Second Look: Houston at Patriots

Well, this was certainly a more pleasant game to watch over. A 40-7 victory tends to calm football fans down, no matter how inept the opponent. So, lets take a look individually and see if the Patriots really played well Sunday or it was just a function of a weak opponent.

QUARTERBACK: Tom Brady did what had to be done. It wasn’t the greatest day to be throwing the ball as, although the weather was fine, it was a bit windy. But he dumped off screens with precisions, hit a few big passes on third down and, although his stats weren’t impressive, he did throw a perfect pass on the Patriots first drive which was dropped well down field and he drew an inteference penalty with another long throw. He avoided mistakes. A pretty good day overall, all things considered.

RUNNING BACK: Corey Dillon ran hard, but without a ton of room. He just lacks that obvious burst he had back in 2004. He is still a powerful back and good contributor, but he just doesn’t have the elusiveness or speed he had in that great first season with the Patriots. Sunday, he had some good runs, particularly early, but appears to be better now in combination with someone else. Kevin Faulk had a great day running the ball, catching screen passes and even in blitz pickup. Probably his best game of the season. Heath Evans chipped in too and had some good runs.

WIDE RECEIVER: A somewhat quiet day. Reche Caldwell did have six catches, but not for a lot of yards. Still, he moved the chains on several occasions and drew a long inteference penalty. Jabaar Gaffney had a long drop which hurt, but he somewhat made up for it with a nice job creating some space on his six yard touchdown reception. Nobody else did much. Newcomer Kelvin Kight had a drop. Not a good first impression.

TIGHT END: Pretty solid day. Daniel Graham didn’t get involved in the passing game, but blocked well all day. David Thomas was the most active he’s been all year and he had three catches. He appears to move well in routes and could be a good weapon in that area with increases opportunities.

OFFENSIVE LINE: A solid day and much improved from the Miami game. They were pretty good in run blocking, did a nice job in protection and showed athleticism getting out in front of some screen passes. Stephen Neal in particular had a nice day and you have to love how he always searches out that extra block he can make, which he has the speed and athleticism to usually get to more than most linemen.

DEFENSIVE LINE: Pretty solid day. Ty Warren again was immense. Richard Seymour had a nice day and had an interception after he nicely batted a pass in the air. Mike Wright did a solid job holding his own at nose tackle while filling in for Vince Wilfork, though he’s not a long term solution versus better lines there.

LINEBACKER: Good day here, one of the better games all season. They chased and bothered Houston quarterback David Carr all day. Tully Banta-Cain again got better and this time the jump was by leaps and bounds. He was all over the field, had two sacks, was good against the run and appears to be coming into his own in his new role as a starter. Tedy Bruschi also had his best game of the year and was solid up the middle and appeared more active and moving around better than he has all year. Roosevelt Colvin also had an active, good day. Very encouraging performance from the ‘backers.

SECONDARY: Very good day. Chad Scott was back in form and had a very nice day in coverage and run support. Asante Samuel had another interception and was a blanket in coverage. James Sanders also was good and Ellis Hobbs had his best day in weeks. I also like what Ray Mickens has shown as a nickle back in the slot in his first two weeks and he has been solid coming in as a street free agent.

SPECIAL TEAMS: Great day here. The coverage was great, including some excellent jobs by Larry Izzo, Corey Mays and even newcomer Kelvin Kight. The returns were great, particularly the 97 yard return for a touchdown by Ellis Hobbs which featured great blocks from Mays, Pierre Woods and Willie Andrews, rookies all. Stephen Gostkowski kicked both kickoffs and field goals with confidence and is doing a nice job and even Ken Walter wasn’t too bad.

Jacksonville is up next, a team Houston has beaten twice this year. But expect a much tougher game against a pretty good opponent who is in the playoff race. Until then.

Game Day Rear View - Patriots handle Houston, 40-7

gdrv_sm.jpgby Scott Benson
scott@bostonsportsmedia.com

It’s unlikely that the Patriots swayed any skeptics with their 40-7 win over the visiting Houston Texans today.

They shouldn’t have, really. The Texans are one of the league’s worst clubs and don’t in any way measure up to the kind of competition the Patriots will face in the upcoming NFL playoffs. Their mistakes virtually assured the Pats of a win in their final home game of the regular season.

Still, today’s complete victory may have showed some incremental gain in New England’s fight to right their listing ship over the final three weeks.

The Patriots neither fumbled nor were intercepted, and penalties were held to a bare minimum. They limited their own errors and jumped all over those made by their opponents’. For once, they executed the playbook instead of executing themselves. The sloppy play and mental mistakes that kept equally-bad Detroit in a game here two weeks ago were virtually eliminated, at least for today.

For one of the few times this season, the Patriots had handled a lesser team the way they are expected to. Naturally, all this really accomplishes is a little better night’s sleep for the Pats tonight. Only several weeks of this kind of play will hold any real meaning for the team and its fans.

Despite missing key players like Vince Wilfork, Ben Watson and Laurence Maroney, New England performed efficiently in all phases of the game, with an uncommonly strong effort coming from the special teams.

The Patriots defense intercepted David Carr four times with athleticism and smarts. They held the NFL’s leading receiver Andre Johnson and noted Patriots killer Eric Moulds to a combined 9 catches for a paltry 52 yards. Without Wilfork, they bent slightly under the sheer girth of Ron Dayne, but never to the extent that Houston threatened competitiveness. Despite being again undermanned, the Patriots defense put up a complete effort against the bumbling Texans. They gained an early advantage in field position and steadfastly held it for the rest of the day.

Kevin Faulk gave the Patriots offense a much needed jolt of electricity, scoring twice on impressive bursts, one a perfectly executed 43 yard screen pass. Reche Caldwell had 6 catches for just 25 yards, but three of them were for first downs that extended scoring drives. The offensive line that struggled so badly against Miami was all over the field today, roaming wide to wall off the screens and often getting to the second level in the running game. Tom Brady managed a relatively close-to-the-vest passing game with little error, and when presented with a short field, he made sure he put points on the board.

