The Patriots

[boltfanseattle]

I’m new here so if links to YT videos aren’t allowed my apologies. But I wanted to share this video because I think it’s very relevant to this thread.

Main points from the clip:

How to Beat Tom Brady:
1. Use Bradys presnap tendencies against him
2. Change coverages post snap to make him hold the ball.
3. If something works, do not call it again. Tom is just waiting for you to take the bait. DONT FALL FOR IT.

Wade philips was referenced as having success against Tom. Can Gus be as unpredictable as Wade? We have the personnel, but can they be coached in the ways needed to confuse brady consistently?

I think we are capable, but this defense has to be more intelligent moving forward. The boys are gonna have to earn they're PHD this Training camp. Bradys on another level.

[Topcat]

I’m new here so if links to YT videos aren’t allowed my apologies. But I wanted to share this video because I think it’s very relevant to this thread.

Great analysis...thanks for sharing, Bolt!

[sonorajim]

Main points from the clip:

How to Beat Tom Brady:
1. Use Bradys presnap tendencies against him
2. Change coverages post snap to make him hold the ball.
3. If something works, do not call it again. Tom is just waiting for you to take the bait. DONT FALL FOR IT.

Wade philips was referenced as having success against Tom. Can Gus be as unpredictable as Wade? We have the personnel, but can they be coached in the ways needed to confuse brady consistently?

I think we are capable, but this defense has to be more intelligent moving forward. The boys are gonna have to earn they're PHD this Training camp. Bradys on another level.

We didn't have the personnel, that was the problem. No starting quality players at 3T, SLB, MLB, WLB, RCB, FS made it tough. Too many backups.
Confusing Brady isn't going to happen often, if at all. Beating/controlling other offensive personnel is the key.

*ps: Wade is a 3-4 D guru. We would need a dominant old school NT, make changes at DE, LB.

[NoMoreChillies]

I’m new here so if links to YT videos aren’t allowed my apologies. But I wanted to share this video because I think it’s very relevant to this thread.

Good Vid thx for sharing

I can see GusD using Derwin + Adderly to confuse Brady, moving them before the snap and making him hold the ball a little longer.
Just need that interior pass rush now. Every highlight i see of Brady he nobody within 3 yrds of him. Looks like a college QB tearing it up

[Bolt-O]

I’m new here so if links to YT videos aren’t allowed my apologies. But I wanted to share this video because I think it’s very relevant to this thread.

Vids are fine on our forum. We don't do nudity though. Welcome to the powder blues

[boltfanseattle]

We didn't have the personnel, that was the problem. No starting quality players at 3T, SLB, MLB, WLB, RCB, FS made it tough. Too many backups.
Confusing Brady isn't going to happen often, if at all. Beating/controlling other offensive personnel is the key.

*ps: Wade is a 3-4 D guru. We would need a dominant old school NT, make changes at DE, LB.

I'm not saying we need to switch to a 3-4, just that Gus needs to be up to the level of intelligence that Wade is.

Also, keep in mind that Dante Scarnecchia is the best offensive line coach in the NFL. He turns average O-linemen into studs. And with Bradys quick release, we can't count on our Dline dictating the game initially. So it'll be a matter LBers that can stop the run and pass, and a chess like Secondary being effective and unpredictable. If we can do that, our Dline should get the pressure it wants as a result(as opposed to the other way around). Also, I'm not sure how much we employ it, but we should consider stealing some of those "Amoeba" looks as well. Ravens are terrorizers with it.

None of this is easy though. Hopefully we're up to the task if Round 2 comes.

[Critty]

Our ST coach for the past two awful years was Stewart and he is still here. Who can possibly feel comfortable that anything on special teams is settled?

Patriots usually have great special teams. And there is a reason.



King explained that there are times when a return unit will change it's pre-kick look, and if one coverage player recognizes it before the rest, he will be able to get it communicated down the line -- even after they've all taken off in a dead sprint down the field.

"We'll be playing one play when the ball is kicked but playing something totally different when we're 20 yards down the field," King said. "I've never been anywhere where you can actually do that." ........

