Brady, McDaniels smelled blood when Jeremy Lane went down

The Patriots’ passing game benefited enormously from the fact that Seattle’s Legion of Boom was depleted: In addition to Lane leaving the game, Richard Sherman was playing through an elbow injury, Earl Thomas was playing through a shoulder injury and Kam Chancellor was playing through a knee injury. On the sideline later in the first half, McDaniels and Brady agreed that the Seahawks’ defense looked like it was worn down.

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I wonder if anyone asked why Burley wasn't active to our coaching staff? So many guys banged up seems we could have used depth. Of course no way to plan for Lane's arm to get broken but we only had Simon as a replacement with three TE's active.

Yeah I don't get having three active TEs especially since they were invisible the entire game. Having depth in the secondary seemed like the easy call with a banged up LOB, playing an opponent who uses 4 and 5 receivers for 90% or more of their snaps.

SuperFreak":24iqcz66 said:

I wonder if anyone asked why Burley wasn't active to our coaching staff? So many guys banged up seems we could have used depth. Of course no way to plan for Lane's arm to get broken but we only had Simon as a replacement with three TE's active.

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Yeah, I really thought Burley was going to be active given the circumstances.

I was very surprised when I saw Burley inactive.

HawkFan72":209j87uu said:

I was very surprised when I saw Burley inactive.

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One of many questionable calls by the coaching staff that day.

I guess a number of us thought about Burley when Lane went down. He was the small nickle they traded for and one would think he would have been a better size match up as Lane's replacement.

Seahawks easily could have adjusted by walking Earl up into the slot and putting Shead into his place.

All the Pats did when they didnt have Gronk in a 1on1 matchup with Wright was send a WR deep Lafell/Amendola and let Edelman/Vereen exploit the underneath routes.

You put Thomas in the slot, Brady would have thought twice throwing into the flats. And if he wanted to expose the deep route, I see the pass rush getting to him alot more throwing him off his game.

Simon was the wrong move, I love the Seahawks D but not worrying about matchups other than Gronk for much of the game was a little naive on Quinn/Carrolls part.

Also once Avril went down I thought the Seahawks should have converted to a 3-4 look that focused on taking the short field away rather than trying to pressure the QB.

They activated Terrell (safety) over Burley. Could be because Earl/Kam had significant injuries, and I'm guessing he is better on Special Teams than Burley. Burley wasn't active for any of the playoff games.

All true and all of Terrell's snaps were limited to special teams.