Anyone Else Surprised By NE's Gameplan?

I was very surprised at NE's gameplan. At halftime, Dungy and Rodney Harrison expressed how shocked they were at NE's gameplan. The one thing Bellicheck did, that I think most of us expected him to do, was take away Jimm Graham.

Defensively, I was very surprised they continued to send two and three man rushes at RW, particularly on that last TD drive of the first half. As a Pats fan, I would have been livid watching RW sit back against a 2-man rush and throw down field.

Offensively, I thought they would spread us out and throw on us, similar to what they did in the SB. Instead they chose to play more of a power run game against us. I also expected to see a lot more of James White than Blount. While Blount did have a good game, it felt like their offense and Brady never got in a rhythm with their passing game. I kept waiting for Brady to find a matchup in the secondary and exploit it.

The next time we play (February?), I'd be very curious to see what adjustments NE makes. I have a feeling it would be different than the one they used yesterday. On a site note, we matchup very well with NE. Unlike the Rams, who's strength is our weakness, NE doesn't have the pass rushers. Trading away Jamie Collins and Chandler Jones could come back to bite them. If both those guys were on the field yesterday it could have been a different result. So thankyou BB for getting rid of those guys :lol:

Hell, I was surprised by our game plan. Pleasantly surprised.

Almost seems like NE likes to change up the gameplan they used already on the same opponent. Maybe BB outsmarted himself

Kind of shocking to see NE with no pass rush. Also just so used to seeing Wilfork clogging up the middle and that is lacking this season.

BB wanted to force Russell to beat him from the pocket. It back fired obviously. Also NE doesn't have the pass rushers necessary (they benched Sheard for some reason) to get after Russell, so he tried to beat him with playing different coverages. It back fired again.

Russell is too good at this juncture to beat with scheme. You need a dominant pass rush, or you are screwed.

cymatica":2sqadp4k said:

Almost seems like NE likes to change up the gameplan they used already on the same opponent. Maybe BB outsmarted himself

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BB is the master of game planning, but he may have outsmarted himself. Maybe BB didn't want to show Seattle his hand. Win or lose, they have the AFC's #1 seed locked up.

I could actually buy into this.

It's possible that Bellichick is looking towards the end of the season/playoffs.

Not like anyone in the AFC is going to come in there and beat the Pats in Foxboro.

Hawk-Lock":371rhuqe said:

cymatica":371rhuqe said:

Almost seems like NE likes to change up the gameplan they used already on the same opponent. Maybe BB outsmarted himself

Click to expand...

BB is the master of game planning, but he may have outsmarted himself. Maybe BB didn't want to show Seattle his hand. Win or lose, they have the AFC's #1 seed locked up.

Click to expand...

Not even close to true. The pats are tied with 2 other teams with the same record. They still have 7 games left to play. How is that a lock??? Anyyne that thinks he might have held back so he did not show us everything needs head examined.

Hawks46":1slgmc74 said:

I could actually buy into this.

It's possible that Bellichick is looking towards the end of the season/playoffs.

Not like anyone in the AFC is going to come in there and beat the Pats in Foxboro.

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:ditto: From the Pats point of view, this game was rather meaningless to them. Of course they don't want to show their entire hand to one of the few teams that has a chance to take them down this year

I'm not sure I was all that surprised really.

I figured they'd double Graham come hell or high water. Which they did.

I figured that they'd run the ball. Seattle has struggled mightily in defending the run in recent weeks. NE is a team that is balanced and will seek to employ a game plan to fit an opponents' weakness. In addition, Edelman has not been the same player that tormented us. He's struggled this year. And Seattle has really done a good job against TEs this year as compared to last year.

The mismatch going in seemed to point to a heavy dose of power running. I suppose it's no coincidence that the run defense got healthy at the same time Chancellor did.

This was a close game and maybe defensively, they would change some aspects. The problem however is that when Seattle is functioning at a full level, there isn't the option to sell out to take away one player. Seattle is too balanced for that. Wilson is also not a rookie anymore. Just bringing pressure with extra players isn't going to work out well. The Pats don't have enough talent on the front to just send four and cover that many quality options. They can with the likes of their division rivals who don't have our breadth of talent.

It seemed a pretty good plan. They were right with us to the end with a solid chance to win/tie. So not sure what would get tweaked. I don't know what their injury situation was heading into the game. I know that us not having Bennett was a huge void.

sdog1981":3ivvupag said:

Kind of shocking to see NE with no pass rush. Also just so used to seeing Wilfork clogging up the middle and that is lacking this season.

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Trading away Collins and Jones will hurt them bigtime.

It would be like the Hawks losing Wagner and Avril. It would sting a lot.

You have to remember, game plans are fluid as the game goes on.

I don't think Belichick and Patricia had any idea the Hawk's maligned terrible O-line was going to maul them like they did setting up so much successful play action for Russell.

THIS is what predicated them switching up into a more conservative 3-4 man rush and dropping into zone to try and stop Doug, Lockett and Prosise carving them up.

Again, give Bevell and Pete credit. A LOT of stuff we haven't seen yet, which means the Patriot's hadn't seen it yet either. Fantastic mix of short, intermediate and long calls that was very successful cause the run game was so on point with Prosise.