New England Patriots Discussion

[bored of education]

I liked Molden a lot out of college, he was very raw but had amazing upside. The guy is a freak athlete, myself and toonster used to talk about him nonstop on irc

[Nalej]

Wait, is Price officially inactive today or is he just inactive by coach's in game decision?

[ElectricEye]

Originally Posted by Nalej

Wait, is Price officially inactive today or is he just inactive by coach's in game decision?

Wasn't listed as inactive and I saw him in uniform on the sideline.

[bored of education]

PI offense? WTF was that

[BradysKnee]

******** that underwood gets in before him.

[bored of education]

Mine switched to Tebow vs. P Rivers :(

[ElectricEye]

Holy ****, Ihedigbo actually made a play on a ball.

[Nalej]

Originally Posted by bored of education

Mine switched to Tebow vs. P Rivers :(

I'm in PA so I'm still watching the game.
Watching Hoyer hand off to Vereen and Waters continuing to hold.

[ElectricEye]

So apparently the early word on the Vollmer foot thing is that it could be serious. It's been a real tough season for him, really got to feel bad for the guy. It looks better and better than Cannon was able to come back for this season everyday.

[Matthew Jones]

Originally Posted by bored of education

I liked Molden a lot out of college, he was very raw but had amazing upside. The guy is a freak athlete, myself and toonster used to talk about him nonstop on irc

Molden is big, strong, and athletic, but has been picked on this season. Aside from the interception he made in this game he has been unimpressive.

[ElectricEye]

Mike Reiss' 3 Up, 3 Down;

PHILADELPHIA -- At an initial glance, a look at three players whose performance was "up" and three who were at the opposite end of the spectrum:

Up
Tom Brady -- Quarterback finishes 24 of 34 for 361 yards, with 3 touchdowns and no interceptions, firing up his teammates on the sideline in the second quarter when he senses some taking their foot off the accelerator. He adds five rushes for 28 yards.

Julian Edelman & third-down D -- Receiver-turned-defensive back does a little bit of everything -- blitzing, shedding blocks and making 3 tackles. His performance as a nickel and dime back highlights the Patriots' solid effort on third down, where the Eagles are 1 of 10 at one point before finishing 4 of 13.

Wes Welker/Deion Branch -- Receivers combine for 14 catches for 240 yards and two touchdowns.

Down
Tiquan Underwood -- Big target plays as the third receiver in three-wide package and drops a would-be long touchdown catch from quarterback Tom Brady in the second quarter.

Sebastian Vollmer -- Right tackle looks like he has some problems on the edge before leaving the game in the second half with a right foot/ankle injury.

Brian Waters -- Veteran right guard picks up two late holding penalties on back-to-back plays, at a time when the outcome was well in hand.

I agree with all of it, pretty much as always. I would add that Vollmer pretty much looked the same as he has been since he came back this season and that Tiquan Underwood being down is more of an indictment of Price than him(reasonably expecting anything from Underwood is just slightly asinine. Only slightly), but yeah, not much to complain about this week.

Welker and Branch really did damage together at the same time this season. I don't think anything they were doing was particularly awesome or unexpected though, the Eagles really looked like a poorly prepared team on defense. The book on them this year has been that they give up big time yards after the catch. They had to know that those types of plays were coming to town along with us...and they still weren't able to do anything to stop it, something other teams have been able to do to us at times. Hernandez really went off for the first time in awhile too. More importantly, he played mistake free and drop free football. That probably lines up with the Eagles weaknesses and his ability to exploit them, he just looks much more comfortable when he's targeted closer to the line of scrimmage and with space as opposed to in traffic down the field. Very disappointed that
Taylor Price wasn't able to crack the lineup today, and as I said before, I really think you have to wonder if he ever will at this point. Doesn't look like we're going to be able to find a down the field weapon this year. Very well could be a significant issue against a well coached team that can prevent short plays from becoming long ones and can force Brady to hold onto the ball. It's something we'll probably have to address this year.

The offensive line play was a little shaky. The Eagles were getting a ton of hits on Brady at the start of the game with both interior and outside pressure. As mentioned, Vollmer got beat pretty good at times and Wendell and Waters not having exceptional games either. The Vollmer bears watching. Almost hoping we shut him down for at least a few weeks in an attempt to get him healthy and see what we have with Solder and Cannon. I really feel like we can get better protection from Solder than Vollmer is able to give right now and potentially get Vollmer ready to go for meaningful football.

