyer's likely iffy status they'll most definitely have to bring in some QB help.
I thought he was decent enough considering the circumstances. The only huge glaring negatives in my book were shitting his pants when the pocket collapsed (understandable) and taking a sack instead of throwing the ball away with a guy in the area and lots of safe space to throw an incompletion to.
The poster works for NFL Next Gen Stats as an analyst and has coached. I actually hired him at one point for a few NFL film review lessons and learned a lot from him. He knows what he is talking about. Phil Perry and other media people defer to him often. He knows what he is talking about.
It's hard to grasp because you seem to think they wanted to throw on one of these downs no matter what.
They didn't.
They wanted to run on first down, run on second down, and if possible run on third down.
But 3rd and 5 made a third run a lot less likely to succeed, so they felt they had to throw.
My point was: they ran that play action pass you desperately wanted just two possessions earlier, and it failed miserably. And fans freaked out that they should've done something different then too, because that's what fans do. Why do you think it would've been a magic elixir this time?
To push back on your push back...following that TD the pats went a quick 3 and out followed by a 31 yard whopper of a punt by Bailey giving Rodgers the ball at the GB 43 with just under 4 to go. The pats D stepped up and didnt allow a score (Id argue they stopped them 2x on that drive given the slightly annoying DPI called on Bryan on the first 3rd down). Then on first possession of OT they forced a 3 & out. How many of us watching that game figured given it was Rodgers at home though the game was over on both those drives? I dont think my push back absolves them of giving up the lead...but I do think yesterday was a pretty encouraging performance overall (especially now that Jamie Collins is back to save the run D). I know the packers put up points, but given we turned it over once and punted SEVEN times (previous high this season was four), I cant fault the D entirely for those points allowed. You just cant ask the D to make that many stops.
I think "decent enough under the circumstances" is pretty accurate. There aren't a lot of comps for 3rd string rookies taking snaps mid game. Brissett did it here. Hodges in Pit a few years ago. I'm sure there's others. Saying he was bad is like saying the 7th grade performance of Macbeth was bad compared to not-7th graders.
I hear that, I don't think it was a bad performance by any stretch. Recognizing that the opposing QB's were Lamar Jackson and Aaron Rodgers, it's just a little frustrating that for the past 2 weeks every time the Pats have gotten a lead the defense has given it right back on the following drive.
Unless the Pats want to join the list of teams who pretend that the 14-day common guidance around concussions doesn't exist, Hoyer will be out this week. And unless they want to suit up "boot Mac Jones", then yeah, there will be a move made to bring in someone who can throw the ball. I don't think that necessarily means that Zappe is seeing ghosts, but it doesn't mean that he isn't either.
Tl;dr; bringing in a backup is a good idea
Almost has to be done, since Mac is likely out and I'd imagine Hoyer misses at least a week.
We had sort of a similar situation when I was in high school. Our starting QB went down, and the 2nd QB quickly followed, both very early in the game. So our emergency QB (Sophomore) had to go in. Now I recognize that an emergency QB is much different than the 3rd string QB. But the effect was similar. The replacement QB only practices so many plays with any kind of regularity, which I am assuming are the “easier” plays to master. I am sure BB has said it 1,000 times that he expects any player on the 53 to come in and play 100%, but I don’t think that is reality for the QB position. As others have said, he came in under very intense circumstances, and I think he held up just fine. He did what was asked of him. The coaches would never have him running plays that he hasn’t practiced.
To finish my little story above: it is one of the very few game-specific events that I can still remember from my HS football career. We played a very generic game, and ran the ball on nearly 100% of the offensive plays. We lost the game, but that wasn’t the point. We were on the bus in silence waiting for the coach. He comes on the bus, and with tears in his eyes and struggling to speak: “That was the gutsiest performance I have ever seen on a football field.” Here I am ~40 years later, and I can still see the look on his face, and I can still hear him say that.
In a way, that is kind of how I felt yesterday.
To finish my little story above: it is one of the very few game-specific events that I can still remember from my HS football career. We played a very generic game, and ran the ball on nearly 100% of the offensive plays. We lost the game, but that wasn’t the point. We were on the bus in silence waiting for the coach. He comes on the bus, and with tears in his eyes and struggling to speak: “That was the gutsiest performance I have ever seen on a football field.” Here I am ~40 years later, and I can still see the look on his face, and I can still hear him say that.
In a way, that is kind of how I felt yesterday.
Brissett is a great comp. Rookie in the early part of the season, thrust into the middle of the game, due to injury to the 2nd string QB.
Brissett's line in that game: 11/19 for 103yds, 0 TD, 0 INT, 1 Sack, 72.9 RTG.
Zappe's line for yesterday: 10/15 for 99yds, 1 TD, 0 INT, 3 Sack, 107.4 RTG.
View: https://twitter.com/mikereiss/status/1577005725011783680?s=46&t=2MNmEpN39OkfLzn-Y2LDSg
Probably the worst officiating crew so far this year. They missed calls on both sides but the Patriots were hurt worse by some pretty soft calls or just blatantly wrong ones. They deserve an HM. First time I’ve complained about officiating this year too (to an HM degree I mean).
Probably the worst officiating crew so far this year. They missed calls on both sides but the Patriots were hurt worse by some pretty soft calls or just blatantly wrong ones. They deserve an HM. First time I’ve complained about officiating this year too (to an HM degree I mean).