It was a great game yesterday, though it was very close for longer than I would have liked. In today's post, I'll review the best and worst of the playoff victory over the Jets and see how I did with my three keys to the game.
The Best
Balance on Offense. The Pats ran the ball 38 times and threw it 34 times. In a great little spurt, the Pats ran to the line and ran the same running play (mostly with Faulk) four times in a row for about 8 yds a pop. Joshy mostly did a pretty good job. He had a balanced attack, went deep a few times and exploited an injured CB relentlessly.
Picking up the blitz. Unlike the previous meeting where the Pats sent out 4 and 5 pass catchers, they expected a blitz on every down and had many more routes with 2 and 3 receiving options and 6,7 and 8 blockers. It was a fitting end to the game when the Jets blitzed and Brady burned them with a TD pass to Faulk.
Jabar Gaffney. 8 catches for 100 yds. Yes he dropped a TD pass and he ran backwards to be brought down short of the first down on a third and eight play, but who would have ever expected him to have more than 2 or 3 catches, nevermind be the leading receiver on the team.
Stephen Gostkowski. 3-3 FG's and 4-4 extra points. It was great to see the Rookie get some playoff experience and do it successfully.
Vince Wilfork. A stout force against the run all day, got some pressures on Pennington and made the game changing play picking up the Pennington lateral.
I'm not going to talk about #22 anymore, not after his attempt to be selfish and unPatriotlike in a Globe article the day of the start of the playoffs.
The Worst
One bad play on Defense. The Cotchery TD catch and run where he was untouched. Antonio Gates makes his living running that very play - better learn to stop it quickly.
Richard Seymour. A few noticeable missed tackles, he was not even a factor in the game until his garbage time sack. Good thing we gave him the money.
Not much else, the Pats maybe should have done better than they did in the red zone, they settle for far too many FG's. The red zone was the worst part of Joshy's day by far.
Now how did the Pats do with my 3 keys to the game?
1 - 3rd down conversions. The Pats kicked ass. They were 11-16 and held the Jets to a meager 3-11.
2 - Special teams. The Pats held Miller to an average at best day including stopping him cold on the 10 yd line. Sauerbrun was solid and Gostkowski excelled.
3 - Big Plays. Other than the one Cotchery play, the Pats eliminated the big play.
Look for many more posts this week as we look forward to San Diego!
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4 comments:
Not that I want him to stay for extravigant money, but numerous folks said that Samuels' comments about money were made 3-4 weeks ago and were just published yesterday. I was bummed that I couldn't make it to watch the game with you guys, but the wife ended up sleeping for almost 2 hours she was feeling so bad. Looking forward to stuffing LT!!!
Do you think the Pats will go with the 4-3 again? I know the Jets have no where as near as good a runner as LT, but they did shut down the running game and were able to exploit a weak passing game. I think if can shut down, or at least contain LT we should be able to confuse Rivers enough where he won't be able to single handly beat us........I hope.
just to back up russ' comment, I also read that Samuel comments were made 3 or 4 weeks ago, the real person to blame is Jackie McMullen for publishing the article on gameday, and to the globe for making it the leading article (although I still blame Asante for not dealing with his contract internally with the pats)
There was a lot of good and a lot of bad at the same time. See-more better faulking step it up here. We should cut his salary and be tossing it to Vince. He's going to be a big key into stopping LT this week. Where was Kelvin Kight this game? I was kind of excited to see what he could pull.
The Jets were 19th in red zone defense. We should have had not trouble at all pulling TD's in the RZ. I'm on the "it's Joshy's fault" bandwagon as well.
One good stat to come out of the game. Only 1 turnover in 4 games...and it was even Watson surprisingly.
The Polak was good, but I don't think he was REALLY tested. It was a good way for him to ease into the playoffs and get some confidence/experience under his foot though. He had that 40-something yard FG, which shows he's not cracking under the pressure....right now. It'll be interesting to see how he handles Vina-benedict-esque pressure at the end of a playoff game, should that situation arise.
Looking forward for some Bolts analysis
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