1. #5141
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    Quote Originally Posted by Slowpoke is a Gamer View Post
    The Chiefs beat the Colts last week in a bad weather game. The Colts, by the way, used the same strategy you described in the Wild Card Round to beat the Texans; ram Marlon Mack down their throat.
    Yeah, that's what worries me a little. The Colts ran the ball well before going up against the Chiefs and they went nowhere in this game. The difference is that the Patriots have already ran the ball well against the Chiefs, but admittedly less successfully in the second half of that game, meaning the Chiefs have already seen parts of what they'll face and adjusted to it.

    Going to probably be a case of the Patriots throwing some new run looks at the Chiefs and having success at first and then the adjustments on both sides will happen. We'll see who wins that adjustment game.

  2. #5142
    Quote Originally Posted by Slowpoke is a Gamer View Post
    All good points but I will raise once again the key points for why the Patriots won't win this game despite absolutely pantsing the Chargers at home.

    Belichick is 20-3 at home in the playoffs, he's 3-4 on the road.

    The last time the Patriots have won a road AFC Championship was 2004, they've lost 3 since (all to Peyton Manning).

    The Patriots were 3-5 on the road this season with wins against the Bills, Jets, and Bears. Losses against the Jags, Lions, Titans, Dolphins, and Steelers.

    Arrowhead remains one of the toughest places to play for road teams.

    The Chiefs beat the Colts last week in a bad weather game. The Colts, by the way, used the same strategy you described in the Wild Card Round to beat the Texans; ram Marlon Mack down their throat.
    I was just making the point that taking Mahomes over Brady in bad weather is just not the right conclusion. We have 18 years of evidence that Brady is elite in bad weather. Doesn't necessarily mean the Pats are going to win, I will say though that I expect the home field crowd to be less impactful than normal at Arrowhead, it's really hard to be loud and rowdy as a fan when its -5 degrees and you are huddling up to stay warm.

  3. #5143
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    Speaking of problems and gamechangers: Aaron Donald is going to be matched up with the Saints interior O-line. They couldn;t contain Fletcher Cox, and Cox was hurt and even healthy not as good as Donald.

    That might utterly wreck the Saints chances unless they have some kind of plan and a back up plan and a contingency plan.

  4. #5144
    The Insane draynay's Avatar
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    Donald had one tackle for loss, one pass defend, and four QB hits in their previous meeting, Brees was never sacked and threw four touchdowns. Obviously he is a difficult player to contend with, but it isn't some nightmare matchup.

    - - - Updated - - -

    The big deal is the Saints lost their best interior defender with Rankins out with an achilles injury.
    /s

  5. #5145
    Looks like Ed Donatell is going to be Denver's D-coordinator. Probably expected when he didn't get the job in Chicago, and might as well go to Denver for a 3rd time.

  6. #5146
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tonus View Post
    they might be so far ahead of the rest of the league that they can win with decidedly mediocre talent.
    Or maybe the talent that is on the team get zero respect cause dur hur Brady and Belichick (don't mean you specifically).

    Shaq Mason, Julian Edelman, Trey Flowers, Kyle Van Noy, Patrick Chung, Devin McCourty and even Stephon Gilmore to some extent get no respect for their play, even though they are and have been among the top players at their position for multiple years.

    At best they get the "they're kinda good, but I'd pick these 5 guys over them" treatment. Well, guess what, if you have that many guys on the team being that good, the team will likely do well.

    And with Belichick putting them in their best position to succeed and by paying none of these guys big money, he's managing to keep replenishing and keep the machine turning.

    And the same thing will happen this offseason. Belichick will sign Malcom Brown to a modest deal and try to keep deals for Trey Flowers reasonable. But if he can't? He'll let Flowers or whoever walk and let someone else pay the guy 17 million a year and bring in some player with ill scheme fit from elsewhere and draft a guy, and rely on some guys that got some, but not a lot of playing time this year behind Flowers for next to nothing, and pour all that saved money back into strengthening other positions instead. He's done it countless times now and it keeps surprising people that it works, somehow.