Defensively, no complaints. Not our best effort this year, but good enough to win. We gave up a ton of yards, but most of them were in garbage time. Didn't start off that way though, with Vince Young completing a few absolute bombs we completely misplayed at the start of the game. We actually got pretty decent safety play today out of Brown, Ihedigbo, and Moore...for the most part anyway. Nothing special, but good enough for this group. The pass rush wasn't there the same way it was the past few weeks, but the pace it was going was pretty much unsustainable anyway.

[descendency]

I think Vollmer is just struggling with his sophomore slump. Devin McCourty too. I predict both are top flight next year. Both have suffered injuries and both seem to have needed more off-season work than one might have expected.

Anyone else worrying about next week or the Broncos week? I mean they have two outstanding edge rushers, which we almost can't block. I'm fairly certain we will destroy the Colts, but the Broncos D has really been stepping it up.

Taylor Price should be WAY WAY down. Not showing up over Tiquan Underwood is a joke.

[Vaylor]

Err Vollmer is a 3rd year player.

[nepg]

Vollmer has just been injured all year. That he has played over Solder when able to walk shows what they think of him.

[Nalej]

Taylor Price... I'm done having false hopes. Time to move on.

[Jvig43]

Yeah I was with EE on this one. The fact he didn't get a single snap yesterday tells me he isn't going to make an impact on this team. Really to bad after he had a pretty awesome pre season.

[FlyingElvis]

Another nice win and solid defensive showing. That should be the case for the next few weeks with the cupcake schedule we face. C'mon bye week!!


I'm really starting to think something the Patriots do in developing WRs just crushes their spirit. Price has shown flashes, Tate showed flashes, even Jackson showed some. If I were a WR coming out in the draft I would be praying the Patriots did not draft me.

[cmarq83]

I have no idea what the deal is with Taylor Price. By all accounts he's practicing hard, and when we've seen him on the field he's looked good. When I went to training camp the past 2 years he looked like one of the guys who was working the hardest.

Even BOB said a couple of weeks ago that he wanted to get him involved in the offense.

It's just perplexing

[descendency]

Originally Posted by Vaylor

Err Vollmer is a 3rd year player.

So, it's his Sophomore slump in his 3rd year...

...oops :/

[Unbiased]

Hey guys, I've been looking through every team's assistant coaches to look for possible replacements for Del Rio and was wondering about your OC O'Brien. Is that position for you basically a revolving door because Brady runs the offense or is he actually a good coach?

[nepg]

You leave him alone.

[ElectricEye]

Originally Posted by Unbiased

Hey guys, I've been looking through every team's assistant coaches to look for possible replacements for Del Rio and was wondering about your OC O'Brien. Is that position for you basically a revolving door because Brady runs the offense or is he actually a good coach?

He's been alright, but it's hard to tell how much he's done. I don't feel like he's done enough in terms of developing players who can do damage down the field or finding balance between the short passing YAC game and other elements. There's a template for beating his teams that has worked fairly consistently to teams that are good enough to excecute it.

[cmarq83]

Originally Posted by ElectricEye

He's been alright, but it's hard to tell how much he's done. I don't feel like he's done enough in terms of developing players who can do damage down the field or finding balance between the short passing YAC game and other elements. There's a template for beating his teams that has worked fairly consistently to teams that are good enough to excecute it.

Pretty much this. He's done some good things with BJGE and Woodhead, but his inability to utilize Price, Tate, Vereen, and Ridley so far in his tenure is slightly discouraging. I also don't think he has done a great job using the screen game as much as coordinators in the past have done.

I liked McDaniels, Mangini, Weis, and Crennel all more as assistants and we know how they turned out :\

[ElectricEye]

The screen thing doesn't make any damn sense to me. Seems like a great way to get members of the runningback core aside from Lawfirm and Ridley more involved and play to their strengths.

[cmarq83]

Yeah one of the things that has kindof been lost this year has been how Danny Woodhead's role in the offense has shrunk. I'd love to see Vareen do work in the screen game with his breakaway speed and ability to make people miss.