"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. We went in there today looking to punch Tom Brady in the face." Looking for a way to beat the Patriots next year? If this Michael Strahan quote isn't a blueprint for how to beat the Patriots, I don't know what is. It all happened on the LOS, where the Patriots O-line did very little to protect Tom Brady. Take him out of the equation and you at least have a chance. I absolutely loved seeing Brady being kicked around like a rag doll. I hope our FO got a good look at this SB because this is why we need to beef up BOTH lines. If we accomplish nothing else this offseason, we need to address both lines before anything else.
While the Giants defense was excellent last night the thing that impressed the hell out of me was the way the Giants got the pressure on Brady.... Rushing 3 and 4 lineman, zone blitzes, corner blitzes, delayed safety and weak side LB blitzes, stunts...Brady and the Pats OL had no idea where the Giants were going to come from. The Giants disguising of their defensive formations and blitz packages was masterful......
This game just showed how you need to keep going after Brady even after the 1st qtr. Every Pats game i saw this year,Brady was blitzed in the 1st and then they let off when faulk and welker were getting open over the middle.You have to keep smacking that bitch to beat them. For 4 qtrs.
It's amazing how ordinary Brady can be made to look when you pressure him. If he hadn't had Welker to check down to constantly, the game would have turned into a blowout. I can't stand Welker... hate his guts for that matter, but the guy was truly amazing last night. If the Pats had won, Welker would have been up for MVP. But without protection for Brady, the whole thing falls apart, even Randy Moss is rendered damn-near useless. So, let this be a HUGE blueprint for the 2008 Jets (and probably many other teams) to examine. What concerns me now is, Belichick knows he has to go out shopping for help on his O-line again, which is exactly what we need to be doing too... and they pick #7 overall in the draft.
#7 Pick I have a feeling The Distinguished Gentleman from Pennsylvania might have some negative influence on the Pats #7 pick once Belicheat/brady/walsh/goodell brought before congress:grin::grin:
From your keyboard to God's ears! Seriously though, the second half of the season for the Pats started showing some cracks in the armor. Last night, for all the world to see, the Patriots' O-line pretty much fell apart and couldn't handle the Giants' pass rush. They even stuffed the run pretty well too. It just shows our Jets what can be done against the Pats with the right personnel.
That's actually an old Mike Tyson quote. At least Strahan can read, or maybe someone read it to him in between his bananas.
Seriously, from the 2nd quarter on, the Giants' D-line totally dominated. I told my wife at the half, "Don't expect to see the same Patriots team that you saw in the 1st half because Belichik is going to change his offense like a chamelion." Sure enough, the Patriots started using Welker almost exclusively as Brady shortened up his release time by about a second. The plan was good, mind you, to negate the tremendous pass rush the Giants had been bringing in the 2nd quarter. The problem was, the Giants' pass rush got even better as the game progressed and the Pats O-line tired out, and after awhile, Brady had just about no other passing option than the quick check down and dink and dunk to Welker. If you had dressed the Pats in green in the second half and put a #10 on Tom Brady's back, their offense would have resembled our Jets offense under Pennington... caving a crumbling and giving the QB either no time or very little time to check down to even the shortest of passes. The call by Coughlin to not go for it on 4th and one at the Patriots' 40 was the only serious mistake I thought Coughlin made in the second half. With 8 minutes on the clock and ahead by 3, I thought the Giants should have gone for it and tried to keep Brady off the field. Sure enough, he was able to engineer enough of a drive to put 7 on the board and take the lead 14-7 with 3+ minutes left. But that call is all but moot this morning. It's now the OTHER call (Belichick's decision to go for it on 4th and 13) that is the real head-scratcher today. Belicheat was asked about that too, after the game, but mumbled one of his usual two syllable generic answers before quickly moving on to the next question.
I actually had that quote on my mind as the game was being played. Yeah it is a Mike Tyson quote. What I like best about the game is that NE loss in the manor they usually win. A late drive with no time left for them to do anything.
You have to give credit to the Giants. They made that Pats offense look average. I didn't think there was a team this season that could put that much pressure on Brady. The Giants simply wanted it. The Patriots showed up to get their teeth kicked in. Fuck the Patriots
I would hope our coaching staff and management figured that out in Week 1 when we couldn't get near Brady and couldn't get our offense back on the field, even when we were moving the ball on them. Knowing it and getting it done are two different things.
There's no question our coachng staff GROSSLY overestimated the strength of our O-line from about August until that first Pats game. I think they figured on Brick and Mangold making all the difference we needed. Proof of the amount of overestimation was the arrogance with which we dealt with Pete Kendall, figuring we were so good we could live without him. If our coaching staff learned ANYTHING from that period from early August until opening day, I'd hope it would be that you can't EVER just draft good players, plug them in, and think all is automatically well and your job there for now is finished.
I am fine with either. Our lines are our priority in the FA market and the draft in 2008. If our FO and CS remains stubborn about this; they don't deserve to be there.
Tannenbaum did say after the season that he learned a lot from the Pete Kendall situation, so let's hope he did and gets the shit figured out.
The Giants maybe gave us a blueprint, but we don't have the tools. The Giants are better at almost every position on defense, except maybe Revis and Rhodes. Even their LBs are better then ours.
just because the Giants beat the Patriots doesn't mean the Patriots blueprint is all of a sudden completely useless.
After yesterday's performance, Belichick knows he needs to tweak his O-line also. It should be interesting what happens in F/A and in the draft. I sense the competition for good O-line personnel has ratcheted up a bit.