    The funniest thing is that this behaviour has lead people to moan that the Patriots are cheap. But 1) they spend the salary cap just like everyone else, there's not tens of millions of roll over cap space like some teams have and 2) they actually have market setting deals on the regular. Gronk, McCourty, Gilmore, Hightower, Gostkowski all got market setting deals in some respect, and that's not mentioning Brady even though he set the market in most of his deals and currently has a 22M cap hit going up to 27M next season if no restructure or extension.

  7. #5147
    Please don't play the "we get no respekt!" card with the Patriots. I heard Tom Brady say "Everyone thinks we suck" comment this week and almost threw up in my mouth that he's trying to play the underdog.

  8. #5148
    Well, I mean, Tom Brady is also in a unique position in which his wife makes more money than him, so he's constantly taking less money than he's worth to keep a modicum of experienced veterans on his team. Most other teams, when they start having to pay their QBs real money (off the rookie contract), go broke in many other positions of need. I mean, is Kirk Cousins worth 84 million dollars, and could some of that money been used better elsewhere? I'm sure of it. I don't think Kirk Cousins played all that much worse than Case Keenum last year, it's just their team wasn't as good.

  9. #5149
    I just want Chiefs vs Rams SuperBowl it will be way more intense and exciting than that regular season game.

  10. #5150
    I'm sticking with the Saints taking the NFC, since I totally whiffed on the Ravens at the start of the playoffs, I'm not sure who I'm going to go with in the AFC. I think I'll go with the Chiefs taking the AFC though. But really, would any of us be surprised to see any of the 4 potential Super Bowl combinations given the teams that are playing?

    One think I will point out, though, is that the only pick I'm willing to make about the next two games (championship and Super Bowl) with any measure of confidence is that the one team that is most likely to not win the Super Bowl is the Patriots. There have been much better Patriots teams that have tried to win a Super Bowl a year after losing a Super Bowl (and some of them against worse teams than they'd have to beat this year to do it) that have failed. There's a reason that only two teams have ever done that, and no teams have done it since the '72 Dolphins. I think that's a stat that will be up there with the '72 Fins perfect season.

  11. #5151
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tonus View Post
    I have a hard time believing that Edelman would be a good player on any other team. He ran the 40 in 4.52 as a 5'10" guy playing for a small college team.
    Well, that's basically exactly what I mean. Edelman would have succeeded on most other teams too. He doesn't have elite long speed, but he has elite short area quickness. He had some of the best combine numbers that test for that (3-cone drill etc.). On top of that he is competitive like all hell. He wants it more than most other players want it. Which means he puts a lot of time and care in his preparation and doesn't slack off, like some more physically able recievers might.

    His only problem was that he was a QB coming into the league, and had to learn how to be an elite WR. Once he got there and got opportunity to play (2013) he quickly acsended. But while he was learning the WR skills he was an elite Punt returner (elite short area quickness again) and contributed like that.

    What makes him the no. 1 receiver on the Patriots is that fact that they run a system where often the short area passing game is used a lot, making his production on the Patriots greater than it would be on a team with a QB that struggles throwing short or with accuracy.


    EDIT: I mean, Brady has a history of having recievers with short area quickness and making them great, Troy Brown and Wes Welker were in the same mold.

  12. #5152
    The Insane draynay's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by xskarma View Post
    I mean, Brady has a history of having recievers with short area quickness and making them great, Troy Brown and Wes Welker were in the same mold.
    Again, I've always felt the Patriots greatest strength in team building is their ability to evaluate players for their system-fit. Their drafts seldom match projections because they identify the players who fit their system better than anyone else. Obviously they fail at picks like everybody else, but it gives them better mid-late round odds.
    /s

  13. #5153
    The Lightbringer ProphetFlume's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by xskarma View Post
    Well, that's basically exactly what I mean. Edelman would have succeeded on most other teams too. He doesn't have elite long speed, but he has elite short area quickness. He had some of the best combine numbers that test for that (3-cone drill etc.). On top of that he is competitive like all hell. He wants it more than most other players want it. Which means he puts a lot of time and care in his preparation and doesn't slack off, like some more physically able recievers might.
    That's a lot of words for "hurr durr brady." He makes the players notable, same as Manning and Rodgers. When those same guys go somewhere else they disappear or retire without anyone noticing.
    Quote Originally Posted by Gumboy View Post
    I'm not sure if you guys have noticed but sometimes I say things that are kind of dumb
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    I just like reading about the "vigorous rubbing" that might affect ball inflation.

