He had a LB + safety on him most of the game. Also dropped a couple tough but catchable balls.

Not sure what the Raiders did defensively (if anything) to take him away, but this week our running game was solid compared to last week, and of course Welker is always wide open.

Gronk did have a couple long passes close to the goal line which were very difficult catch attempts but couldnt come up with them.

Early uncorroborated reports on Mayo is left MCL, out ~ a month

good news only gonna miss 3 games cause of the one bye week

Our defense looks great against teams that can't pass the ball.

They scored 95 points in the three games leading up to this one. I'm sure they completed a pass or two in that time.

Very happy to see the run game come together yesterday. And obviously I'm excited about Ridley as he looks awesome.

Mayo being out only a month is a huge win. I thought there was a very good chance that was season ending and that would have been a killer. He's very likey our best defensive player (him or wilfork obv).

It's funny, I actually don't think Brady looked great yesterday. He missed a few throws that he usually never misses. For them to run away with this one is a huge positive.

Does anyone else think Campbell literally got confused as to what team Chung played for on that interception in the end zone? I've never seen anything like that. The announcers kept saying he was throwing the ball away but I don't see how that's possible. He softly threw it about 2 yards away from the back of the endzone. Chung didn't even have to jump. Anyways, that was bizarre and one of the worst interceptions I've seen.

Nice to see the Jets lose last night and can't wait till next week.

It looks like he's starting to get double-teamed up the seam. We need Hernandez back in a big way. That said, Ocho had a couple of chain-movers yesterday, so I'm pretty happy about that.

I noticed they went deep to Slater early on, it's nice he got a chance, but I don't think he's the threat they want him to be. I heard Price was active for the game, he looked great in the preseason, why isn't he getting a look given the current state of the wide-outs?

What's up with Haynesworth? I was hoping he would have an impact. Sean Ellis hasn't looked good.

Who knows? By all accounts he has a "back" injury, but he's been completely shrouded in typical Pats secrecy since he signed with the team. I don't expect anything from him, even an appearance on the field at this point, if he shows up and does anything to impact the defense it will be a delightful surprise.

Ellis has been pretty non-existent but I don't track d-line play very well when watching games, so I don't know. Waters is looking like the best FA signing so far, he's done really well.

Yeah nothing specific about Haynesworth other than the 'back injury' that had him in and out of practice last week until he became a late scratch for the game. If there's good news there its that he was at least practicing some this past week.

As far as Ellis goes, he had a particularly poor game this week against Oakland, missing 2 or 3 tackles, notably Jacoby Fords long run in the 2nd quarter.

Every time I open this thread, I have to go double-check the standings and make sure we're not 0-4. I don't think the highest-scoring team in the league needs any offensive player "back in a big way", nor should "the current state of the wide-outs" be a concern when one of the WR's is AVERAGING 154 yds/game and is on a 2500-yard clip (the record is about 1800!).

(OK, so GB is actually the highest-scoring team, and we're #2. But we don't get the easy schedule that the SB Champs get, we don't get to fatten up on CAR and DEN, we have a playoff game every week--as if I need to APOLOGIZE for only being #2! How spoiled ARE you guys???)

the worry is there b/c the defense has been so bad. this isn't an offense that can afford to be just great, this far anyways

I wasn't saying our defense sucks by any means, just saying the Raiders do not pass well which made their job infinitely easier. They do a great job stopping the run, but it still makes it a lot easier to defend a team when you know they aren't going to pass very often (and they had WR out with injuries).

Our regular season schedule this year:

MIA
SD
BUF
OAK

NYJ
DAL
PIT
NYG

NYJ
KC
PHL
IND

WAS
DEN
MIA
BUF

DEN is the only team on the list that was horrible this year and last. Everyone else was either a play-off team last year, has a reasonable chance of getting into the playoffs this year, or is MIA.

it's the NFL, 3/4 of the league has a reasonable chance to make the playoffs

but Indy is terrible. KC is terrible. Denver is bad. The Steelers don't look as fearsome as projected, and the Dolphins may spiral to a really bad place. ditto for the Eagles.

this schedule looked brutal in August, much less so now

from here on out it looks like the NYJ actually have a tougher schedule than we do. we've played 1 home game, they've played 2. we already had SD, they remain for NYJ. Indy actually looks worse than Jax.

