My statement was a question of how much help Mac needs to succeed. Does he need more help than the average bear? We can all agree that someone like an early career Alex Smith would have needed more help from his teammates than Brady ever did, for example.
It's not just his defense, his o line, it's also his receivers, the shitshow of a coaching staff he had last year, the decisions on when to bench/not bench certain players.
I know and our statements are reasons why looking at results and placing the blame on Mac as preposterous. It's been said that if teammates performed the very basics of their jobs, the results look very different. Does he need more help than an average QB? Mac is an average QB and not getting enough of the basic job functions of his teammates.
1st and 10 on TB 44 with with 1:11 left: incomplete pass to Meyers. Not a great throw, but it was a blitz and there was some pressure coming in his face from the direction he was going to throw, band it was just out of Meyers reach. Michaels comment: "Raining as hard as it has all night right now."
The question that should be asked is how many of those should he have had, but was let down by teammates/coaches/defense?
Right. Tom Brady wouldn't be doing shit with this line and these playmakers. QB is the most impactful position for sure, but they're still less impactful than the sum of the rest of the offense. The notion that it's solely on the QB for not winning close games when that QB is doing a much better job than the people around him is just weird.
Brady would do fine with these playmakers. The line, however, is something entirely different.
I'm referring to the combination. He might do fine with these playmakers with a better line, or better playmakers with this line, but I don't think he'd be doing much with this line and these playmakers.
I mean, insert anybody into that offense and they look pretty good, the same team a year earlier with Brady is generally considered a top 5 ALL-TIME offense.
I completely disagree that we saw Brady do more with less than what Mac has right now.
Related to all of this, the 2008 Patriots started the season with what was at the time projected to be one of the - if not THE - softest schedules in NFL history (it ended up being #8).
Yep, probably going to be a sloppy, rainy, nasty game.
This exactly. You add Hill and Waddle to this team, and it's still struggling to score. You add peak Brady/Manning/Mahomes to this team, and it still struggles to score. Do two of those things, maybe OL and receivers, now we're talking.
I'm not so sure this part is true. Tua got rid of the ball last week in an average of 1.98 seconds (I believe that was the stat @SMU_Sox posted), which is ludicrous, even though he wasn't even facing much pressure. The reason being because Hill and Waddle get off the line and open so quickly, you don't need to wait around for them to get open. They're always fucking open. Uggh...
Really? I saw Dallas throw at ease against the "vaunted" Jets D.
I agree with your point here with respect to his offensive teammates, but if you start talking about the rest of the team as a whole, not just offense, Mac has seen plenty of teammates step up. They beat LAC his rookie year on a fourth-quarter pick six. Last year Marcus Jones had the walkoff punt return against the Jets. During Mac's tenure, most of the team's wins have come on really good defensive performances.
I'm not saying that it wouldn't be a huge improvement. We'd convert more of the "grind it out for 80 yards downfield without making a mistake" drives for sure. But that's the same problem with slightly higher conversion rates. Hill and Waddle had 9 catches for 126 combined. Not winning championships with production like that.
We could say the same about Brady for dozens of his wins too, especially early in his career.
I agree with that for the most part, but Bill did a fantastic job taking away the deep stuff against them, so they took what the defense was giving. But even then, they turned 9 catches into 126 yards on mostly short yardage throws. Hill's longest catch was a 15 yarder, and Waddle had the one catch for 32 yards.
This is well said. I mean a huge debate after Sunday nights game revolved around Pop Douglas’ benching. The fact that a 6th rounder in his second game created such a stir says quite a bit about what Mac is working with right?
Definitely. That said, he's not just any 6th rounder. He's basically their only guy with any burst. And it just stands out so clearly. Boutte being out was much less of a talking point (and he also probably has the talent to be in their top five after two games).
I mean... not really? I say this in the nicest way but fans are incredibly dumb on the whole and every fanbase thinks that their young WRs are studs being held back by the moron coaching staff.
Which in and of itself says a lot too, because currently Kayshon Boutte is tied with me for # of receptions in the NFL.
Oh I agree...I was fine with the benching, to be clear. I just meant to use it as an example to show that Mac is devoid of true weapons for today's speed driven NFL. The fact that the offense seems to be relying on a 6th rounder in week two to be one of the more dynamic playmakers says a lot about the devoid of talent.
He was literally benched after 6 snaps for a fumble, and yet Bill thought enough of him to let him handle punts. The whole thing made no sense, honestly. If you're worried about a guy fumbling, the last thing you do is put him out there to catch punts (unless its Cyrus Jones, who has blackmail pictures of Bill or something). One week earlier, Pop had the 2nd most targets and 3rd most receptions on the team. His speed and agility jump off the screen compared to the other guys they have out there.
Agreed. The whole benching him thing is ridiculous when you see he was out there for punt returns. As you say, Douglas' skill set is unique to him on this team and he needs to be out there.
He has not drafted well nor has he done well in FA/trades on offense for years now. Hunter Henry has been his best acquisition in that regards since 2019. The amount of misses on that side of the ball is staggering. He'll sign Davon Godcheaux to a $10 million AAV contract but skimp on WR and tackle. He swung and missed badly on Nelson Agholor and Jonnu Smith and committed a combined $72 million and got a combined 123 catches and 6 touchdowns. Dalton Keene and Devin Asiasi were clear misses. Drafting Sony Michel instead of Nick Chubb. Mostly missed on Isaiah Wynn. Huge reach on Cole Strange. We all know about N'Keal Harry. 2 years in a row right tackle has been a disaster. What has he done well? Hunter Henry, DeVante Parker, Mike Onwenu, Jakobi Meyers, Rhamondre Stevenson, Damien Harris......and I think that's it. I think Mac will turn out to be a good investment, but the jury is out.
Even the quote from BOB made it seem like they sat him down briefly but then it was just gamelan and using Gesicki more that prevented him coming back
2006 Patriots: 7th in scoring (couldn't find EPA/Play for that time frame)
As to Ringz, Brady's track record of 7 SB wins in 10 appearances, in 21 seasons as an NFL starter, is also an extreme outlier. Should we dismiss that as an indication of Brady's greatness because his teammates contributed to every single win? A lot of these wins were close and a lot of Brady's teammates did make big plays. Do we think a mediocre or merely good QB could achieve anything comparable?
I think the Pennington physical tools comp works, but he had better anticipation than Mac has shown. Pennington also won quite a few games for some lousy franchises. Mac has the ball in his hands every offensive play and has to figure it out. Otherwise we move on.
The reason we use 2019 as an example is it's the closest comp we have, considering a lot of the team has been the same during Mac's 3 years since. I mean, in your same post, you said we can't compare 2006 and 2013 passing environments to now, so what can we use?
That's a 4-game stretch. Very SSS. But here's Mac's last 5 games played in the NFL:
And yet he's 1-4 in those games, and the defense hasn't allowed that many points either. It's a very strange dichotomy. The special teams were awful in Buffalo, but the defense allowed 22 against CIN, 21 against BUF, 19 against PHI and 24 against MIA.
The 6.1 y/a would be tied for the worst in the league with Kyler Murray last year. So yeah, if you have to throw a lot because you’re behind and you only have the short game available to you, you’ll complete a lot of passes for short yardage that add up to a lot of yards because you aren’t running the ball, but ultimately won’t score enough. We can’t box score scout our way out of this one.