"There really is a lot of communication on those plays," Belichick said. "Not a lot of it is verbal. It's just visual recognition so that two or three of us running down the field together, we see the same thing and we know how we're going to react to it, how I'm going to react to it, how the guy beside me is going to react to it so that you have the lanes covered and you defend the return they're trying to set up. There's definitely a lot of, let's call it visual communication on those plays . . .
https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/patriots/how-patriots-investment-special-teams-paying


New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is known for his rather grumpy behavior during press conferences. Usually his answers are short and sweet, sometimes not exceeding 10 words. However, there was a change on Friday. Belichick was asked about punt coverage in preparation for Monday night's matchup against the Buffalo Bills. The answer wasn't short. No, it was over 1,200 words.
https://www.12up.com/posts/6206959-bill-belichick-gives-ridiculously-long-answer-when-asked-about-punt-coverage

[La Costa Boy]

Pats are signing Inman too.......

[Xenos]

Main points from the clip:

How to Beat Tom Brady:
1. Use Bradys presnap tendencies against him
2. Change coverages post snap to make him hold the ball.
3. If something works, do not call it again. Tom is just waiting for you to take the bait. DONT FALL FOR IT.

Wade philips was referenced as having success against Tom. Can Gus be as unpredictable as Wade? We have the personnel, but can they be coached in the ways needed to confuse brady consistently?

I think we are capable, but this defense has to be more intelligent moving forward. The boys are gonna have to earn they're PHD this Training camp. Bradys on another level.

It's funny really. Statistically, Bradley's defense was better than Wade's last year. Wade just has Brady's numbers for some reason.

[Xenos]

Interesting breakdown of the defense against Brady and company:

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/05/07/super-bowl-53-rams-defense-sean-mcvay-wade-phillips-nickell-robey-coleman-cory-littleton

Much of Super Bowl 53 followed a pattern: New England would move the ball down the field only for the drive to stall when L.A.'s defense made a play. No snap better illustrated this theme than the pass deflection by slot corner Nickell Robey-Coleman that resulted in an interception by linebacker Cory Littleton to end the first series. "That was huge for us," McVay says.

The popular narrative said that the Rams perplexed Brady all game by showing him man coverage but playing zone. That was hyperbolized, and it certainly was not what happened on this play--instead, the quarterback simply made a rare boneheaded mistake.

New England started the play in a spread-empty formation, with running back Rex Burkhead out wide. Cornerback Marcus Peters lined up across from Burkhead, which told Brady it was zone.

"Also, if it was man, I wouldn't have been on [tight end] Dwayne Allen [in the slot]," Robey-Coleman says, while watching the play on film at the team's facility. "And when Julian Edelman motioned in [strong safety], John Johnson came down. That's another tell; if it was man-to-man, J.J. would've already been down there on Rob Gronkowski.

"Brady's too smart, he knows when it's man and when it's zone. He got his zone-man I.D. on this play, he just thought the throw would get there. When he threw it, I couldn't believe it. I was like, 'Oh my god!' You can see my reaction." Robey-Coleman points to the screen where, indeed, he displayed the body language of a man whose eyes suddenly got big. "I couldn't believe it. That's a far-hash throw, he really trusted it. He didn't even stare at it--he threw it blind. He's probably like 'Oh shhh, shouldn't have thrown that!'"

Robey-Coleman asks to replay the tape so he can see Brady's reaction. We roll the end zone copy, and the cornerback smiles as we see Brady regret the throw when it leaves his hand.

"Wade Phillips, [cornerbacks coach] Aubrey Pleasant and [safeties coach Ejiro Evero, nicknamed Coach E] did a great job emphasizing to me that the Pats love five-yard stop routes," Robey-Coleman explains. "Brady is comfortable dinking and dunking you 80 yards. So when we're in pure zone, we really have to push [fast] to get out to the landmark. We call it 'super-buzz.' You can't just wait on Brady."

Walking back into the huddle for the next drive, Brady told his teammates, "I ain't making another mistake all night, boys." He was prophetic; the Rams, effective as they were, did not force any other turnovers--or major field-position-swinging plays--and the game became a fistfight for field position.

---

In the days after the conference championships, Bill Belichick said to reporters, "To [Wade Phillips's] credit, there's not many of us that have a system that can last that long. I've certainly changed a lot in the last 30 years, schematically. Wade really...hasn't. He really hasn't. You've got to give him credit for that. The system has lasted."

