This Week's Enemy Fan Forums: The New England Patriots

[SantaClaraHawk]

Florio: Belichick praises Wilson at length

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has only coached against Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson three times, but he’s spent plenty of time watching him as he prepares for a fourth meeting on Sunday night.

During his Thursday press conference, Belichick made it clear that he likes what he’s seen from the NFC’s offensive player of the week from Week One. Wilson has plenty of other admirers, but Belichick thinks that the consensus opinion of the quarterback may still be selling him short.

“Honestly, I think he’s in a way maybe underrated by the media or the fans, I don’t know. I don’t really see anybody better than this player,” Belichick said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com.

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Not Cam? Is he messing with our heads?

 

[chris98251]

Florio: Belichick praises Wilson at length

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has only coached against Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson three times, but he’s spent plenty of time watching him as he prepares for a fourth meeting on Sunday night.

During his Thursday press conference, Belichick made it clear that he likes what he’s seen from the NFC’s offensive player of the week from Week One. Wilson has plenty of other admirers, but Belichick thinks that the consensus opinion of the quarterback may still be selling him short.

“Honestly, I think he’s in a way maybe underrated by the media or the fans, I don’t know. I don’t really see anybody better than this player,” Belichick said, via Mike Reiss of ESPN.com.

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Not Cam? Is he messing with our heads?

This is Belichek, he may respect and admire Pete and Wilson, but he does this with every team.

Call it marinating the meat before you throw it on the Bar B Que and and feed everyone.

 

[ZagHawk]

I'm going to flip the coin and say that the Patriots were not built on a weak AFC East, but instead the Patriots CREATED the appearance of a weak AFC East. If you are an AFC east team and had to play the Patriots to play twice a year that is a guaranteed 1-2 losses a year which in a 16 game season is big. Combine that with the best chance you had at making the playoffs is a wildcard (which is already hard to do when you're already guaranteed 1-2 losses a year against the Patriots). Wildcard playoff spots suck, you're at a disadvantage even if you make it in. NFL Team Owners and fanbases are also impatient as hell and demand jobs if a coach/GM can't produce in 2-3 years (tops). So combine all the above and you have AFC East Teams that just fire coaches and GMs every 2-3 years so there's no consistency and just continued lack of success. Now add that in the mix and tell me how many players really want to play for a Non Patriot team in the AFC East unless they get offered just stupid money and take up the entire salary cap for that one team to have like one star player that will not take them to any real continued success.

If the Patriots were built on a weak AFC East, then tell me why they were still kicking every other team's ass outside of it's division? One could argue the Broncos played a weak division for a few years in the last decade and had an easy route to the SB but they didn't exactly win the same amount of trophies in the last decade now did they?

Anyway onto the game. Belichick is the GOAT, he is NOT entertaining in interviews, but he also doesn't talk trash. I can respect that. He managed to win 4 games with JG who at this current time looks like an average QB. Cam was an MVP so the talent/potential is there. This is going to be a tough game. I really want to see how the Seahawks DL looks against a mobile QB and a team/coach that historically makes their OL work.

 

[50yrpatsfan]

Pats have a strong OL. Very talented & healthy LT in Wynn, 2 premier guards in Thuney and Mason, and a very good center Andrews who returned after missing last year with a blood clot. RT has questions due to Cannon sitting out the year, but they're rotating a couple of decent bench guys.

Also they're bringing out extra OL's in a 4 TE set, including rookie Onewu who moves ok for a 365 pound TE. And a big FB, with 4 RB's who are all pretty good, and Newton who looks to be still in his prime. That's their offense, they're gonna follow Baltimore's lead.

 

[SantaClaraHawk]

Pats have a strong OL. Very talented & healthy LT in Wynn, 2 premier guards in Thuney and Mason, and a very good center Andrews who returned after missing last year with a blood clot. RT has questions due to Cannon sitting out the year, but they're rotating a couple of decent bench guys.

