Well, everyone is too stunned by Jacoby Brissett to post this week’s thread, so I’ll do it.
Schedule:
Thursday, Sep. 22
Texans at Patriots 8:25 p.m.
Sunday, Sep. 25
Cardinals at Bills 1:00 p.m.
Raiders at Titans 1:00 p.m.
Redskins at Giants 1:00 p.m.
Browns at Dolphins 1:00 p.m.
Ravens at Jaguars 1:00 p.m.
Lions at Packers 1:00 p.m.
Broncos at Bengals 1:00 p.m.
Vikings at Panthers 1:00 p.m.
Rams at Buccaneers 4:05 p.m.
49ers at Seahawks 4:05 p.m.
Jets at Chiefs 4:25 p.m.
Chargers at Colts 4:25 p.m.
Steelers at Eagles 4:25 p.m.
Bears at Cowboys 8:30 p.m.
Monday, Sep. 26
Falcons at Saints 8:30 p.m.
The underdog Patriots started off the week with a shellacking of the Texans, led by the aforementioned 3rd string rookie Brissett. No Brady, No Garoppolo, No Problem. Suck it, Goodell.
I’ll admit that I cringed every time Brissett left the pocket and started to run. He did so very effectively but I really didn’t want to see Edelman forced to take some snaps.
Everybody’s gonna be sittin’ up takin’ notice of that game last night. Just goes to show how a really good team plays - no matter who’s starting at what position.
I didn’t watch the game, and was shocked when I saw the score this morning. Jesus Christ, how friggin’ good is Belichick?
Thinking that reminded me of all the dumbasses spouting about how deflating balls for a decade is how the Patriots managed to not fumble. It couldn’t possibly be any other reason.
So how’d that go last season? Did they revert back to the mean? Nope. They sure didn’t. So here’s a big honking Nelson “Ha Ha!” in the general direction of all those who were positive that deflated balls directly led to their low fumble rate.
This year their fumble numbers aren’t looking very good, with 3 fumbles already in just 3 games played. As far as I can tell, those 3 fumbles were: 2 from Garapalo, 1 from Brissett. I wonder if something is different about their position compared to past seasons?
I’m not saying he’s terrible, but the Patriots did not really outplay the Texans by 27 points. Remember, half those points were off of fumbled returns.
And overall, the Texans offense was almost exactly as good as the Patriots (I think two total yards difference?); the Patriots managed to string together enough first downs to score a couple of times, but did almost nothing else, while the Texans got at least one first down almost every time they got he ball, but just kept missing the key first down to extend each drive long enough. You can call it clutch play or coaching, but really, it 's probably as much random chance as anything else.
This is some gold medal level rationalization. Sure, just random chance they happened to win 27-0. Whatever you say.
“The Texans offense was almost exactly as good as the Patriots” is funny considering that the Patriots offense was awful. I heard a lot of twitter chatter about how this calls into question the legitimacy of Brady, as if somehow Brissett’s 11 of 19 for 103 yards is in any way reminiscent of Brady numbers.
Special teams is an actual part of football, and the Patriots didn’t just luck into playing better special teams than the Texans. It’s a combination of having a better kicker – skying kickoffs to drop at the 1 forcing a return while also giving your gunners time to get down there and play kill the carrier – and just plain better coaching.
EDIT: Or so said the analysts I watched this morning.
I’m a huge Tom Brady fan and I’ve long argued that he’s as good if not better than Manning, but honestly, there are games like last night when I wonder if Brady is that good a QB or is Belichick just such a wicked good coach that you could put an average talent but intelligent QB in that role and have the Pats get at least 10 wins. Belichick is beyond a ‘coach’, he’s an architect, a football engineer. He’s a Da Vinci with a headset.
Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if Belichick could hit 10 wins with any given average NFL quarterback - he went 11-5 with Matt Cassel. They might even get to a Super Bowl that way. They wouldn’t go to 6 Super Bowls, and they wouldn’t win 4 without Brady.
I think the Brady-less, Belichick-coached Patriots would look a lot like John Harbaugh’s Ravens before Flacco’s post-Super Bowl contract extension crippled their salary structure. The Ravens were a well coached, well prepared team built mainly through the draft, with strategically picked free agents signed in key spots. From 2008-2014, they made the playoffs 6 of 7 years. They made the AFC championship 3 times, and won one Super Bowl. That’s a great run for an NFL coach, but it pales in comparison to what Belichick and Brady have done together.
Also, I think Brady’s much better than Peyton Manning.
What you have is a brilliant coach and a fantastic quarterback working together. No other way do you get that many Super Bowl appearances and wins over that stretch of time, with so many different supporting players.
You’re conflating two different things. You can’t point to last night’s game and question the greatness of Tom Brady, because last night’s QB performance was abysmal compared to Brady. What you might conceivably question is how much does Belichick need Brady’s greatness?
A good comparison I heard: Belichick and Brady are like Shaq and Kobe. Individually great, unstoppable together.
That’s comical considering the Superbowl we just had. On the scale of having a defense win you a championship, if Peyton’s Superbowl 50 was a 10 out of 10, Eli’s two wins are something like a 3 out of 10.
I asked this last year; didn’t get any answers that met my high standards. I’ll try again.
Why don’t they schedule Thursday night games after the bye weeks, so the teams playing Thursday have eleven days off before the game (and ten days off after it), instead of having to play two games only four days apart, and almost guaranteeing more players either playing hurt, or getting hurt?
I realize they don’t have byes every week, but they could easily change the bye schedule so that two teams each had a bye week 16 weeks of the season, instead of 0 to 6 teams having a bye the same week. They could just not have Thursday games the other two weeks.
Also, to head off a completely wrong answer, the Thursday games are not rewards for good performance, like the Sunday night games are. They are set in concrete at the beginning of the season.