Four times those scores came by the foot of rookie kicker Stephen Gostkowski, who ran his season mark to 17 of 21 kicks. He’s now made ten in a row since missing against Indy in early November. The rookie also had his best kickoff day in weeks, even hitting the end zone when he kicked into the wind. Ken Walter dropped 3 of 4 punts inside the 20, and both coverage teams closed off Houston return threat Dexter Wynn. The Patriots special teams answered the bell today. Never more so than when Ellis Hobbs - returning kicks in relief of the injured Maroney - answered the Texans only score with by splitting the Houston coverage behind a Willie Andrews block for a brilliant 93 yard touchdown.

The game, however, was essentially decided before the first quarter was complete.

The Patriots’ first possession off the opening kick yielded nothing, other than a gut wrenching Jabar Gaffney drop of a perfectly thrown Brady bomb. It would have been a sure 55 yard touchdown had Gaffney kept his eyes on the ball, but he didn’t. When Ken Walter followed with a terrible punt, and Wynn answered with a 15 yard return, you had to wonder if more of the same - spotty execution - was on the way.

Houston then quickly gave the stuggling Pats an early opportunity to take the lead. When the Pats turned Houston’s first series aside on a 3rd and short at the Texans 42, Gary Kubiak inexplicably called for a fake punt on a direct snap to short man Jason Simmons. Again New England got penetration (Mike Reiss later reported that Corey Mays made the play) and stopped the fake before Simmons was able to sneak for the first.

After featuring the pass on his first series, Brady then went to the ground, and Corey Dillon ran for 20 yards on two carries, sandwiched around the first of Caldwell’s drive extending catches. Kevin Faulk carried to the left on 1st and 10 from the Houston 11, and the Pats o-line allowed Faulk to burst in untouched for the early touchdown lead.

Richard Seymour immediately set up Brady and the offense again. On the Texans first play, Seymour leapt and tipped a Carr pass to himself at the Houston 24, an athletic and heady play. The Patriots defense was doing everything it could to make life easy for an offensive unit that had been shut out just seven days before.

This time Brady could not move the ball. He didn’t lose it either, which these days qualifies as an accomplishment. Gostkowski at least put points on the board with a 36 yarder for the 10-0 lead.

Back came Carr, and there again was the Patriots defense. Receiver David Anderson made his first pro catch for the longest Houston play of the day, a 27 yarder that moved the ball to midfield. Another first down put the ball into Pats territory, but when Carr faded back on the next play, he didn’t see Tedy Bruschi waiting in the middle of the Pats coverage. Like Seymour, Bruschi leapt and tipped a Carr throw, and an alert James Sanders grabbed the carom for the Patriots second pick in as many series.

Brady would pick up the ball on Houston’s side of the 50 again, and after a short Dillon plunge, Brady pulled off a flawlesss screen to his left, where Faulk waited behind a wall of unoccupied Pats blackers. Faulk raced for the 1st down, then just kept on going until he found the end zone. That he was never seriously challenged by a Houston player is a testament to the design and particularly the execution of the play.

The Patriots led 17-0 with three and a half minutes still to play in the first quarter. The game was for all intents and purposes over. The Patriots added 10 more points before halftime (another Gostkowski kick, followed by a 7 play, 67 yard drive that ended with a sharp Brady throw to Jabar Gaffney at the left rear flag) while a conservative Houston tried to get to the locker room without shooting itself in the foot again.

Asante Samuel added to his league leading interception total with a second half pick that nearly ended up in the end zone. Hobbs, who has frequently taken a back seat to Chad Scott lately, also drifted back in coverage to grab an errant Carr throw for his third interception of the year.

Ty Warren and Richard Seymour held fast at the Patriots line, and mitigated the absence of nose man Wilfork. Stand-in Mike Wright broke up a Texans screen by racing to dump Carr before he could do anything with the ball. Tully Banta Cain had a strip sack (recovered by Houston) and applied consistent pressure all day. Bruschi was steady again in the middle, and Sanders may be developing into a capable backup in the reed-thin Pats secondary.

Corey Dillon turned in 60 yards on a modest 3 yard average, but he led a Pats run game that was at times a steadying influence. The Pats did stick with the run today (34/28 run pass split, not counting four knees taken by Vinny Testaverde at the end), even on those third and shorts that have lately been all pass. The Patriots only rarely went very far upfield today; most of the passes were screens and little short possession routes. They even ran the ball on consecutive downs a few times. Be still my heart. I’m hopeful this was aknowledgement that one way to cut down on the turnovers is to draw the ball a little closer to the vest.

Some may find it worrisome that the Patriots were only 2 of 6 inside the red zone today despite scoring 33 points. The Pats have been among the top teams in red zone efficiency this year, so maybe they missed Watson and Maroney. Or maybe they were still working off the effects of their embarrassment in Miami. I liked their cautious, ball-control approach. I like how none of those scoring opportunities came up dry through a fumble or interception.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing about today was the a few of the Patriots younger players saw considerable fourth quarter time with the game out of hand.

On defense, linebackers Pierre Woods and Corey Mays played alongside Tedy Bruschi, and on offense, tight end David Thomas was there as a valuable outlet to Brady throughout, while Kelvin Kight logged a number of snaps at receiver (playing more than Chad Jackson) while flashing a few blocking chops. The Patriots need all they help they can get, and the added experience increases the chance that one of these youngsters might make a play someday, like Mays apparently did today.

Sixty minutes of mistake-free football was a nice relief today, but even a 33 point win over the Texans will do little to quell our deeper fears about the football mortality of these Patriots. At best, today may have been a small step in the right direction.

At least they took it. Consider the alternative.

