The Patriots game at Miami got bumped off of Sunday Night Football on 12/6.

ESPN.com: Patriots-Dolphins start moved up

Now we get more primetime Brett Favre.

11th game coming up and this will be the 7th against an undefeated team!

Can we get Charlie back please? Our playcalling is just turrible for all the firepower this offense has.

Sigh... Hindsight says kick the fg. Isn't sooo clear?

I think we need to worry about the D more than the OC.

looks like i was right about this D being a complete fluke. not even 1 respectable series was played by the d. its just impossible for a team with this D to win a superbowl. we need to have a welker/moss trades type offseason for the D.

the only way i can see us doing much in the playoffs is if the oline and taylor get completely healthy and light/vollimer just make the oline elite and the offense gets into 2007 mode. but the D is just beyond fixing. theres just not enough talent on the Dline to make it respectable.

pretty sure the line is the most talented unit on your d

We never matched the Saints intensity. The key to the game was that they mostly rushed only 3, keeping 8 back in coverage, but the 3 were still able to make Brady rush his throws. Our line never put much pressure on Brees. He was able to ball fake all night long, making our safetys commit to one side then going to the opposite side for wide open receivers.

This is correct. The problems are the corners and LBs other than Mayo (who also had a subpar game yesterday).

Nothing lasts forever.

I don't agree that the d line is a strong point anymore. The 3-4 defense with a guy like Wilfork is a run stopping defense. You need a load like Wilfork to play the nose because it's a 2 gap defense (he must plug the 2 gaps either side of Center. But the league is not run oriented anymore. The old mantra was to win you had to be able to stop the run and be able to run the ball yourselves.

That is not true anymore. With all the rule changes of protecting the quarterback and no touching of receivers after 5 yards, it's a passing league now and the Patriots defensive line simply does not put enough pressure on the quarterback. This makes the defensive backs look like they can't cover, because, really even the best can't cover when a good quarterback has all day to throw.

Do the Pats play the 3-4 or 4-3 now? If they are playing the 3-4, the DL is hardly ever going to get much pressure on the QB no matter how good they are. The idea is to get the LBers open enough to get pressure on the QB like the Steelers normally do it. If you guys are running the 4-3--I don't think you have nearly enough skilled DEs to pull that off right now and you will likely get little to no pressure on the QB like last night. Pats will continue to have issues against passing teams. Your DBs other than Merriweather are still garbage and your front 7 can't get much pressure on the QB with the current players. It can be fixed but it won't be done this year.

Pats are playing both the 3-4 and 4-3 but it really doesn't matter because we don't have a ferocious pass rusher.

Do people here still think that Pats are super bowl contenders? I do but I'm wondering after hearing the overeaction of my office mates this morning.

What say you?

I don't think you can be considered a Super Bowl contender when your defense can't stop good quarterbacks/offenses and you haven't shown you can win a game on the road.

I think we were watching different games. When the Saints rushed three Brady tore them apart, the Saints were consistently getting pressure with 4 and 5 after the first two series. They took away the pats checkdowns and screen game and did a good enough job not letting guys getting open on deep route and not letting them develop.

My question is why does Wilhite start over Butler and/or Wheatley? The guy gets burned over and over and over. I hate our D outside Merriweather and Mayo....it really makes me sick seeing no pass rush all season.

I, fortunately, did not get to see any of the game, but there seems to be a lot of overreacting going on. The game looked ugly. The secondary got completely torched. But the defense isn't nearly as bad as we're making it out to be. Fans have a bad habit of looking at the most recent game and assuming that the outcome is the true measure of the team. Is the defense good? Probably not. But it's not 30 points in the first half bad, so we should probably chill a bit.

the d-line is still your most talented unit and you guys run a lot of 3-4 sets anyway in which the pass rush comes more from olbs. lack of pass rush def exacerbates holes in coverage, but the pats don't have much talent back there to begin with.

edit: i may be off here but the pats best defensive players seem to be wilfork, mayo, warren, and meriweather w/a big drop off after that so that's 2 of the top 4 players on the same unit

a couple of things:

1. Brady said NO doubled Wes and Randy a lot, which is why Sam Aiken had a career day - 7 catches for 90 yards.

If so, why did the Pats resort to throwing to Aiken so much instead of going with what worked on the first drive : multiple TE, 2 backs, and have Maroney run over everyone?

Where was Ben Watson then?

Also, this shows NE's lack of depth at receiver, which everyone knows by now. Plus, Moss is 32 and only getting older.

2. Which brings me to this : Randy was playing really weird last night. If I remember correctly, most of the replays showed him jogging almost and never really trying to get open.

I know he was aggressively being doubled, but still. WTF?

3. The situation with the secondary is Bill drafted/acquired a bunch of really young but talented players - Butler (supposedly going to be an absolute stud in 1-2 years), Wilhite, Wheatley, Meriweather, Sanders, McGowan, Chung to go along w/ Leigh Bodden and Shawn Springs.

That's a pretty solid and DEEP secondary IMO. I think Bill likes have depth at secondary more than having a shutdown corner (Asante) due to injuries.

That secondary, assuming it stays intact for a few years, will be REALLY REALLY GOOD in like a year or two.

4. I think the Pats are the dark horse in the AFC, moreso than the Chargers, etc.

They are up and down, but you can be damn sure nobody in the AFC wants to play the Pats/Belichick/Brady come playoff time

Nah dude, the defense is THAT BAD. We have 0, yes z-e-r-o, dominant pass rushers and lockdown corners. Last night they got no pressure whatsoever on Brees, and yet the corners got absolutely torched and blew coverage after coverage. The Pees is a horrific DC iyam, and I wish Bill would make the calls himself.

I found the link to the NFL Network piece on the Pats protection scheme against the Colts.

According to the link he had help on 36 of 44 attempts. The examples they show are pretty interesting, Pats used lots of different methods to get it done.

I Randy, but you obviously haven't seen him play much.

sorry not a regular here. But do you guys still wish you had the dude that got traded to the Raiders or no? I thought it was dumb when it happened and even dumber now, but at the same time I haven't watched every Patriots game so could be wrong. I just cannot fathom trading a good player for draft picks when you are a superbowl contender.

yea but they're good picks, yo

I mean, pretty much any metric you look at says they are an average to slightly below average defense. They played a terrible game against an outstanding offense. Again, you're focusing only on yesterday's game instead of looking at the season as a whole.