I can see the Pats holding them to mid 20s absolutely.
I think the biggest issue with Mac and the receiving corp isn't necessarily inability to pick up yards and go down the fields, but I have zero confidence in them in the red zone. Maybe Elliot will provide a huge boost there, but in a two possession game my gut would tell me the Patriots pick up two field goals.
I think they have a couple things going for them in the red zone compared to last year:
For three of the four coordinators, this is their first game in the role, I think there is going to be a multitude of weirdness.
As best anyone can tell from the outside, how do the Eagles feel about the new coordinators?
Advantages for the Patriots Offense:
So I would say that - much like seating at a SoSH bash - it is a pretty fluid situation.
Not healthy.
Above average when healthy? Trent Brown and Mike Onwenu. Andrews is an average center at this point. Cole Strange is a 1st round pick who got better as the year went on last year so you should have a basic expectation that he'll improve on last year.
Is Scar gonna write a book? Like, does even he know why he was so good at making O-lines be good? Or is it just Dark Magic?
You know a lot of the “best” offensive line coaches -Sandusky for the dolphins for years, Miss, Scar-all had great QBs. I think having the great QB who gets rid of the ball fast makes the offensive line look good but also let’s the OL coach have more time to develop the OL because you’re not constantly ditching pieces.
As you say, this guy gets it. Except you gotta spell Duce Staley correctly or else turn in your card.
Usual caveat that "limited" can mean almost anything. The player may have been limited to the stretching drills during the portion of the practice open to the media. Or the player participated in all but the last 15 minutes of practice. Or anything in between. Both Onwenu and Strange were present at practice all last week, and today was the first practice in which the team had to file a report.
2014-2015 under Gug kind of disproved this for me.
Sounds like it may have been heat related
I actually think there is reasonable grounds for optimism on the red zone front.
I don't think that Mac Jones is a good QB, but this is not fair to Mac. Tom Brady and Matt Cassel were playing in an AFC East that had 3 other tomato cans, so they had a ton of close games to take the lead in the 3rd and 4th quarter. Right now the Patriots have to play an elite Bills team, a very good Miami team, and the Jets (who should be good this season, but you get my drift). The poor guy played in a playoff game where the other team literally didn't punt. I mean.......there's a little bit of blaming the starting pitcher because he didn't get the win when his team only scored two runs going on here.
I feel like practically every game last year there was one trip inside the 5-yard line that would get pushed back due to a DOG or false start penalty. I don't know where to find the numbers, but I bet the probablblity of turning a RZ trip into a TD is MUCH higher on 1st and goal from inside the 5, than from the 5-10.
Bridge too far dissing Matt Cassel. The three 2008 “tomato cans” went 27-21.
And beat the shit out of the NFC Champs, who came thisclose to winning it all.
That's true, to a point. But...
That Cardinals team had no business making the Super Bowl when you look at the regular season. I think the Eagles beat them by 20+, the Patriots by 30+, and I think they had two other losses by the same amount. Their playoff run was banana pants.
I think his ceiling is no higher than the low end of the second quartile/high end of the 3rd quartile. But Mac Jones was not a gaping wound on an otherwise virile Patriots team in either season, IMO. There were a lot of guys who were paid to play shitty football by sadly-sober-Bob-Kraft.
This is true.
I can't argue with that. I hold out hope that Mac will develop and be better than that, but I think the odds are very much against it. He's OK but that may be it.
He might have had one vs. LAS or CIN but Rham gave those both away with a significant assist to Jakobi vs. LAS. What might be more telling is that on both of those drives the majority of the production came via Rham runs, then again given who was calling plays at the time it might mean nothing at all.
Depends on how you want to define game winning drives. They had opportunites and they typically go belly up.
Mac did that in plenty of the college game film that I saw pre-draft. Honestly it was the only encouraging thing on the film. The lack of mobility and high-end arm talent was obvious, but it seemed that he had touch and anticipation. We haven't seen a ton of that to date in the NFL, but it's possible that he still has that. And if he has it, hopefully he can do it in about 2.2 seconds.
Thank you for putting this together, great research. Overall the team has just had a lot of problems with little mistakes over the last couple years. Very un-BB-like, historically. They need to clean it up this year or they're looking at another mediocre season, complete with several excruciating losses that prevent them from making the playoffs.
And it wasn't just Mac. Remember the 2020 season when Cam got to the 1 yard line against Seattle but got stuffed? Against Denver a few weeks later, they had the ball at our 28 with 3 mins to go and stalled right outside the Broncos red zone. Then, you had the infamous Cam fumble in the Bills' red zone a few weeks after that. And after THAT, they had the ball down 7 against Houston and stalled outside of the red zone.
They were actually 7th in the NFL in RZ TD % in 2021, which isn’t shocking because Mac didn’t turn it over a lot and they were a very good running team.