  14. #5154
    The point is, Troy Brown wasn't that great and Wes Welker immediately became shit when not on the Patriots.

    Look at Brown's numbers from 93 to 2000, pre-Brady, vs 2000 to 2008, post Brady. His best season was 41 receptions for 607 yards pre-Brady, with a catch rate that was consistent throughout his career (hovering between high 50%s to low 70&s). As soon as Brady took over, his receiving yards skyrocketed, to about 1k a year in the first three Super Bowl years, but his yards/reception actually went down, he was just being targeted more by Brady. Then he dropped off the map when better players started coming to New England and he was, at best, a role player.

  15. #5155
    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post
    Please don't play the "we get no respekt!" card with the Patriots. I heard Tom Brady say "Everyone thinks we suck" comment this week and almost threw up in my mouth that he's trying to play the underdog.
    Almost everyone in the media spent the entire week leading up to the Chargers game saying the Chargers were better. He's not just making that up. In particular the Boston media, who LOVE to trash the Pats and write doom and gloom pieces, Dan Shaughnessy has written a "Patriots Dynasty is Dead" article 5 times a year for the last 10 years.

  16. #5156
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    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post
    The point is, Troy Brown wasn't that great and Wes Welker immediately became shit when not on the Patriots.
    Wes Welker was 32 and beat up by the time he got to Denver and he still put up decent numbers his 1st year there (when the Denver offense in general put up video game numbers and he was maybe the 3rd weapon on that offense, whereas he was the no. 1 in NE). Same for Troy Brown, he was 30 by the time Brady took over, and 33 by the time his numbers started going down. They weren't shit, they just grew old.

    Also: Both guys AND Edelman were elite punt returners, when Brady is not on the field.

  17. #5157
    Welker was good at the start of his time in Denver, but his brain got too mushed to stay on the field. OF course his yards were going to drop off when he wasn't getting 170+ targets and only played 13 games on an offense that had Decker, Thomas, Thomas and Moreno all getting 75+ targets. His only problem was he had more concussion in his career than he can count to.

    Fangio, Scangarello and Donatell. Maybe Elway's strategy is to make the refs think his coaches are part of the mafia so they call games in his favor.
    Last edited by Grube; 2019-01-16 at 06:26 PM.

  18. #5158
    Quote Originally Posted by xskarma View Post
    Wes Welker was 32 and beat up by the time he got to Denver and he still put up decent numbers his 1st year there (when the Denver offense in general put up video game numbers and he was maybe the 3rd weapon on that offense, whereas he was the no. 1 in NE). Same for Troy Brown, he was 30 by the time Brady took over, and 33 by the time his numbers started going down. They weren't shit, they just grew old.

    Also: Both guys AND Edelman were elite punt returners, when Brady is not on the field.
    but his numbers were shit in the prime of his career (Troy Brown, that is). His 607 yard year was an aberration for his early career, his averages were more like the mid-400s in yards per season. Brady made him better, and then people like Ben Watson came in 2004, Welker in 2007.

    Oh, and Welker had 2 years in Miami before joining the Patriots, in which he was also shit.

  19. #5159
    Quote Originally Posted by eschatological View Post
    Oh, and Welker had 2 years in Miami before joining the Patriots, in which he was also shit.
    His second season he had 70 catches for 700 yards with Joey Harrington, Dante Culpepper and Cleo Lemon throwing him passes.

  20. #5160
    The Insane draynay's Avatar
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    He was an undrafted kick returner that performed his way into being worth trading for a 2nd round pick. I remembered Welker from preseason with the Chargers and wasn't surprised when he did well, he was always good.
    /s

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