Defense Going through Growing Pains
The last two weeks I have crowed about how good the defense looked in games against Tennessee and Arizona. This week they were 2011 bad against Baltimore. In one of the games in which they couldn’t afford to revert back to the ghost of poor defensive efforts past they did just that.
In the previous two weeks the defense gave up a combined total of 539 yards on Sunday night in Baltimore they gave up 503 yards (382 passing yards and 121 rushing yards) to the Ravens.
Going into the AFC title game rematch the defense had held opponents to 9 for 28 (32.1%) on 3rd down conversions. In Baltimore Sunday night the Ravens were 4 for 8 on 3rd down and are now 13 for 32 on the season (41%).
They had a difficult time stopping Ray Rice (20 carries 101 yards; 5 catches for 48 yards) but then again the entire league does but it doesn’t mean they couldn’t have contained him better. A staple of the New England/Bill Belichick defense has been the outside defender gaining the edge and holding it and not allowing a back to turn the corner. To put it mildly Rice turned so many corners he looked like the elderly driver who left his blinker on all game.
Through the air Joe Flacco was 28 of 39 for 382 yards, 3 TD passes and 1 INT and he wasn’t sacked. He was barely touched as the Patriots had just one quarterback hit. The Ravens offensive line did a superior job in containing the Patriots front seven both in run and pass blocking.
On the whole the Baltimore offense averaged 7.7 yards per play on Sunday night.
I see a lot of people putting the blame on CB Devin McCourty. Granted he had the awful pass interference penalty on 3rd and 9 but he was pretty solid the rest of the night. He could have had 2 INTs, made 7 tackles and he broke up a total of 4 passes but people want to remember the one awful thing because it led to the game winning points.
The unit as a whole was bad after the first quarter. They forget how to tackle and how to cover; it looked like a keystone cops routine. The defense needs to make a correction and they need to do it soon and show us this was just a blip on the screen and some growing pains for a young defensive unit.
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Belichick’s Post Game Meltdown
Both Bill Belichick and John Harbaugh were furious with the officiating throughout the game and they and the players had every right to be that way. The replacement officials are making a mockery of game with incorrect calls, flags that get lobbied to be picked up, missed calls, phantom penalty calls and taking way too much time to figure out the fuck is going on.
Like you, I’m sure, I have seen the Justin Tucker game winning field goal at least 12 times in 15 hours and I still don’t know whether it’s good or not.
My question on the field goal attempt is this. If according to the NFL rules the uprights extend to the heavens then if the ball goes over the upright theoretically it would have hit the up right so why is the attempt considered a made field goal?
In addition to better defining the rule regarding the upward reach of the goalposts, I also feel that those plays need to be reviewed. They need to come up with a better camera position that shows whether the ball went inside or outside the upright.
This could be accomplished with a lipstick camera mounted on the outside and near the top of each upright facing up. You could then look at a replay and see where the ball went. It’s pretty obvious that watching the NFL each and every week there are several field goal attempts each season that can be a cause of controversy.
Belichick said in his Monday post mortem that he wanted to know why it (the field goal attempt) was or wasn’t going to be reviewed. He never got an answer and that’s why he was chasing the official at game’s end.
“I did try to get the officials attention as he was coming off the field. I have never meant any disrespect or in any way tried to abuse or be disrespectful to the officials.”
It is unclear at this time if the NFL is going to take some sort of disciplinary action against Belichick for what appears to be him reaching for the official, not a push as many have said it was.
The league could see things his way and feel he is genuine and let it go but I highly doubt that will happen. Just this last week the NFL made calls to all the owners, general managers and head coaches about abusing the replacement officials and staying off the field.
The actions that caused the phone call in fact resulted in a $30,000 fine on Denver head coach John Fox and a $25,000 fine on Denver defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio for their treatment of the officials last Monday Night in Atlanta.
It was because of this phone call that Harbaugh got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called on him for coming onto the field to call a time out. The official got a little flag happy and blew Harbaugh up. Luckily for the Ravens the extra 15-yards didn’t hurt them.
Belichick though is a different story he actually touched an official, whether it was abusive or not, that’s frowned upon. I expect Belichick to get a fine probably between $50,000 and $100,000. I also expect Harbaugh will get fined too but a much lesser amount probably in the vicinity of $25,000 or $30,000.