Game Day Blog - The Sunday Papers

by Scott Benson
scott@bostonsportsmedia.com

The Patriots play the Houston Texans today, and I honestly have no idea what to expect. December 17th is no time to be uttering that phrase, but there it is. I’d like to believe something was stirred as a result of their public flogging by the loathsome Dolphins, or by the public upbraiding they got from their quarterback. I’d like to believe there’s been an epiphany. I’d like to believe they’ll suddenly turn on a dime and begin playing mistake-free, been-there-done-that football, just when it’s needed most. Veterans become young again. Fresh faces become wizened.

I’d like to believe all those things are possible. I don’t know. Is the answer in the morning papers?

In the Globe, Mike Reiss leads with an expansive interview with the always proud and defiant Corey Dillon. He’s got an edge to him, as you know. Reiss also looks at a scrappy Tom Brady, who so often follows bad games with good ones. In his Patriots Notebook, Mike confirms John Tomase’s earlier report on Laurence Maroney’s torn rib cartilage, with prognosis by an unusually candid Bill Belichick.

Jim McBride likes the Patriots in his Scouting Report.

Ron Borges has the Football Notes, where he touches base with Bills owner Ralph Wilson, continuing to howl about the latest CBA and the vast single-wing conspiracy of large market owners. Ron also acknowledges the passing of Lamar Hunt, another of the old AFL vanguard. Ron arches an eyebrow in the general direction of the Broncos and their quarterback situation.

At the Herald, Michael Felger offers his look at a tense, terse week for the Pats, and says it remains to be seen if any of it will make a difference. In his Game Within the Game piece, Mike eyeballs the similarities between Gary Kubiak’s Houston offense and the one he ran in Denver. I always hated that goddam bootleg play, and today, it will be the mobile David Carr rolling out. Blecch. Felger also adds a quick look at last week’s stolen line call hoo haa, along with a few Quick Hits (Matt Light on the O-Lines ‘media boycott’, and look for the little shot at Drew Bledsoe at the end), and a look around the league with Inside the Huddle. Mike has Charlie Casserly for further defense of Mario Williams. He also touches on the bizarre happenings in Chicago, with Tank Williams, the New Capone.

Albert Breer has a thorough piece on the nose tackle position and how it functions in New England, which is especially timely given the sore ankle of Vince Wilfork. John Tomase weighs in with what to look for today, and John Lopez of the Houston Chronicle is the latest visitor from the Herald’s exchange program. John’s had it with Carr, I guess.

At the ProJo, Art Martone offers a game analysis, and Shalise Manza Young gives the battered Pats a routine check up. Young also joins the legions praising Artrell Hawkins in her weekly Who I Am segment.

Bob McGarry has his picks for the day, and there’s an uncredited collection of league notes.

As usual, Chef Recommends Reiss’s Pieces for all the latest game day updates, and if you’d like to see what the rest of the Internet is saying about the Pats, there’s BSMW’s Patriots News Mash Up page. I’ll back back tonight with some thoughts about the game, if you’re of a mind to stop by. In any event, let’s hope the folks traveling to the final regular season home game today get a good show for their efforts.

GDRV Roundtable

by Scott Benson, Greg Doyle, Tim Jordan and Bruce Allen
scott@bostonsportsmedia.com

As weeks go, the Patriots have had better.

They started it on Sunday by getting their ass sewed to their face in Miami. Again. On Monday, they heard the Dolphins crow about getting the audio drop on Tom Brady and the Pats offense.

Tuesday, the receiver-less Patriots suddenly and curiously fired receiver Doug Gabriel. Wednesday, a bristling Brady in as much said that a segment of the team doesn’t work hard enough or - even worse - listen enough to its coaches.

Naturally, this cacophony roared over the Patriots usual soundtrack of tearing muscles and cracking bones. Vince Wilfork and Ben Watson joined the chorus.

Even the quarterback’s personal life was making headlines by Friday.

The 4-9 Houston Texans visit Foxboro for the first time on Sunday. It’s unknown what sort of Patriots team will be there to greet them. Maybe the panel knows.

Before we move on to the rest of the season, let’s take a look back for a minute. What did last Sunday’s disappointing shutout loss to the Dolphins say about the 2006 Patriots?

Greg: Well, I think it says a lot about their offense. And that is its just not championship caliber at the present time. Its dangerous to take a game like this and say “what does this tell us about the future…..” Its dangerous to take any single game in the NFL and think you can figure out what’s going to happen down the road. It just doesn’t work like that. Still, if you take last week’s game and add it to everything we’ve seen this year, as well as taking into account the Patriots mounting injuries, and you have to conclude they’re a pretty good team. But yet one of those teams that makes the playoffs but simply can’t advance through them to the Super Bowl. That’s what they appear to be to me now. But, I’ll keep watching because say they play well this week and then go down and handle Jacksonville next week impressively, the Miami game will be forgotten and the story/flavor of the day will be “are the Patriots coming together at the right time…..??” It wouldn’t shock me for that change of events either. So we’ll just have to see.

Tim: It says that they aren’t a good enough to win 13 regular season games. Maybe not good enough to win 12. We’ll see. Judging any football team on one game is always a risk, especially one like this that alters its identity from week to week. I think you compound that risk when you don’t look at other variables. Miami has New England’s number in the southern climes. It’s almost an annual event. Tom Brady’s 3 worst games out of the 100+ he’s played have come against the Fish. In summary I’ll repeat what I told the very hospitable Miami fans at Dolphin Stadium, “I am just glad this is the last time we play the Dolphins this year.”

Bruce: That they’re not much different from other Patriots teams of the last 40 years. They generally stink in Miami. In retrospect, I can’t believe I picked them to win last week. In the context of this year’s club, it says that they still haven’t gotten things figured out. It’s discouraging for sure, as they displayed many of the same flaws and weaknesses that have haunted them in recent weeks, and you’d like to see improvement in that area with the playoffs just over three weeks away.

