Foxboro Forum

Gregg Easterbrook - Those Poor Patriots, They Look Plain Awful

Tom Brady is hurt, but that’s not the only problem New England is facing right now. The Patriots looked awful against San Diego — awful on defense, awful on the offensive line, you name it.

Mr. Easterbrook provides plenty of examples - worth a read.

The Patriots looked bad on Sunday against the Chargers.  San Diego was ranked at the bottom in terms of opposing teams pass offense yet Matt Cassel threw only 200 yards and wasn’t able to throw a touchdown pass.  The Patriots defense didn’t play much better - allowing Philip Rivers to throw over 300 yards on only 18 completions.  The only stat where the Patriots beat the Chargers was time of possession - and they still lost this bad.

The most telling point of the game came at the beggining of the second half.  In the Patriots first possession of the 2nd half they moved down to the Chargers one yar line.  You would assume its a lock - well you (and I) would be wrong.  Matt Cassel throws 2 incompletions, Sammy Morris is stopped for no gain on a run, and on fourth down Cassel is sacked.  4 downs to get 1 yard and the Pats couldn’t do it.  If they had got that touchdown the game would have been within one score and been a different game.  But they ineptitude of the offense just couldn’t get it done.

As for the defense - I’ve said this before - but I think its the lack of offense thats illuminating issues with the defense.  This is essentially the same defense the Patriots had last year - the difference is most teams are playing with a different perspective.  Opponents don’t need to play catch up which leaves things much more open for play calling.  In the past when a team got behind by a score or two it would become obvious they were going to lean on the passing game.  This year that just isn’t the case - teams are running a varied offense and keeping the New England defense off balance.  Look at the game with the Dolphins - they kept the defense guessing all game and it was ugly.

Interesting Read -

45 years later, ’63 Patriots still remember 51-10 loss to Chargers

“It was,” Cappelletti said, “a great California day.”

The surf might have been up. The 1963 Boston Patriots sure weren’t. Why, nearly 45 years later, the mere mention of that day in San Diego sends members of that Patriots team ducking for cover.

JT O’Sullivan has played 4 games this season for San Francisco while completing 62% of his passes for almost 1000 yards and all this with a QB rating of 90.  JT O’Sullivan has been pretty much an unknown to most football fans except NFL Europe fans.

O’Sullivan played quarterback at UC Davis where he set a number of passing records including 96 career TD passes and 10,750 career passing yards.  He also holds the 3rd highest QB rank at a division II school - 169.3.

Completely off topic but I didn’t realize until I was reading up on JT O’Sullivan that NCAA passer ratings are different from NFL passer ratings - the NCAA version can range from -731.6 to 1261.6.  A perfect passer rating for NCAA is achieved if every pass thrown is a 99 yard touchdown and the lowest is achieved by throwing every pass for a 99 yard loss.

But anyway - back to JT O’Sullivan - after finishing his college career at UC Davis he was drafted by the New Orleans Saints as a backup in 2002.  While a member of the Saints he began playing in the NFL Europe and has been regarded as one of the leagues best players of the years.  In the six years since being drafter by the Saints he has been a member of 9 teams - including the New England Patriots (2006 off season).  Up until this year he had played in a total of 5 games and thrown 1 TD and 2 interceptions.  O’Sullivan played the majority of these games for the Detroit Lions while Mike Martz was the offensive coordinator.  Not long after Martz was signed on as the 49ers offensive coordinator the niners signed JT O’Sullivan to a 1 year contract.

So far this year the relationship has worked out.  Mike Martz has always been known as an offensive coordinator who emphasized the pass and JT O’Sullivan has been able to build on that.  While in college and Europe O’Sullivan was known as a QB with great arm strength and accuracy.  Now that he’s able to get consistent playing time with a coordinator who can help build on his abilities he’s shown he might have something to offer the NFL.

Quiet week this week with the bye but there’s a big game coming up Sunday (who would have thought Pats-49ers would be a big game?) - but the Patriots - especially the defense - need to do something this week to redeem themselves.  No one thought the Dolphins were good - and most still don’t - but playing the Patriots made them look like potential Super Bowl champs. I’ll be posting my thoughts on the upcoming game soon but in the meantime -

All is not fine with the New England Patriots line -

Super Bowl hangover?

The performance of the New England Patriots’ offensive line hasn’t been that bad this season, but its most recent outing sure wasn’t good.

With Matt Cassel at QB, pats fans have reason to fret -

The 49ers play today in New Orleans, so reality may hit them hard in the Big Easy, but the fact is that while they surely respect the Patriots, they’re probably not quivering in their cleats over the prospect of playing the defending AFC champions.

Especially with Cassel at quarterback.

O’Sullivan unknown no more -

The Patriots are largely unfamiliar with quarterback J.T. O’Sullivan and the rest of the San Francisco 49ers offense, but they know they’ll need to put some pressure on him to prevent the Mike Martz-led attack from doing damage.