The whopper stat of the night, the officials called 30 penalties (24 accepted for 218 yards) between the two teams which is about 35% higher than normal and 13 (8 for New England) of those penalties led directly to first downs.
News and Notes
Patriots head coach Bill Belichick conducted his day after media briefing.
QB Tom Brady will have his weekly chat on WEEI on Tuesday morning.
Offensive snaps by skill players vs. Ravens (ESPN Boston)
Defensive snaps played vs. Baltimore (ESPN Boston)
Shalise Manza Young reported that T Sebastian Vollmer played every offensive snap that is huge in his return from his back injury. (Boston Globe)
It was an interesting night in the stands in Baltimore a fan wearing a Suggs jersey and another wearing a Brady jersey got into a fist fight in front of the press box. Then you had the guy who ran onto the field wearing black shorts and a cape.
Best and Worst of Patriots vs. Ravens (Boston Herald)
All is well with Welker (Boston Herald)
Five Takeaways from Patriots-Ravens (Boston Globe)
LB Brandon Spikes criticizes officials on Twitter (Boston Globe)
Since 2008 the Ravens are 17-4 after a loss, including 14 consecutive wins after a loss.
Since 2008 Baltimore is 6-2 vs. the AFC East with both losses being to New England.
Baltimore is 12-12 all-time on Sunday Night Football, they are 9-5 at home.
John Harbaugh is in his 5th season with the team, he is 46-21 since taking over and is 5-4 in the playoffs for an overall record of 51-25.
He is 2-3 vs. New England in his career.
Harbaugh turned 50 on Sunday.
QB Tom Brady has 304 TD passes in his career he is now 5th all-time. Hall of Famer Fran Tarkenton is 4th with 342.
Brady moved past Joe Montana (40,551) into 12th place all-time on the NFL’s passing list. He now has 40,866 passing yards.
Brady has thrown at least 1 TD pass in 35 consecutive games.
WR Wes Welker now has catches in 104 consecutive games, 87 as a Patriot. The last time Welker did not have a catch in a game was 12/24/05 as a Dolphin.
Rookie RB Brandon Bolden had his first NFL TD with a 2-yard run in the first quarter,
The 13 first quarter points are the most given up by the Ravens at home since John Harbaugh took over.
WR Julian Edelman’s 2nd quarter TD was the second receiving TD of his career. Both have occurred on Sunday Night Football. The first was at Indianapolis in 2009. That was the 4th and 2 game.
New England has two players who are sons of Hall of Famers, Kellen Winslow and Matthew Slater.
Linebacker Jerod Mayo led the team in tackles on Sunday he had 11 in all (9 solo). CB Kyle Arrington had 7 tackles (7 solo) and CB Devin McCourty also had 7 tackles (6 solo).
New England had one INT of Flacco it was by S Steven Gregory it was his first as a Patriot after coming over from San Diego. He returned it 36 yards and put the Patriots in a goal to go situation.
The Patriots had 1 tackle for loss in Sunday’s game; it was when S Patrick Chung stuffed RB Bernard Pierce on a 4th quarter 4th and 1 play. It went for a one-yard loss.
McCourty defensed 4 passes in Sunday’s game while Gregory had 1.
The Patriots had 6 special teams’ tackles, rookie S Tavon Wilson and rookie RB Brandon Bolden each had 2 tackles.
The Patriots did not sack Baltimore QB Joe Flacco, while allowing Brady to be sacked 2 times.
New England’s turnover differential is PLUS 4. The defense has recovered 3 fumble and has 2 INTs. The offense has given away 0 fumbles and has 1 INT.
The Patriots were 3 for 5 (60%) in the red zone. They had 3 TD and 2 FG. Baltimore was 2 for 3 (67%) in the red zone scoring 2 TD’s and 1 FG’s.
New England was 7 for 15 (47%) on third down conversions and 0 for 0 on 4th down attempts. The Ravens were 4 for 8 (50%) on 3rd down conversions and 0 for 1 (0%) on 4th down attempts.
Next Game
The Patriots visit the Buffalo Bills next Sunday at Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park NY. Kick off is at 1 p.m. on CBS.
Follow Steve on Twitter @SteveMichaelsII
