The Haphazard Blog

Some random thought on the Patriots.

No one should be up in arms about Tom Brady calling the home crown “friendly”. They are quiet most of the game and don’t do much to help their team. I don’t understand the phenomenon. You pay all that money for tickets, parking, tailgating and food and you leave early to beat traffic? Aside from teams that can’t sell out (this is probably even debatable), the Patriots fans who attend games collectively suck. For the 2009 season, and this season so far, the team can not be fully trusted to keep a lead and win a game when they are leading. Fans really should stick around to the end and lend a hand. My recommended solution is for Kraft Sports to produce a video like Blue Man Group did with their How to be a Rock Star tour, replacing what to do to be a rock star with what to do as a fan (yell when the opposing offense is at the line of scrimmage, yell even louder on third and fourth down, keep quiet when the Patriots are on offense, support the team the whole game). Basically, teach the fans how to be real fans since they either don’t know or can’t be bothered. Mix in players talking about how other fans being so loud made it hard on them. Play this video before the game and during half time. Chop up the “moves” and play them during TV timeouts.

ESPN posted a Madden simulation of the Patriots vs. Jets game last week and I know as I read it, I laughed at the outcome and the manner in which the Jets came back to win. As it turned out, they had it almost right except they gave the Patriots too much credit on offense in the second half. Otherwise, the Jets came from behind and Sanchez had a big game. This week they predict a 42-13 destruction of the Bills.

Losing Kevin Faulk is a tough blow. They didn’t have him for 8 weeks in 2005 and they were up and down through that stretch. I think it’s a loss they can overcome, but it just adds another problem to a team that seems to have a lot of them. The main concern I would have is Brady’s pass protection. Faulk would rarely get beat or blown up despite his size. He would lay his body on the line to take on a blitzer to keep Brady clean. Is there anyone else they can count on every time like they could with Faulk?

What has happened to the Patriots in the second half? I talked about the collapses at the end of the season. There is an ESPN article that sums it up by the numbers. The offense isn’t producing and the defense is also suffering. I think the Patriots have to produce a better offense in the second half. They need to be able to run down the clock so that the defense is spending less time on the field. People are quick to blame the defense (and there’s no question they didn’t play well) in the loss to the Jets, but the offense scored zero points and turned the ball over three times. They had the ball for 10 minutes to the Jets 20 minutes. The defense forced 2 punts, allowed one field goal and two touch downs. Certainly not great, but they got no help from the offense. The defense is simply not lights out or smothering. They have a very difficult time getting consistent pressure on the opposing quarterback. As I mentioned in my previous post, the defense has an incredible ability to make the opposing QB look like a hall of famer (and the numbers bear that out).

So far, things are going as I predicted with the growing pains. I didn’t expect them to look so good against Bengals or so bad in the second half against the Jets. We’ll see how the progress as the season goes. They have a lot of good teams to play this year.