LOL at the Pats being favored by 9 over a divison leader. Still can't believe the line was that high.

Let me guess you cleaned up for like 50k on it right?

Why do you post itt? You aren't a fan and don't really contribute anything worthwhile.

I don't bet on sports. Just laughing at how bad the line was like it an indication at how good this team is.

So next week we go to the Jets to play for the division lead. ****.

Also, who the hell is Tracy White and why was he playing in that drive?

At least something resembling a real NFL defense showed up for most of the game... and then promptly shat the bed at the most critical of moments. And Brady was either injured or drunk for most of the game, some of his decisions and throws were absolutely horrible. The offense has trended downward each and every single game this season, and it's hard to understand why.

Right now this team has all the makings of a 10-6 one-and-done wildcard team. I hope I'm wrong, but they are getting worse, not better.

Seems like about as much as many of the Pat posters, the defense is shtty but blind homers think this team actually has a chance in the postseason what do they contribute? What do the fans who think this team isn't going anywhere contribute? If someone says this offense is by far the best in the league, just agree and not debate it? Gotcha.

Not sure why Brady isn't as efficiant as he usually is, and he isn't as accurate either this year, the offense seems to be pretty healthy. The Jet game is going to be real tough.

Part of it is playng better defenses but I thinkour ****ty defense is altering the game plan on offense. They need to go back to a wide open, spread em out no huddle offense. And ocho needs to be deactivated and only used if there are a rash of injuries

How exactly is the defense affecting the offense? By putting pressure on them to score points? The offense has been trying to score as many points as possible for years now, I don't see that as a factor.

We could go spread 'em wide more often if we had guys to spread. There's no deep threat on this team right now, unless you want to consider Price, who is currently injured. My biggest concern is that without any outside threats, the 2-TE, 2-WR offense is getting easier and easier to figure out and defend.

Tonight has basically ended the Ocho experiment in my mind. It's just not happening, for whatever reason.

I think theyve got conservative on offense to protect the defense and its backfired. I realize we have no deep threat but earlier in the year we spread it out went empty backfield and no huddle and would like to see us go back to it.

You never responded to my post asking what exactly the difference between the postseason and the regular season was, outside of the two factors sublime listed.

This game didn't help your argument at all. Nobody said the Pats were going to do anything in the playoffs with an average offense, which is exactly what the offense has been in the last couple of weeks. An elite offense probably wins these last two games, but something isn't clicking with them. Hopefully they can figure it out.

This game isn't on the defense at all. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the defense was above average today. It would have been wonderful if they didn't let the Giants go and score touchdowns on two straight drives, but they did, despite the fact they were awesome for the first 10. It's not like the last two drives are a better indicator of how they played than the first 10.

Not sure what 2 factors sublime posted, weather and good teams? Then he is right about that, also the games are more physical and the defense isn't that, and the offense will struggle vs the teams that can play defense like Pitt/Balt/NYJ.

This game didn't help my arguement? The defense gave up 24 points and the Pats couldn't score more, isn't that exactly what I said will happen in the postseason? You(or someone else) thought it was lol that the Pats couldn't or wouldn't score 24+ points in two straight games.

Missed some of the game so I can't say exactly how the defense played, but getting 14 points scored on you in the final two drives by your opponant is not good.

Why are we saying that the offense or defense lost this game, it was a multi-effort, 3-unit force of suckitude. The defense looked better most of the game, but in the end, all three phases failed.

--Earlier, I said that when this team loses a game, everyone acts like they've lost ten in a row. So I guess now it's twenty in a row?

--I think Page Three of the Giants play book is, "Throw it 30 yards down the field and hope to draw a flag." Arrington drew a flag on such a play when he didn't even touch the receiver! "But he didn't look back for the football..." If he doesn't touch the receiver, he doesn't have to! Eli had 3-4 lobs that had me screaming at the tv as soon as the ball left his hand, "That's one's up for grabs, get it!" Arrington got one of them in the end zone.

--I had to watch the game without sound, so I don't know if this aspect of the GWTD has been discussed:

First off, the Giants burn their final TO with :19 left to play. Was there a reason for this that I missed? They have an injured player or something and got charged their final TO?

That brought up 3rd and goal from inside the 1. Now there's no way on God's green earth that Coughlin can call a running play, cuz if he gets stuffed, he'll never get to use his fourth down for a FG or TD attempt. Now, some New England coach has to be telling his defense this during the TO, right???

Coughlin calls a play-action pass to the TE. Now, I normally LOVE play-action inside the five, especially inside the 1, but as I said, in this particular spot, there's NO WAY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH that a run play is coming, so a play fake should fool nobody here. Eli didn't even bother trying to sell the play fake, because he knows it won't fool anybody...

...then this Tracy White character, who was apparently what my brother would call "some bum off the street", bites on the weakest play fake ever, allowing their TE to get open for the GW. Man, that was tough to swallow.

