I noticed that we were in zone coverage for what seemed like the majority of the time last night. Brady typically dominates zone coverage and one of the reasons we've been able to slow him down w/Rex is that we play more man coverage than the average team. So why the heck did we come out with so much zone coverage yesterday? Were Rex/Pettine not confident that we could cover all there guys? Were they trying to "trick" Brady and who him things he wasn't expecting? There were a number of bad coaching decisions last night, but this one took the cake for me.
Agreed. It looked to me that Rex was trying to trick Brady with zones and fake pressure. Especially early. The first three 3rd downs, we lined up like we were sending the house and dropped into zone with a three man rush. Unfortunately Brady can not be tricked so easily and continued to pick us apart. The only way to attempt to rattle Brady is with heavy heavy pressure. Lesson learned. Hopefully.
I guess it was a gamble. You had to think the Pats were preparing for the usual Jets blitz/man defense all week, so more zone might confuse/surprise them. We'd be saying the opposite if we lost playing man coverage. They really didn't beat us deep much at all minus the Smith PI call, and even then, I don't think he was beat. Intermediate routes with YAC all game, as expected. I think we would have been beat in either type of coverage last night. I honestly don't know how you defend that. Too many guys open and a QB who can find them every time. They could have told everyone they weren't going to run it a single time and still have won that game.
I wish I had an answer. Way way to many 3 man rushs with a cover 4 zone. I know we all love Harris and Scott but they can't cover over the middle and Brady n co ate it up. The biggest mind fuck to me was when Drew Coleman covered Welker and got burnt for a td lol. Why do we have revis and cro on this team?
I agree but I'd rather use our strength and force them to beat that then see what we did. I feel like Rex over hyped this game. Everyone looked stiff and they didn't play Jets football.
I know we jump on Schotty after every loss but isn't it time to start asking WTF Pettine, who is supposedly taking a larger role in the D and calling the plays,is doing? Our D ALWAYS looks fuckin lost out there! Don't you see the safetys and LB's looking at each other and throwing thier hands up like saying,"WTF am I supposed to do"? This defense is pathetic and if the CS wants to say that our inability to put pressure on QB's is overblown then they are fuckin retarded. In week 13 you're still having "communication breakdowns"? FUCKIN PATHETIC!
the reason we looked lost is becuase we were. rex's answer to brady's short passing game as a 3 man rush and flood the middle of the field. but, we had never played that way before last night. it was a brand new game plan in wk 13. add in leonard and.....
Haha seriously, WTF was that? Brady and Welker walked up to the LoS and licked their chops when they saw that matchup.
Good point. I was wondering the same thing. With two of the best man cover corners in the league there is no reason to play some pussy zone coverage. When you are 9-2 you don't completely change your gameplan and mindset as a team. They need to get back to jet football, last night they were definitely a slapdick football team.
We needed to be more physical with them at the LOS than we were. We should have man handles their undersize receivers
We can't cover that team in man or zone. We don't have the players to match up with them. We don't have safeties that can cover, we don't have linebackers that can cover. That leaves you with Revis taking someone out of the game. Cromatie can't cover short routes crossing patterns at all. That leaves Lowery and Drew Coleman trying to cover tight ends and quick shifty wr's. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. If we play man someone is going to get destroyed. If we play zone we will never get any pressure on the qb. The Pats offense is built to exploit the Jets defense.
I liked the idea of playing zone against the Pats. They seemed to be built to exploit the middle of the field. I didn't see the 1st half so not sure how it played out, but letting Revis and Cro cover their guys man-to-man and running zones in the middle of the field makes sense on paper. The linebackers should've stuck around at the line to bump the TEs and then release them to the safeties. Then rush the QB. If this means playing our safties up in the box, fine. They have no burners and our CBs shouldn't have had issues covering the Pats WRs deep. I think as someone said above it came down to execution and lacking our defensive "QB" to make adjustments on the field. Not to mention a lack of a dominant player on the DLine, someone that can create havoc without the need to blitz. We could really use a monster DT (a Jenx with good knees). Is Ngata a FA anytime soon?
Well the Patriots were running a lot of "legal" picks. I think we were in man early but got eaten alive by those pick plays.
I'd have to rewatch the game to see for sure (not happening), but it seemed to me that outside of the Smith PI call, every time we got beat in the first half was in zone coverage. I was freaking out in my living room wondering why we weren't playing to our strength.
Idk I just remember the announcers saying that the Pats were picking Jets defenders so I figured that played into the decision to go zone.
Rex needs to stop watching what his brother did in Cleveland and assumed it would work again against the Patriots.