Scott: It says they’re a lot closer to the 5th and 6th seed than they are the 1st and 2nd seed. It says we can’t take for granted that when nut cutting time comes, they’ll be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Chargers, Ravens and Colts. We can’t take for granted that they have this magical reserve to draw on just because it’s December, and well, just because they’re the Patriots. I think it proves those days are over for the time being.

Naturally, with under 100 yards passing, the team’s paltry wide-receiver group met with renewed scrutiny and further lament. Did Sunday’s result prove something about the Patriots handling of their wide receiver position in the off-season?

Tim: Ahhh, the offseason. This is a tough one because it is blatantly apparent to anyone with one eye following this team that Branch was a tremendous asset to them. He was everything the team needed in a WR and that’s what makes the debacle this summer such a shame, but I really don’t put it all on the Patriots for “bungling” the negotiations or on Branch for “being greedy”. Everybody did what they thought was in their best interest at the time. Gabriel was rented for 10 games for a 5th rounder and Chad Jackson has been seen at the Roxy with Tony Simmons and Bethel Johnson splitting an Orange Whip. With all this as evidence after 13 games, it’s pretty apparent that they did a poor job managing their wide receiver personnel this off-season. I don’t feel that way after just this game, but after the past 13 games. A few big catches from the WR’s we do have would go a long way for this team.

Bruce: Well, it gave the nay-sayers the chance to take a victory lap, we know that. We could debate this subject for hours. I think the part that bothers me the most is when people who really don’t know what happened state that the Patriots just “let” Branch and Givens walk. Somehow the blame is always placed squarely at the feet of the Patriots for those losses, as if the club didn’t even try to retain them. In any event, they HAVE been shorthanded in the receiver department and have had to try and work news guys into the system on the fly. In hindsight (20/20 vision there) yeah, they probably should’ve done things a little bit different. But I’m not going to pronounce them morons and idiots for it.

Scott: The grave dancers like to pretend that they were the only ones who thought it might be a good idea to hang on to David Givens and Deion Branch. I don’t recall anybody who thought the Patriots would be a better team by letting them go. I do recall a few people recognizing that you can’t pay every player what they want. I think virtually everything that could have gone wrong for the Pats this off-season went wrong. They thought they could get Ty Law. They thought they could reach an agreement with Branch. When those things didn’t happen, they had to scramble, with predictable lousy results (like the Doug Gabriel embarrasment). So you can kill them for bad assumptions, though those players DID have something to say about that as well. Does the end result mean they have to change their belief-system as far as how they pay their players? The system that produced unprecedented results? I don’t know — has either Branch or Givens proven yet that they’re worth what they got? Will they ever? Isn’t that a question too?

Greg: I think what happened Sunday was far more a function of the offensive line not playing well. The wide receivers did not have a good game Sunday. But they were far from alone. Guys who have been on the team for years didn’t have a good game. And if Deion Branch had been there in uniform with the Patriots Sunday, they still would have been blown out.

Laurence Maroney is hurt and may miss further action, Patrick Pass left quickly for IR, Gabriel is gone and Chad Jackson might as well be. Watson’s down. The Patriots offense is coming off its first shutout in almost four seasons. Time is running out - where do they go from here?

Scott: As Tim likes to say, I’m not qualified to answer this question. But if I had a turn on the XBox controller, I would hunker down. Protect the ball first, and try to score second. Patience, patience, patience. If everybody and their brother thinks they can send 5 and 6 guys at you with no fear of retribution, freaking hell, stop playing right into their hands. I would love to see the Patriots bring Brady back under center, and singlemindedly run the ball again and again. Mix in the lowest risk passes you can. Be cool with punting and living to see another series. Naturally, even I can see the weaknesses in my own theory - first, their punter is terrible, and second, they’re getting thin at RB. Third, its no better to be predictable with the run than it is the pass. But I don’t see how you get more consistent and efficient by getting your quarterback killed every play by trying to throw the ball all over the lot to people that are covered.

Greg: Well, at least Houston is here. Of all those things you mentioned, only Watson being missing is a concern. Hopefully he’ll be back soon.

Tim: Back to basics, they still have plenty enough to win this week. How they respond will give us a very good indication of what type of team this is. The injuries aren’t insurmountable, hell maybe they help the team focus more and start playing smarter, more mistake free football. They are still a dangerous team that will be in the mix come playoff time.

Bruce: I’m waiting for what we saw in the MINNESOTA GAME. The spread offense, quick strikes and long bombs, mixed in with some punishing runs from Corey Dillon. I think they can still function on offense, they just need to find a rhythm, which they’ve been unable to do since that game really, with a brief exception being the fourth quarter of the Lions game. I suspect Graham will be a bigger part of the passing game with Watson out, and Santiago will be used where Graham did his blocking.

Three weeks to go. Where do you put the Patriots in the field of AFC playoff hopefuls?

Bruce: They are what they are. I’ve got to put them fourth. San Diego, Baltimore and Indy have all been better this season. However, none of those teams put the fear of God into me. San Diego comes closest, but they’ve got the Marty factor. The Patriots have a couple weeks here to try and get healthy and put things together, but as things stand now, they’re looking at about the same fate as they had last year.

Scott: As I said above, the Pats are there with the inconsistent and incomplete Jaguars, the Bengals, the Chiefs and Broncos at the middle to bottom of the seedings. Hell, they may not even be as good as the Jags. I’m with Bruce - I can’t see how we can expect that this year is much different than last year. They may get lucky with a matchup here and there as the playoffs develop, but if they’re left to stand on their own merits, its all uphill.

Greg: Again, right now, they don’t look to be championship caliber. That could change, but we can only go based on what we see. They appear to be behind at a minimum San Diego. And Jacksonville has been impressive lately as well, but we’ll see how the Patriots match up against them next week. No one else really impresses me in the AFC.

