Catching Hell

8pm tonight, 30-for-30…can’t miss this story.  2003 was an exciting, gut-wrenchingly disappointing season for Sox & Cubs fans for entirely different reasons.  I remember this night vividly…people forget about the botched double play after this happened, much like people forget the Sox had blown the lead before Buckner’s error and still had a game 7, goes with the territory I gues…

Pats leftovers

A few leftover Pats thoughts…

• I do have an issue with the play-calling, but only the play-calling at certain spots in the game.  The offensive coordinator and the offensive personnel have one job: score touchdowns.  If throwing the ball out of the gun gives you the best chance to exploit the weaknesses of the opponent and put the ball in the end zone, then so be it.  But my issue is I don’t love the fact that we refuse to at least acknowledge the game situation and adjust the play-calling from there.  For example…when it is 24-17 and the crowd is going nuts and you get into short yardage on 2nd down, say 2nd 6 or less; why not settle the game down by lining up and playing some smash mouth football?  It’s a fine line between abandoning what you do best and taking advantage of your strengths, I understand that.  But rather than viewing 2nd and 5 as an opportunity to “open up the playbook” and take shots downfield, etc. I wish the Pats would acknowledge that they are having success running the ball and do it again on second down to settle things down. 

 

• I think the sequence down on the 1-yard line late in the game crystallizes what we all feared about the Pats and their inability to run the ball down an opponent’s throat when they know it is coming.  They run BenJarvs twice, no gain…on third down, they call a timeout to get the right personnel in, and then take a false start because Connolly doesn’t snap the ball in time.  It’s like this team literally is incapable of just being more physical than the other team and winning the one-on-one battles on both sides of the ball and that just sucks.

 

• Don’t you have to start asking yourself some hard questions about Belichick’s ability to draft the talent and coach a defense in this new passing NFL?  Between the fact you can barely touch the receiver, QB, and the ambiguity of a “defenseless receiver,” this league is approaching arena ball.  The only successful defenses in this league put pressure on the QB, either through a dominant front 4 or successful blitz packages.  The Pats were supposedly moving towards the former in building all of that defensive line depth and subsequently altered the rest of their defense to reflect this scheme shift.  Looking at this year in a vacuum, aren’t we in more trouble than in years’ past?  Now that the defensive line depth has been crippled with the injuries to Wright, Pryor, and Haynesworth, is this defense even capable of going back to the soft zone, keep-everything-in-front-of-you defense?  I’m not sure they have the personnel to even go back to that wussy defense we all hate so much.  Bigger picture, we have to do something…you just can’t ask your offense to put up 30+ per game even with the talent on that side of the ball.  Whether the game has changed to a passing league is not the point here, the point is you need to have a complementary team…at least last year’s defense came up with some turnovers when we needed them, and the first half Sunday showed you exactly what can happen when you do that.  It is so frustrating to know going into a series that your defense isn’t going to make a play and pick up the offense like we used to…

 

• Two words uttered about this Pats team says it all and should make you cringe: Rolando McClain calling the Pats a “finesse” team.  Yea, the types of teams we used to make fun of in Indianapolis and St. Louis, that’s what we are now…Remember how little respect you had for the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Indianapolis Colts, St Louis Rams?  That’s how teams view us now…a soft, sissy team that doesn’t fight back when you hit us in the mouth.  A sad indictment on how the Pats are viewed by the league and people who watch the tape…

 

• Ocho…in Sunday’s game the worst part of his drop was the amount of time it cost us…he dropped that ball with 8:30 or so and forced us to expend more energy and waste time off of the clock to get 7.  Big picture, his inability to serve a role in this offense is a big problem right now because Hernandez can’t stay healthy and Branch isn’t consistent week-to-week.  There’s a reason the Pats guaranteed his contract around $4mm this season, because they acknowledge we need that option to withstand injuries and run our offense each week no matter who is in there.  I’ve been a big supporter of his so far, but you’re noticing that this slump is getting into his head, and that’s not good.  He needs 1-2 big plays in a game to build off of and start to relax and just play football and be himself.

 

• This might be scary for you to hear, but Haynesworth is a bigger part of this defense than possibly even the coaching staff intended.  I have no idea whether he would’ve made a difference in that game last week, but a healthy, disruptive Haynesworth would at least give coordinators something to think about when game-planning against us.  Maybe not actually…

 

• I’m really not as concerned about McCourty as everyone else…we’ve seen what this guy is capable of and I just think he’s going through a bad stretch, which shouldn’t be all that surprising considering players make the biggest jump between their rookie and 2nd seasons, and all of those guys missed out on training camp this year.  I think he’ll be fine…Leigh Bodden is another thing.  He looks a step slow and the thumb injury seems to be preventing from him to play his physical game.

 

• I still don’t understand how you can be a championship team with the lack of safety depth and more importantly, talent, on this roster.  Have you seen either of them make a play this year other than the Sergio Brown pick?  Barrett has shown me nothing so far…neither has Jermaine Cunningham, who appears to be squarely in the doghouse playing only 7 snaps last week when we needed strong play from the linebackers.

Random hardball thoughts

 

• With news that Ozzie has hilariously shot his way out of Chicago, I wonder if that would be a reasonable landing spot for Tito should he lose his job (which he absolutely shouldn’t IMO).  He has managed in that system when he managed Jordan with the Birmingham Barons…just thinking out loud…

 

• http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/14551/schilling-this-is-100-percent-on-the-players.  Hands-down the best perspective on this collapse I’ve read, and it comes from Big Schill.  There’s no better source to comment on this specific collapse since not only did he play in this market but he played with a few of these guys and for this manager & GM.  Doesn’t hurt he’s a gamer, a guy who knew to step up when we needed him to, not a paper star, and put this team on his back when we needed it most…this team has none of that and he knows it.

 

• Biggest game of the season and Lowrie is hitting cleanup…yup…where else can you go from there?