"Yeah, I don't know if that's praise or not," Phillips says, laughing, as he joins me in the Rams' media room. "You just try to get the players to play as well as they can play. Our scheme is still versatile enough to try to take away things your opponent does well--just like Bill's is. He changes his defensive look to do it. We line up in the same look but try to adjust to what the offense does. And so to say we haven't changed--we've changed a lot. We try to change with what our players do."

As an example, Phillips cites the decision late in the year to play less man coverage and more zone, catering primarily to cornerbacks Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib, who are "good vision players." (It should be noted that Belichick also complimented Phillips for this.)

For the Super Bowl, the adjustment was committing to playing just one safety deep. As safety John Johnson explains, "We usually try to hold a 2-deep safety look [at the snap], but this game we went more single-high and played different coverages from there. We had rotations to and away from the passing strength side in man or zone, trying to throw the QB off."

This tactic was mostly successful out of zone (Cover 3) or man, often with a robber coming down in the shallow middle to double-team whatever in-breaking route showed first (or, in select situations, to double Julian Edelman).

"Brady's so good it's scary," Phillips says. "He know what you're in most of the time, knows where the matchup is, man or zone. We tried to switch it up, and that's about the only chance you have." Then Phillips adds a caveat that he would say several times in our visit. "You know, I'm still disappointed [about this game]. It's hard for me to say we played great, we didn't play great enough to win."

And part of the reason was Brady bested the Rams a few times in man coverage. The Patriots masterfully exploit man-to-man by diversifying their formations and using presnap motion. The featured weapon here was the eventual Super Bowl MVP.

"Edelman made some really great, timely plays," McVay says. His 10 catches, save for a short one in the fourth quarter, led to only three points, but they also swung field position and time of possession, which proved critical in a slugfest where the Rams for three quarters could not generate offense.

Making Edelman's production all the more frustrating was that it stemmed mainly from execution, not scheme. "[I was surprised] that they didn't change anything," Robey-Coleman says. "We were on everything, there were no trick 'em plays. They were just trying to run their best plays, we were running OUR best plays. That was my first Super Bowl, I would have thought the two weeks [of prep time] would change their gameplan, but there were no new wrinkles."

"We got every look that we planned for," Littleton says.

Except for one look early in the fourth quarter that they didn't plan for. "Yeah, they got us with the '22' and spreading out," Robey-Coleman says. "If it weren't for those (three plays), we could have come out with the win."

---

We'll elaborate on what '22' means in a moment, but to fully appreciate it, one must first understand L.A.'s approach to defending the Patriots' backfield. I ask Phillips how this Patriots team compared with ones he'd faced in previous years, most notably when he was coordinating the defense in Denver. "Their running attack this year was more potent," he says.

New England's ground game is built largely around man-to-man blocking, often with fullback James Develin leading the tailback or a guard pulling to the play side. "Everyone was running '12' (1 RB, 2 TE) or '11' (1 TE, 1 RB) the whole year," defensive end Michael Brockers says, "and the Patriots switched and started running '21' (2 RB, 1 TE). People weren't prepared. You're used to seeing speed on the field, and now you have to deal with a fullback."

It was clear the Patriots wanted to go heavy and pound the rock against penetrating defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh and Aaron Donald, and against undersized linebackers Littleton and Mark Barron. And, until the final drive when fatigue seemed to set in, the Rams front seven battled, allowing 92 yards on 23 carries.

Part of the Patriots' ground game efficacy stems from how dangerous they are on play-action.

"They hit [Gronkowski on a play-action over route against me] early in the game, and so I was like, 'I can't give that up again,'" says Littleton, who played with more depth after that 19-yard completion. That particular play-action came out of a three-receiver set, which meant just one running back behind Brady, no fullback. The 3-receiver play-action with a pulling guard was the Patriots' most common and potent play-action design all season, even though they almost never actually run the ball behind pulling guards in this package.

"Yeah, but at the end of the day, all you can is play the look," Littleton says. "How we line up and what we do is reactionary."

But there were times where the look helped the Rams. "They had a big tell on two-back alignments," Brockers says, explaining that if Develin aligned on the strong side, he would trap-block the nose tackle. If Develin aligned on the weak side, he would wind back across the formation as a lead-blocker.