Tim: They’ll qualify for the playoffs, but I can’t endorse them for a bye at this point. It doesn’t look possible the way Baltimore/San Diego are playing and Indy’s fast start and better AFC record. It’s looking like a home playoff game, which a wise man once told me is the only thing we can reasonably hope for as fans.

What did you think of Brady’s comments at his press conference Wednesday?

Greg: I didn’t see the big deal. He was trying to send a message a bit, I would think. But he probably does the same thing in private with his teammates all the time. I never understood why press conference comments took on the weight they do when they don’t even represent 1/10th of 1 percent of the verbal interaction between teammates or within a team.

Tim: I’ve never heard anything like that from him. It gave me pause. Coupled with the results of the game, Brady’s comments lead me to believe that these are intense times in the New England locker room. There is alot going on behind those closed doors, but I’d be guessing if I could tell you what it is. My hope is they adopt a more upstart approach to this season and rely on toughness and intelligence to win and not their God-given talent, which the players seem to be overrating.

Bruce: Perhaps they’re what the team needed. We’ll see. It kind of made me think of when Larry Bird called his teammates “a bunch of sissies” during the 1984 playoffs. That occasion had the desired effect as the came out fighting in the next game. I think Brady sees that perhaps some of the new guys aren’t doing all that they can to win each week, and the competitor in him is really bothered by that. Either that, or he’s just a bad mood since breaking up with Bridget.

Scott: I was taken aback. It’s one thing to say some people aren’t working hard enough, but when he told us certain players don’t listen to the coach, all the wind went out of my sails. He seemed to direct most of it towards players who are new to the team. I’m not surprised that Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli brought in players that weren’t a good on-field fit. It happens. I AM surprised they brought in players that apparently don’t listen to them. I’m under the impression THAT doesn’t happen very often.

Preeeeeeeediction time. Check your credibility at the door, boys. Let’s pick ‘em. New York Jets at Minnesota, Cleveland at Baltimore, Jacksonville at Tennessee, Denver at Arizona, Kansas City at San Diego, and on Monday, Cincinnati at Indianapolis.

Tim (1-4 last week, 6-10 overall): NY (I hope Eric Mangini drops his wallet in the hopper) beats Minnesota. Baltimore (I hope Brian Billick gets an oral infection licking a mirror) beats Cleveland. Tennessee (I hope Jeff Fisher continues to get the respect he deserves) beats Jax. Denver (I hope Shanahan keeps a salt lick with him on the sideline) beats Arizona. Kansas City (I hope Herm Edwards gets his fly stuck on the fence the next time he climbs one for the camera) falls to San Diego. Indianapolis (I hope Tony Dungy returns to his home planet someday soon) falls to Cincinnati.

Bruce (2-3 last week, 48-27 overall): Jets. Ravens. Jacksonville. Denver. San Diego. Indianapolis. Any questions?

Scott (2-3 last week, 50-31 overall): I expect the Jets will beat the Vikes, even on the road, because the Jets insist on being a pain in the ass. Baltimore wins over the failing Browns, and I’ll take Jacksonville on the road over the improving Titans (great timing, Jeff, thanks). To continue the pessimism, the Broncos will find a way to win in Arizona, the Chargers will beat the visiting Chiefs, and on Monday night I’ll take the Colts at home.

Greg (3-2 last week, 46-35 overall): The Jets were exposed last week, Minnesota beats them at home to send them back to .500. Baltimore takes out the reeling Browns, Jacksonville slows down the Vince Young express, Arizona beats Denver, San Diego beats KC and the Bengals continue the Colts woes by running it down their throats again and sending them to their fourth loss in five games.

Okay, let’s really strain credulity here. Pats picks! Let’s ask this group of lifelong Patriots fans and season ticket holders for their objective opinion about this Sunday’s game. Remember, men - these picks count!

Bruce: Undermanned Patriots come out with a little fire. They win 24-7.

Scott: The Patriots can’t win here no matter what they do. Neither can I. I’ll take the Pats 16-13.

Greg: The Pats are banged up. This might be closer than we expect. But I can’t see Houston running the ball much, even with Vince Wilfork out. And they should be able to get pressure on David Carr, everyone else does. Of course Andre Johnson is a great receiver and they need to shut him down. They should move the ball some on offense. I’ll say Patriots 23-13.

Tim: I see 14-10 Patriots. The Texans are playing competitive football and Kubiak may have stolen some of Shanahan’s kryptonite on his way out of Colorado.

Bring out your Mediots of the Week! Bring out your Mediots of the Week!

Scott: I don’t have one, but I have a mea culpa - not that many people read it, but last Sunday I got all over Albert Breer of the Herald for his nagging Sunday morning column that insisted on reminding me of all the things that are wong with my football team. My response (”they ARE 9-3″) was as weak as the Patriots effort on Sunday. You had it right Albert, and I had it all wrong.

Greg: Lets go with Dennis and Callahan for their absurd four hours on a alleged sports show about “the war on Christmas”….probably the most laughable, paranoid delusional concept I have ever heard of. Christmas is everywhere. Like everyone else, I love Christmas. But I saw displays in stores this year before Halloween. I heard songs on the radio before Thanksgiving. The Wrentham Outlets opened at midnight Thanksgiving evening. You can’t walk 5 feet down the street without some reminder of how commercialized the Holiday has become. And its more hyped and commercialized and fatiguing, at times, from the commercials to over decorated houses to shopping every year. Certainly more than when I was a kid and it was commercialized then. Where is this war these morons speak of? Invented in their little heads I suppose. Well, that’s it for this week. See you next week, I have to go finish my shopping.

Tim: I avoided the local coverage partially due to travel back from Miami and partially because I had no interest in a thorough accounting of that game from the usual suspects, but for fun let’s just highlight one and give him some recognition for his body of work. I give you, Steve Burton. Steve’s done nothing egregious in Patriots coverage since he asked Tom Brady to “talk about” his locker room hijinks with Cassel, sounding like a special needs 5th grader talking to an honor student 8th grader, but that doesn’t mean we can’t salute him for being the dimmest, most inept broadcast personality in our fair region for years now. A Steve Burton interview makes the viewer’s brain cells quake in fear and his only peer in that department that I can think of is Butch Stearns. Three cheers to double digit IQ’s and Daddy’s reputation! Three cheers for Steve Burton!