I agree 100% with everything here except maybe the playoff caliber teams as Kneel pointed out.

I'm not sure how an offense like NE could possibly need someone back badly either. Not to mention that they won EASILY without him this week. Salva doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense most of the time though so I'm not surprised.

As I've said before, the Pats are currently good enough to make a run at a Super Bowl. Of course they could get a lot better on Defense and I think they just might.

I'm not sure how you could feel anything but hopeful and positive about this team right now. Mayo being out the next few weeks is a blow but it's much better than season ending so I think we're good there.

In terms of Haynesworth, I saw someone metion him. He made some contributions in the SD and MIA games and has been hurt since. I think he could make a difference when he comes back as well.

at this time last year NE was 3-1 having giving up the following yardage:

428 to cincy
378 to BUF
336 to NYJ
400 to MIA

when you adjust for the fact that yards allowed are up league wide, you generally have the same output this year.

any non tard would say last years team ended up being pretty pretty pretty good.

ne is 20% to win the super bowl (juiced line) according to pinny, only GB is higher at 22%

NE is 9 point favs at home vs their chief div rival/competition for div crown this week

this is a very strong football team. the obvious weakness is defense. if ONLY we had a defensive mastermind who could potentially get the most out of this weak unit, perhaps they would have a chance.


the only reason for fret is if you believe the archaic notion that 'defense wins championships' which has been dispelled by research. not to mention this is a different era than when that notion was thought to be correct.

I believe what's been dispelled by research is that you need an elite D to win championships. Has there historically ever been a D as bad as this years Pats win the SB?

i dunno. last years NE team was pretty bad on defense (see note below) but was the favorite to win the SB. granted they didn't, but thats variance. play those games over last year, even post jets game the pats are prob still the favs.

week 5 last season, advanced NFL stats had NE as the 28th ranked D in terms of efficiency, they finished 19th. they are ranked 28th this year heading into week 5 also. i dont have years of data to back up my gut feeling, but i think NE's defense is one we can expect to get stronger as a season goes on due to excellent coaching.

for obvious reasons I dont see how saying a team was the betting favorite proves anything sublime.

what exactly are the obvious reasons?

everyone is a genius after the fact, "theo is an idiot for signing crawford" "2010 pats had huge flaw, look they lost a playoff game, case closed" etc etc etc

otoh Pinnacle has proven to be the closest widely available predictor of future events thats available to us. using them as a quick a dirty estimator of true talent seems really simple and smart to me.

if you disagree with this statement, well then i will book ANY and ALL bets you want to place on sporting events at the pinnacle price.

i am constantly amazed that on a poker site people still think like laymen. just because NE lost to NYJ in last years playoffs does not mean NYJ were the better team, nor more fitted to win the SB. it means they won ONE 60 minute game filled with randomness.

this applies to all the major sports, including the bruins winning the cup a few months ago.

I thought it was obv bc the lines are set by the betting public and certain teams like the pats will get more play than they derserve

Tons of people criticized theo for signing Crawford at the time of the signing. Nobody thought Crawford would play as bad as he did, but many people felt theo drastically overpaid. There were also plenty of people who thought the Lacky signing was bad at the time of the signing. It's revisionist history to suggest that theo's only being criticized with the benefit of hindsight.

Regarding the Pats, last year the defense got a lot better by the time the playoffs came around. That game against the Jets was just a cluster**** of bad play and getting smacked in the mouth and bad play calling and bad adjustments. The Jets were totally selling out to stop the pass and the Pats stubbornly refused to run. Then after it was too late to run they wasted tons of time at the line of scrimmage and played with no sense of urgency when they needed to hurry up. Bad luck only had a little bit to do with the loss imo. They were outschemed and outplayed.

But that was last year. My problem right now is with this year's defense. I believe that historically no team has won the SB with such a bad defense. Maybe they can improve a significant amount before the playoffs but right now I feel like that's unlikely. Again, totally just my opinion from watching the first 4 games.

no, the lines are set by linesmakers who take into account the betting public. they also have to take into account sharp action.

the closing betting line is going to be the greatest predictor of a sporting events outcome thats available for anyone to see.