A broader, more obvious tell came from who the Patriots had at running back. When Sony Michel was in, it was often with the fullback Develin, and the likelihood of a run was very high. So, the Rams played their stouter base 4-3 defense. But if Burkhead or especially James White was in, the Patriots were likely to throw. So here the Rams played nickel, even if one of those back was in with the smashmouthing Develin. "That wasn't something we'd done much all year," McVay says.

The Patriots have seen defensive personnel adjustments centered around White before. In Super Bowl 51 the Falcons deployed their rarely-seen 4-cornerback, 1-linebacker dime package because the Patriots had thrown the ball nearly 90% of the time with White on the field.

"White was a big, BIG part of their pass game," Brockers says, "So we wanted to make sure we got contact on him to mess up their timing." The plan was to "bullseye" White (or, in Rams vernacular, "bam" him), which meant an edge defender, especially if it was man coverage, would hit White as he released into a route out of the backfield. A few times, they also did this to Gronkowski. Coincidentally, the man who introduced this tactic to the NFL was Belichick, who curtailed Marshall Faulk with it in New England's first Super Bowl against the Rams. The only drawback is that "bulls-eyeing" compromises one of your four pass rushers.

"But you're not going to get to Brady very much anyway," Phillips says, "unless you have an overwhelming pass rush." White, who had 14 receptions for 110 yards against the Falcons and their dime package in Super Bowl 51, had just one catch for five yards in Super Bowl 53.

---

'22' is the football-wide description for the heavy personnel package that features 2 RB, 2 TE and just 1 WR. Defenses see it in obvious run situations, but with the score stubbornly stuck at 3-3, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels decided the team would operate their spread-empty backfield passing game out of '22' even though they had never executed'--or, as McDaniels told NBC's Peter King, even practiced--their spread game in that package. McDaniels, just like in years past, badly wanted to get Phillips's defense out of nickel and into its base 4-3, where the D is less athletic and more predictable. Going to '22' accomplished that.

"Josh McDaniels had a real feel for that game's flow and how to play that game to try to win it," McVay says. "I really respected his feel for the game, watching him call it and adjust."

In '22' McDaniels brilliantly put his best receivers, Gronkowski and the only wideout, Edelman, inside and then called a Patriots staple play where key routes worked the seams and middle.

"They got us," Johnson says. "We were discombobulated."

On the first snap of the spread '22', the Rams went zone and Edelman caught a short ball inside, easily beating Littleton--which is exactly what New England wanted. So on the next snap, the Rams went man-to-man, but disguised it as zone. The Patriots were going up tempo, running the same play again. Brady hit Burkhead out wide against cornerback Marcus Peters.

By then it was apparent that the '22' spread-empty look was creating uncertainty for the Rams, so the Pats again lined up quickly and ran the same play. Only this time, before the snap they motioned Edelman across, creating another layer of complexity for the scrambling defense. The result was a busted man coverage that left Gronkowski open down the seams. Littleton alertly recognized it but was a beat late playing the ball. Gronkowski's 29-yarder put New England near the goal-line, leading to the game's only touchdown. That 22 package with a spread formation presents "a lot of thinking, and they got us with it," Littleton says.

The 22 package would get the Rams again in the closing minutes, this time more conventionally, on Burkhead's back-breaking 26-yarder on second-and-7 after Los Angeles started using its timeouts.

"If it was a 7-on-7 game, I don't think they would've beaten us at all--no shot," Johnson says. "But things like this, we can hone in and be better. And as a defense we could have put our O in better positions to score or forced more turnovers. We can't really point fingers, there are a lot of things we could fix."

---

[Topcat]

Pats are signing Inman too.......

Yep...just watch...the Cheatriots will keep Inman around long enough to grill him for info on our playbook and other inside info, then cut him loose just before the final 53...

[Xenos]

Yep...just watch...the Cheatriots will keep Inman around long enough to grill him for info on our playbook and other inside info, then cut him loose just before the final 53...

Inman is actually someone who fits the Patriots well. I can see him staying on the roster because he's willing to do the dirty work, including ST. Plus, he's not a bad receiver and his sudden quickness in his route running helps him a lot. I can actually see him having his best statistical year with the Patriots for some reason.