Bruce: Gotta go with Borges and Felger just trying to stir stuff up by suggesting Belichick could bolt for Houston after the season. Borges made the suggestion, saying that he had “friends” who told him this. Felger said Belichick’s contract was due to expire after this season and that no one from the Patriots has said otherwise. He forgot that Robert Kraft said right in the aftermath of the playoff loss last winter that this season would not be the last year on Belichick’s deal.

The David Carr Conundrum

By Bill Barnwell, Football Outsiders - special to BSMW Patriots Game Day

The David Carr Conundrum

It’s hard to write a column about the Houston Texans without taking a look at the decision they made with regards to this year’s draft. Everyone who’s going to read this knows the story: they passed up Vince Young and Reggie Bush to stick with David Carr and Domanick Davis, and selected Mario Williams. At the time of the decision, I mostly agreed with this — running backs are fungible properties and I felt that Carr hadn’t been given a chance to shine. The only difference between the Texans’ decision and my own would have been the selection of D’Brickashaw Ferguson instead of Mario Williams. Both have struggled in their first year. Davis was placed on IR before the season with a knee injury that failed to heal; even so, the Texans rush attack is the 17th best in the league according to Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric, which measures their performance in each down, distance, and opponent situation versus that of the rest of the league. Perhaps more interestingly, their pass offense grades out as 13th — above-average! When you consider that Houston’s rush offense was 13th last year and its passing attack 31st, that appears to be a huge step forward.

Still, though, DVOA is just a metric and should be used in combination with observation and other data. If you’ve followed the Texans this season, what you’ve heard are increased rumblings, much like last season, about David Carr’s job security. Several weeks ago, he was benched halfway through a game after turning the ball over twice for Sage Rosenfels. Now, I don’t mean to disparage Mr. Rosenfels, but it’s Sage Rosenfels. This was not Gary Kubiak benching Carr so that he could get a rookie some game experience; he was benching his starting quarterback for his older, veteran backup. Speculation as to whether Kubiak was just living out some bizarre punitive fantasy involving a benching of John Elway is ridiculous, but Kubiak was clearly unhappy with the play of Carr. Further discussion of Carr’s impending dismissal has come out since then — do a Google News Search for Carr and most, if not all, of the articles will point the Texans “mistake” out.

The thing is, looking at Carr’s statistical line, it’s hard to reconcile that with what people are saying. He leads the NFL in completion percentage at 69.4%; Drew Brees, in second at 66.4%, is closer to eighth than first. While you can make a case that this is due to Houston’s offensive style, it’s some evidence that Carr is at least doing a decent job of performing within the system he plays in; it’s not as if he’s wildly inaccurate. Let’s then look at his yards per attempt, to see if he’s actually getting the ball anywhere:

david_carr.jpg

As you can see, his numbers were going up from year-to-year at a pretty steady rate (the average yards per attempt for a starting QB, since the merger, is 6.88) — until last year, when his numbers went down to the levels of his rookie season. When I was compiling this data, I began to notice that Carr was one of the few quarterbacks that had this happen to him, and that this might say something about a quarterback’s professional feasibility.

I took every quarterback since the merger and eliminated all seasons where they didn’t throw at least fifteen passes a game and/or played fewer than eight games — since we’re looking at a rate stat, it’s okay if we include the strike years in this. From there, I simply subtracted their yards per attempt in their first season from their fourth, getting rid of the quarterbacks who hadn’t had four starting seasons in the process. Here are the quarterbacks who saw little to no change in their Yards per Attempt over those four seasons:

qb_chart.jpg

As you can see, it’s not a terribly impressive group — the names that you would find impressive, the Dan Marino, Mark Rypien, and Warren Moon’s, for example, all have significantly superior levels of yards per attempt than Carr to begin with. It’s simply hard to improve when you are already averaging 8+ yards per attempt. Terry Bradshaw looms as someone who improved significantly in his sixth year as a starter, but he appears to be one of the exceptions to the rule.

Here’s a list of the ten most and least improved quarterbacks when it comes to yards per attempt:

qb_chart2.jpg

A player like Steve Young is a little misleading because he was playing in a different offense by the time he had his fourth season, but there’s nothing stopping the players on the bottom half of the list from going to a different offense and improving, either.

See that column to the right that I added? That’s the number of games each player played after his fourth starting season in the NFL. The players on the top of the list played 573 games after their fourth seasons; the players at the bottom of the list, 333. (The + symbols are for Donovan McNabb, Jake Plummer, Kurt Warner, and Aaron Brooks, all of whom are still playing in the NFL; if anyone wants to make a nifty prop bet with me, I’ll take Donovan McNabb having more starts than the other three combined for the rest of their respective NFL careers.)

The 20 guys most similar to and David Carr? Their games played numbers after starting season #4 are below.

carr_chart.jpg

They averaged 63 games played after their fourth season, nearly seven more than the players whose yards per attempt improved dramatically, but 30 more than those who saw their numbers decline dramatically.

So, then, it’s really hard to make a case that Carr’s yards per attempt stagnating after last season would be a dramatic point against him being a NFL-caliber quarterback.