Troy Brown officially called it quits today making the announcement this morning at Gillette Stadium.  Troy Brown Rumors have been flying around for weeks whether he would retire or return - both options were still in question as late as last week.

Interestingly - Troy did back up rumors that he was possibly going to play for the Jets this season.  He said their was opportunity to play but decided to retire.  And it just so happens the Patriots are going to celebrate Troy Brown night on November 13 - the next time the Patriots play the Jets.

One Word - Wildcat

Not exactly brain surgery - snap the ball to your best player and let him play.  Amazing it fooled the Patriots over and over again.

Ronnie Brown rushes for 113 yards and 4 TDs and passes for 1 TD.

The Dolphins offense had struggled running the ball in the first 2 games of the season but had no problem today.  Ronnie Brown ran for over 100 yards and 4 TDs and Ricky Williams ran for 98 yards and put up another 21 receiving.  On top of a great running performance - Chad Pennington performed better than he has in years - he looked Tom Brady like.  Pennington completed 17 of 20 passes for 226 yards and Ronnie Brown completed one 16 yard pass for a TD.

While the Miami offense was firing on all cylinders the New England offense was sputtering.  Matt Cassel completed 19 of 31 passes for 131 yards and the running game barely got going - the Pats ran 20 times for a total of 79 yards.  The Patriots put up 216 yards against the Dolphins’ 461 yards.

Last weeks win was complete team effort and this weeks loss was also a team effort - or lack of.  The offense couldn’t get anything going and the defense was fooled time and again by Miami’s gadget plays.  In the past the Patriots might get fooled by ‘trick’ plays like the Dolphins ran but would rarely get caught again.  Not so today.  The Dolphins ran a play with Ronnie Brown behind center 6 times and recorded 4 touchdowns.  The Patriot defense just looked completely unprepared for that play and the rest of the game.

This is only one game so it might be early to start drawing conclusions but it seems like with Matt Cassel leading the offense the defense is under greater pressure and a more varied attack.  In most Pats games in the recent past the Patriots would take an early lead and put pressure on the opponent to score points.  The quickest way to score for most teams is the pass so the Patriots defense would benefit from the offense forcing an opponent to limit their play calling.  That isn’t happening this year.  The Patriots offense starts much slower and allows the other team to set their own pace.  The Pats defense seems to be struggling when opponents aren’t forced to be one-dimensional.

With this loss the Patriots end their regular-season winning record - which is at 21 games.  Interestingly enough - the last loss was against the Dolphins on December 10, 2006.  In that game the Pats struggled on both sides of the ball - giving up 21 points and scoring 0 (zero) while Brady got sacked 4 times.

The news that Troy Brown is going to retire has been floating around for days and although not official the Boston Herald is reporting that Troy is expected to retire in the coming week.  He’s expected to start a new career in media.

Troy Brown currently hold the Patriots record for receptions at 557 with 6366 career receiving yards for an average of 11.4 yards and will undoubtedly be a member of the Patriots hall of fame in the future.

…not much

I know anything can happen on any given Sunday but lets be real - the Dolphins are terrible.  The only thing they got going for themselves is Joey Porter can still talk trash.

The Dolphins have one of the worst ranked defenses in the league and an especially poor secondary (ranked 30th of 32) which should allow for Matt Cassel to step up his passing game.  Hopefully this will mean more involvement for Randy Moss.  Miami gave up two 75+ yard passes against the Arizona Cardinals last week and allowed 37 year old Kurt Warner to throw for 361 yards before the 2nd string cleaned up.  The Dolphins have been playing better against the run holding opponents in the first games to an average below 100 yards.  That being said the Pats offensive line matches up well with Miami and should be able to open holes for the running backs.  With Miamis soft secondary and Maroney’s speed - if he has a chance to hit a hole and make it past the line there aren’t many who can stop him - he could end up having a big game.  Thats as long as he plays.

On offense - Miami has been as bad as they have been on Defense.  Chad Pennington has struggled to get anything going on passing in the first 2 weeks and Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown have struggled to 50 yards combined rushing in either of the 2 games.  The offensive passing struggles should be no surprise with their lack if receiving talent - Miami’s leading receiver in terms of receptions is a tight end.  But the problems they are having with the running game has been a bit of a surprise - Ricky Williams looked good in the pre-season and Ronnie Brown was a beast for the first half last year until he got hurt.  That said - Brown has struggled against the Patriots - in his last 6 starts against them he has averaged only 50 yards per game.  Williams hasn’t played the Patriots since two games in 2005 - one game he ran for 19 yards and the other for 108 yards and a TD - whats it all mean?  Not much - just to little recent history against the Patriots.  So with Miami struggling on offense and the Patriots playing defense at a high level they should struggle.