In all honesty I think we blew it as far as playoffs go. It’s up to other teams having catastrophic meltdowns more than it is for us to win games now. We don’t win the games we should. We show great flashes of potential often, especially in games you’d think we shouldn’t, but it comes down to a few things...
We are careless when we can’t afford to be. Protecting the ball and penalties have consistently hurt us. Poor clock management is a minor ache as well.
Defense is getting burned on the deep ball. And far too many plays are extended due to poor tackling, especially the past few weeks. Run defense has been acceptable for the most part, but the passing defense is being gutted. The classic Patriot scenario here, this is because we don’t have a god damn pass rush.
We don’t attack with our strengths. We are a run-first team that was stood up against one of the worst run defenses today. A large part of the struggle here is because we can’t force teams to respect the passing game. I’m not saying it’s Cams fault, a lot I also put on play calling, but Cam can’t keep throwing open receivers into the dirt. He’s been protecting the ball better and taking sacks, but he’s holding on for far too long. Still, I’ll take the sacks over picks.
It’s been tough with injuries, covid, and missing some key players like Hightower and Chung.
On the plus side, our young players are showing a lot of flash and potential. Harris is going to be a stud. Wino is all over the ball when he’s on the field. Dugger, although not today, has shown lots of potential and he’ll get better with time. Onwenu’s play is speaking for itself, solid pick.
I hope Wynn is OK, and unfortunately it seems as if Rex may have played his last snap as a Patriot. I haven’t given up on Harry yet, but he needs to do more this year or else I will, and at least stop with the penalties that killed us today. The McCourty twins are still playing at an NFL level, but not at their peak anymore - this may be it for them. We need a TE threat, because it’s nonexistent, and I can’t stand having Jakob Johnson go out on pass catching routes, it’s not a threat at all.
Cam... let’s see how this plays out. He’s having an 8-8 type of year in a new system with plenty of adversity. But still, he needs to do better. And that doesn’t mean putting the team on his back, it means managing the game and protecting the ball like Tannehill and Cousins and (Foles) are many other non superstar QBs able to do.
Let’s break .500 and see if we get a lucky deal of the deck and sneak in the wildcard. Fuck anybody who ever was/ still is talking about tanking and draft picks.
Zigity out