What then, do we say about David Carr’s chances? Why is he so maligned? Interceptions? Can’t be. Starting quarterbacks since the merger throw an interception, on average, once every 30.93 throws. Carr threw an interception every 38.46 throws in 2005. Fumbles? Maybe, but is that Carr’s fault or the shellacking he takes? His offensive line, according to Football Outsiders Adjusted Line Yards metric, has ranked 32nd, 25th, 30th, 32nd, and this year 27th in protecting Carr from harmful DL waves. With that in mind, it’s hard to point out anything that Carr really does too incorrectly, and points even further to the benefits of having selected D’Brickashaw Ferguson in this year’s draft — even if Ferguson would’ve struggled in a similar manner in Houston, it would at least give David Carr a chance.

team_chart.jpg

As you can see, Houston’s had the worst offensive line in football over the last five years for pass blocking. Note that the teams around them have also struggled to throw the ball effectively. Is that a coincidence? It might take a Pro Bowl performance by David Carr in Miami for the Texans to find out.

SECOND LOOK: Patriots at Miami

This was obviously an absolute abysmal performace by the Patriots on the whole. I will say the Patriots were decent for most of the game on defense, but their offense was so inept and punter so pathetic, it made little difference. I actually had to slog through the tape of this disaster again to write this article. I can watch a replay of a decent, close, competitive loss. But this was just torture. They were that bad. And to be fair, Miami was that good. It wasn’t as close as the final score.

QUARTERBACK: I have a hard time blaming Tom Brady too much for the horrendous offensive performance. Sure, he didn’t do much to lift the team’s performance. But he had little time. Hammered, harrassed and hurried all game, there was not much he could do. Surprisingly he avoided any interceptions, though he did lose one fumble. It was hard to even really evaluate his performance, he was that under badly under pressure all game.

RUNNING BACK: This was actually a pretty decent performance. Corey Dillon ran well and, had it been a closer game, probably would have piled up even more impressive stats. Kevin Faulk did a pretty good job in blitz pickup on a number of occasions. He’s gotten pretty good at that. And Patrick Pass filled in without any major errors. Probably the best unit amongst the offense were the backs on Sunday.

WIDE RECEIVER: Not good. Reche Caldwell had his worst day in weeks and could not get open. Admittedly, the Dolphins were doubling the outside receivers. This should have created chances for Troy Brown, but he only managed a bit of production. He did have one nice play where he barrelled into a Dolphin defender and showed nice attitude, as he always does. But overall, the unit was ineffective and it didn’t appear they were making adjustments to blitz calls nor getting open when they were one on one.

TIGHT ENDS: Another terrible performance. Daniel Graham had a big fumble that hurt. Ben Watson had a big drop on what could have been a big play over the middle. David Thomas did nothing. The blocking, with maybe a couple of exceptions from Graham, was non-descript. Bad job from this unit.

OFFENSIVE LINE: Now this was where we really saw some putrid play. The run blocking actually wasn’t bad. We’ll give them a thumbs up there. But the pass blocking was so bad, and inconsistent with what we know of the Patriots—confused looking, Brady never had a chance. As a consequence, neither did the Patriots. Matt Light is a pretty good player. He is tough. He has good technique. He works hard. He is a powerful run blocker. But he is simply not athletic enough to match up against top speed rushers. They kill him every time. Jason Taylor did it again Sunday. Aaron Schobel from Buffalo reguarly does it to him. John Abraham used to as well. They simply have to find a way to give Light more help against teams with speed rushers such as these and its been too often a problem for them not to any longer. The rest of the line was also horrendous, especially Nick Kaczur. Watching this unit stumble, bumble and get overpowered on tape nearly made me want to puke. Its just not what we’re used to seeing. Sure, guys get beat sometimes. But to watch them bump into each other trying to slide over to pick up a blitz and then miss the guy, getting Brady killed, well it was a particularly bad day at the office one might say.

DEFENSIVE LNE: Its a broken record, but Ty Warren is having an outstanding season. The line was pretty good Sunday, at least until Vince Wilfork got hurt and an out-of-position Mike Wright had to fill in. But overall, this wasn’t really the problem Sunday.

LINEBACKER: Again, a decent day here. Tully Banta-Cain was more active than the week before and showed progress. The new middle of Tedy Bruschi and Mike Vrable seemed more comfortable. Only Roosevelt Colvin was a little disappointing as he has been off and on this year.

SECONDARY: Not bad, except Chad Scott. I had loved Scott’s play this year. He really was playing outstanding. But then he got hurt and has now been back a couple games and hasn’t been the same. Sunday, he was beat pretty consistently and it costs the Patriots on numerous occasions. He looks a step slower than earlier in the year. One wonders if he is still injured. James Sanders continued his improvement, however, and seems to be coming more confident and a factor in both coverage and run support. That’s encouraging.

SPECIAL TEAMS: We all know Bill Belichick is a great football coach. He has made few errors since he’s been here. But he isn’t perfect and makes them occasionally. One of the most Herm Edwards-esque things Belichick has done, and believe me its a rare day when he does anything as awful as to be put in Herm’s category, is his strange devotion to Ken Walter, a punter unqualified to punt for Foxboro High, nevermind in the NFL. Here’s the thing that gets me about Belichick’s infatuation with Walter, it goes against the grain of one of the core philosophies he believes in. And that is consistency. See, here is the thing with Water. He had a pretty good year in 2001. He had a unique ability to place the ball inside the opponents twenty and did a great job at that. In general, his punts were high and he didn’t give up many returns. We saw the first slight slippage of his performance late that year, but overall, a pretty good year. And a Super Bowl winning year at that. Thank you Mr. Walter.

But here is the rub. He has sucked since then. I mean monumentally. He was terrible in 2002. Even worse in 2003 and then finally the team cut ties with him in 2004. Only to see him reappear like a bad memory you just can’t shake. The man is a menace. I maintain it is some type of football miracle that should be studied by Franciscan Monks to see if some type of divine intervention occurred that they won the Super Bowl in 2003 with Ken Walter as their punter. I mean he repeatedly kicked the team into trouble and, somehow, the defense would bail him out time and time again. I remember the Houston regular season game in 2003 when Walter just kept shanking them off the side of his foot and the defense would actually gain yardage back when put into this awful field position caused by Walter.