Also they're bringing out extra OL's in a 4 TE set, including rookie Onewu who moves ok for a 365 pound TE. And a big FB, with 4 RB's who are all pretty good, and Newton who looks to be still in his prime. That's their offense, they're gonna follow Baltimore's lead.

i concede these points are issues; my main disagreement is with Cam.

Cam had a good game last week, but he was IRed early on basically to get him healthy to go somewhere else, and that somewhere else is relying on him not just to be the 2016 Cam but to actively execute the Baltimore offense when a lot of that is LJ running and losing his QB protection as a runner. It's a neat trick for young QBs who can do it but they can't for long without basically running into a problem, which is what happened with Cam.

Someone like Belichick would probably not pattern according to Baltimore strictly with a recovered player in their 30s that they have invested in...if that's the plan I don't know how he lasts until Week 16...given that he lasted exactly through week 2 last year...

 

[50yrpatsfan]

Yes, that's the concern, that Cam won't be able to deal with the hits like Jackson. He's not as fast or slippery as Jackson either, but he's probably in the top 3 or 4 in terms of QB running ability on designed run plays especially RPO. He's also got a little better arm than Jackson when they mix it up with a pass. His durability is what it is, nobody knows, but he's probably less likely to get hurt on a designed running play than a sack/scramble.

It's just going to be very interesting to see if they can bulldoze a Seattle-level defense, mixed in with 10-15 yard passes to Edelman and TE's. If NE's defense can keep it close in the 1st half, a running game like this can break a defense in the 2nd half.

 

[chris98251]

If there is a game that we want to start fast in it is this one, getting up by two scores and making Cam have to throw is the key, yes he has an arm, but he doesn't get the ball out all that fast and he doesn't have Olsen to bail him out. He doesn't read as fast as Tom Brady either.

Keeping our foot on the gas if we do this is important also, I would have hoped we had learned by now especially against the Pats you don't relax and go conservative on offense and prevent on defense.

 

[camdawg]

3 TO's is a positive not a negative. As far as 20 points, we fumbled at the goal line and missed a 42 yd fg, so it should have been 30.

If the Hawks played Miami twice a year, they'd pretty much split with them like NE has most seasons. The Pats win 12-14 games every year, and usually have an L to Miami on their record, may of them big games.

It's true that Miami beat us in 2012. And had a very good chance to beat us in Seattle during the 2016 season opener.

Those Dolphins teams were far more talented than this year's team. This year's team should not be very competitive with us when we travel to South Florida in a couple of weeks.

 

[camdawg]

You've been cursed with the toughest division the past 2 years, no doubt. Prior to that I don't recall SF, AZ, and the Rams being very formidable. AFC East has been an average division over the years, not below average. And NE has had the same winning pct against AFCE and non-AFCE teams - 75-80%.[/quote]

During the 2012 season, the Patriots went 12-4. 11-1 against all non-NFC West competition. 1-3 against the NFC West, including two home losses.

If there's one thing that shows the relative strength of the NFC West vs. the AFC East, it's how frequently a Wild Card team came out of the NFC West, and how infrequently they came out of the AFC East.

A very strong New York Jets team was a Wild Card team in 2010, and nearly made it to the Super Bowl. There wasn't another Wild Card team from the AFC East until the Dolphins made it in 2016. Buffalo also made it in 2017 and 2019. The Miami and Buffalo teams were one round and out.

NFC West? During the same time period, the Seahawks were a Wild Card team in 2012, 2015, 2018, and 2019. During three of those seasons, we won a playoff game.

San Francisco were a Wild Card team in 2013, winning twice. Arizona was a Wild Card team in 2014, losing their first game to Cam and the Panthers. 2016 and 2017 are the only years in the past decade when we didn't have a Wild Card team.

All four teams in our division won at least one playoff game during that time. All four played in the NFC Championship game. Three played in the Super Bowl. That's a pretty deep division.