I know, right? I thought Brady was gonna throw for 500+ yards EVERY week. Can't understand why he's not.

These comments come from two guys who had made up their minds about the defense before this game, and are grasping to justify it.

We gave up 24. One of those TD drives was a 9-yarder off a turnover. Throw that out, and we gave up 17. I know a lot of teams in this league who would LOVE to hold a team as good as the NFC East-leading NYG to 17.

There's so much you can gripe about this week: the missed chip-shot FG (which ended up impacting our defensive approach the final drive), the fumble on special teams, the INTs, the plays we waste every time we try to involve Chad Johnson (I'm done calling him OchoCinco, he should be forced to give Hernandez his number back). To pin this loss on the D goes beyond "shortsighted", it's almost blind!

And just like last week, that's an EXCELLENT team we played today, yet that never gets mentioned here. We should win every game, against every opponent, nothing less will be accepted, and when that doesn't happen, heads must roll.

When I disagree with folks around here, I do my best to avoid name-calling, but I'm sorry, this is the dumbest post in the thread. The time to say the line is too high is BEFORE the game, not after.

BTW, it opened at 9 and closed at 9.5, meaning the money was coming in on the favorite. In other words, it wasn't high enough!


I wanted to say it wouldn't surprise me if we ran the table and finished with 13 wins, and had a great shot at 12 wins. But I'm shocked to see that we're not favored next week (opened as 2.5 favs, but early sharp action bet us down to 1-point dogs).

I'm still not worried about this team. I don't see any team in the AFC that has me thinking we can't beat them.

(BTW, "if the season ended today", the Pats are a 3-seed. Behind, of all people, 2-seed HOU and 1-seed CIN! Does anyone here really believe that there's no catching THOSE two teams???)

The Giants got blown out at home by the Seahawks at a 1pm EST game. The Giants are good, but "EXCELLENT?" Really? If you have no problems with what you saw today than you're a bigger homer than Goodie. Quoting and LOLing at all of us doesn't make you more correct.

"These comments come from two guys who had made up their minds about the defense before this game, and are grasping to justify it."

YTF, half of your statement above is true. Yes my mind was made up before the game that our defense sucks. But lol at grasping to justify it. Are you kidding me. It's right in front of your face man, don't have to grasp to justify anything. Just take your head out of the sand for a minute and you'll see it too.

Coughlin could have decided to just go for it on 4th down if they missed on 3rd. They were only like 2 feet from the goal. I don't see why he couldn't try to run it twice.

I don't think Coughlin's the type of coach who would "gamble" like that. He would want tobe able to kick the FG on the 4th down if they missed on 3rd and there's no way you could get the FG kicker on the field fast enough with a running clock. So with that mind set it "had" to be a passing play.

That said I would run twice if I were coaching, it definitely gives you the best chance to win the game

Are you out of your mind? The defense absolutely played good enough to win yesterday. If they put that effort in for the rest of the year, the offense just have to play up to capability and I like this teams chances.

That loss was solely on the offense. Everyone can say "the defense didn't stop them when they needed to" and to that I say they shouldn't have been put in that position.

I was very happy with the way the D played yesterday and even though it's a loss and it's tough to see it, this was a step in the right direction for that D.

Now, what's wrong with Brady and the offense is a different story. I really don't understand what's going on there. He wasn't sharp and the offense played pretty bad in general.

YTF, that response isn't fair.

Pretty big difference between not staying on pace for 500 yards and consistently being worse every single week.

Goodie,

The bolded part is pretty much the EXACT reasoning I used in the AFCE thread when the whole discussion was about the Jets defense. Myself (and others) kept saying that the defense was put into terrible situations, but was still coming out on top. You said "good-to-elite defenses should make stops when needed, if they can't it doesn't make them good."


So why are you using that as your defense to label the defense as good/taking a step in the right direction?

That's very easy. Before this past weekend, the Pats D wasn't making stops, period. They weren't making stops when they needed it and they weren't making stops at other times of the game either. This weekend, they took a step in the right direction because they started making some good stops, had much better coverage and had an attitude (multiple big hits that fired them up).

I still don't think they are good and absolutely not elite but they were certainly at least average to above average on Sunday and were not the problem.

When I was talking about the Jets, I was specifically referring to them being known as an elite defense. Elite defenses make stops when they have to. The cornerstone of the Jets is their defense. They win with their defense. The Pats only need their defense to be average and the offense should pick up the slack.

I seriously can't believe people are mad at the defense for this game. You guys are unreal.

people are mad at the defense mostly because of the last drive of the game (huge pass interference, and the guy biting on the play action on the TD). recency bias FTL

seriously, if the defense had given up points on every single drive, but the offense kept pace, and the on the last drive they held the giants from scoring to secure the win, people would be like "they made the stops when they had to!"

the defense played really friggin well. if they could play like that all year, and the offense would go back to being what they were at the beginning of the year, this team would be the SB favorite. they won't, and they're not, so no, their chances of making noise in the playoffs are slim right now.