And what leaves me scratching my head is this. I am not saying Walter never gets off a good kick. I’ll even acknowledge the strength he has that Belichick seems so enamored of and that is, when he kicks it how he wants, he gets nice height and avoids big returns. The guy has a BB gun of a leg compared to the bazookas other NFL punters have. But occasionally he gets one nice and high and forces fair catches. And, oh yeah, he’s a hell of a holder and a terrific guy as well. Great.

But he’s inconsistent. For every high punt you get, you’re just as likely to get some low liner that causes trouble or a straight up in the air 23 yarder or one of the side of his foot. He doesn’t give you straight line performance. And that is the thing that puzzles me about Belichick’s decision to keep him around. Usually he values consistency. You don’t have to be an All-Pro to be a Belichick player. You can just be a solid guy who does his job and he’ll find a place for you. But under any other circumstances, he at least demands some type of consistent result. You can’t grade out at a 9 one opportunity and 3 the next all the time. Yet that is exactly what you get from Walter. A crap shoot. Sure, he gets those nice high ones that seems to fascinate Belichick. But you get more 24 yarders than I see at half time of the pass, punt and kick competition, 12 year old division, as well. Its pathetic. And Sunday, Walter killed the Patriots kick after horrible kick. It was ridiculous. And its time to end the Walter era in Foxboro once and for all. Mr. Belichick and Mr. Pioli, do everyone a favor. Do Ken Walter a favor. End his football career. He couldn’t kick for King Philip Regional. Get him off the new sod at Gillette. Do it now. And don’t let him come back without a ticket. Because I’m sorry, its killing you. And it’ll continue to kill you because its all he’s displayed since 2002.

Next week Houston. They better play well for a change.

Game Day Rear View — Dolphins Outposition Punchless, Pitiful Pats, 21-0

gdrv_sm.jpgby Scott Benson
scott@bostonsportsmedia.com

Spare me the stories about Super Bowl 39. I don’t want to hear them. They don’t have a damn thing to do with that ridiculous display at Dolphins Stadium this afternoon.

This pitiful Patriots team isn’t 12-1 and victims of a late game nightmare hiccup. This Patriots team put up a embarrassingly futile effort from the opening gun, particularly on offense, throwing up (metaphorically, but it might as well have been literally) an inexcuseably weak 21-0 loss to the Dolphins in a game where they could have clinched the AFC East championship. This was a sixty-minute nightmare.

Tom Brady sucked so bad he was benched with five minutes to go in favor of a second year player who’s started but a handful of high school games. And he thoroughly deserved it.

Oh, I forget. Tom doesn’t play well in Dolphins Stadium. The Patriots never win in Miami. Well, why the hell not? How was it that the Packers put up 34 on these guys on this same turf? The Jaguars 24 last week? This Dolphins defense isn’t the 85 Bears, though they might as well be when the Patriots need to win a December game in Miami.

I’m thoroughly disgusted, and so should you be. You want to spin a few SB 39 yarns and downplay this, go ahead. They blew giant chunks, they’re a damn weak looking lot, and you know it. This is December, and this team has responded with two lousy efforts against two lousy teams. They’re no better than the Denver Broncos, the Kansas City Chiefs and the New York Jets, three other mediocre squirrels trying against all hope to get a nut, and for what? An early January playoff exit?

The details aren’t worth going through. Brady and the offense couldn’t throw a pass without looking like the proverbial monkey. They ran the ball with some success (usually with Corey Dillon, right at Jason Taylor) but they could not make a play, especially when they had to depend on the quarterback to do it. The Patriots offensive line, and its pass protection in general, was as bad as its ever been. The wide receivers and tight ends couldn’t have found an open area with a freaking GPS. I’m sick of hearing how ‘tough’ the Dolphin defense is; how about you guys start explaining why you can’t make a freaking first down against a sub .500 team? How about you guys start explaining how you have ended up with a tight-end based offense where neither of the first round tight ends can be trusted to handle the ball?

Seriously, aside from the mini-drive they had with Dillon running left for several gains, did you ever get the sense the Patriots had a real plan today? Did you ever get the feeling they could make adjustments and exploit a hole in the Dolphins defense?

One moment defined the afternoon for me. Trailing 13-0 early in the 4th quarter, the Patriots defense forced a Miami punt from deep in Dolphin territory. The Patriots took the punt at midfield - rare good field position - and prepared to break the log jam and cut the Dolphins lead in half.

Naturally, they went nowhere, even with a 3rd down roughing the passer call that extended the drive. On the next play after the penalty, the Patriots tried some ludicrous Music City Miracle throwback play involving Kevin Faulk and Brady, and the resulting double forward pass (which went for a touchdown to Daniel Graham, but was of course called back for the obvious infraction) was nothing short of a public embarrassment for New England.

The Pats defense shouldn’t be assaulted for eventually buckling under the weight of carrying their dead-ass offense up and down the field. They lost a field position battle that began with the opening gun, and with no help from the other side of the ball, they wilted. The 3rd quarter touchdown they allowed - a 32 yard Joey Harrington pass to Marty Booker, when Atrell Hawkins could not make a play on either the ball or the man - was the death knell for New England.

If you want to nickel and dime the severely undermanned defense for that relatively modest transgression - as compared to the relentless incompetence of their offensive teammates, which left the defense on its own side of the field all day - have at it. They did their level best to forestall it, but it was inevitable. If you’re dogging the defense today, and people like Chad Scott (who was abused all day in relief of Ellis Hobbs), I think you’re missing the forest for the trees.

Punter Ken Walter should be invited to seek another line of work before morning. His lifeless, limp punts - not high nor long enough - continually put the Pats defense on, well, the defensive. I don’t care how well he holds for field goals, he worked himself out of a job today.

We’ll certainly spend the next several days rationalizing this, and by Friday, we’ll have convinced ourselves that this was a minor blip in the road. Just like 2004. Onward and upward from here!

But come on. You know better. You know better.

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