PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Belichick’s 2.0 Patriots Defense Hitting Their Prime

by

Remember Gary Guyton?

One of the major influences on why I started blogging about the Patriots was to see how Bill Belichick would execute a full defensive turnover with absolute power. How many times in football history has a coach had full control to rebuild a defense from scratch? Few have that kind of longevity, and while Tom Brady has been Belichick’s constant on the offensive side of the ball, the defense barely resembles what it looked like just five short years ago.

Despite the record-setting 2007 season, the Patriots defense was getting old and slow. A lot of their deficiencies were covered by their unstoppable offense. By 2008 the cracks were even more apparent, especially without Asante Samuel. That offseason things went into full turnover mode.

Mike Vrabel was traded. Rodney Harrison, Rosevelt Colvin, and Tedy Bruschi retired. Richard Seymour was traded. And just like that, the dynasty defense was no more.

Jerod Mayo and Vince Wilfork were the cogs to build around, but the holes around them from 2009-2012 were glaring. It was a revolving door in the secondary, where no cornerback or safety seemed to stick outside of Devin McCourty. Gary Guyton and Tully Banta-Cain played prominent roles. Street free agents were regularly making starting appearances. It was ugly.

By the grace of Tom Brady, the Patriots offense was just so good, the team glided through this down period of having a terrible defense. They gave up a ton of yards and more big plays than anyone else from 2009-2012, and were near the bottom of the league on third down. They still won 49 games because they forced turnovers and had Brady.

[Read more…] about Belichick’s 2.0 Patriots Defense Hitting Their Prime

Tweets of Note: Patriots Training Camp Practice #14

by

The Patriots were on the field with the Bears on Monday starting three days of joint practices prior to Thursday night’s second preseason game. This should be a good chance to face another veteran quarterback with some interesting size/speed combo weapons who should give the Pats’ defenders some new looks and challenges.

We’re in the dog days of summer now with just under four weeks to go before the Pats open the 2016 campaign in Arizona. Every practice rep, every injury, it’s all so critical now.

Here are the tweets that stood out.

So this makes two times already this summer I’ve accepted a player was likely done for the year only to have him return to practice. Even if he can’t do much contact stuff, just being out there and being able to get some reps and stay in the flow of the season is huge for Mitchell. But seriously, how the hell can he be back out there so soon after his arm got pretzeled? Another impressive moment for a rookie who is quickly making a name for himself.

[Read more…] about Tweets of Note: Patriots Training Camp Practice #14

Patriots vs. Saints: Jimmy G Review

by

When discussing and analyzing Jimmy Garoppolo’s performance, whether at practice or the first preseason tilt against the Saints, it is important to do so in an isolated manner. That is, if we continue to compare every single one of his moves to that of Brady’s, we’re putting the guy in an impossible situation.

After the live watch, I thought of JG’s showing on Thursday as uneven, and felt a little underwhelmed. I admittedly fell into the “but Brady” trap. It’s also important to note that while he had Bennett at his disposal at tight end, his starting receivers were Chris Harper and Aaron Dobson, both currently fringe roster players.

After focusing on solely Jimmy while going over the tape Friday morning, there were enough positive moments to get excited about the prospects of him performing at a high level over the first month of the season and beyond (whether in a Pats uniform or not).

[Read more…] about Patriots vs. Saints: Jimmy G Review

Tweets of Note: Patriots Training Camp Practice #13

by

After a day off the Patriots were back on the field Sunday, getting ready for three days of joint practices with the Bears this week.

The injury news continues to be positive with Ninkovich at practice today, Edelman a full participant (granted it wasn’t a full-go pads practice) and the MRI results of Malcolm Mitchell’s elbow coming back clean.

So far the Pats have dodged some major injury problems, that luck has to continue into the season.

Here are the tweets that stood out from Sunday’s practice.

[Read more…] about Tweets of Note: Patriots Training Camp Practice #13

Patriots-Saints: Offensive Line Film Review

by

As part of this film review I will look at every single offensive play from the first preseason game. The ultimate goal is to highlight some of the accomplishments, failures, and features of the Patriots offensive line play during the game. We’ll also take a peek at some of the rotation details and grade their overall play.

-Joe Thuney played an outstanding game

–Nate Solder looked terrible early, improved as game went on

–Marcus Cannon was surprisingly good, one of most consistent lineman in this game. I was shocked.

–Shaq Mason looked pretty bad throughout the entire game. He wasn’t technically sound and made mental errors. Very disappointed.

-Andrews and Stork were both pretty strong. Andrews was probably slightly better.

–Josh Kline was solid playing both tackle and guard in the first preseason game

-Waddle was slightly better than Fleming, but neither were very impressive

-It’s evident that Barker feels more comfortable at guard than tackle

–Ted Karras was okay. Good to see that he can play center as well as guard.

-Not enough playing time to judge Halapio, Kerbyson, Milton.

[Read more…] about Patriots-Saints: Offensive Line Film Review

Patriots vs. Saints: GIFing the Secondary

by

We all know regular season games, seasons and even dynasties are won and lost in the trenches of the first preseason game of the year. In the NFL it is all about getting off to a good start, so THANKFULLY we don’t have to start writing strongly worded letters to Robert and Jonathan Kraft just yet. I was expecting to see Drew Brees play well into the 4th quarter, but thankfully those Cowards from NOLA benched his ass after 1 series. Looks like 2016 is off to a ROUGH start for New Orleans, would not want to be those guys. On to our boys…

Justin Coleman: Mike broke this down in his Pats Posits piece and I couldn’t agree more. There will be Taeks that Coleman played his way off the roster this week, but don’t buy into them. After putting Coleman under the microscope I think he did a decent job in coverage this game, and was decidedly physical.


Again, a lot of people will criticize him for this, but in looking at the first play from scrimmage again, Coleman was in pretty good position but just got beat by a better throw from Drew Brees. Coleman gave up another big reception to Michael Thomas, but was right there again in coverage and showed decent technique with an arm-bar trying to force the receiver to the boundary. I still am not sure how this was ruled a catch, but hey, those are the breaks (read: if this was a playoff game I’d be climbing the NFL offices with suction cups to get an audience with Goodell & Blandino).

I loved seeing Coleman absolutely POP 222-lb Tim Hightower in the flats last night. I jumped off my couch and starting jumping around my apartment when I saw this play in real time, so if nothing else, Coleman deserves credit for forcing me to exercise for the first time in about a half decade. Side Note: No freakin clue how Adam Magnacca was able to complete that conditioning test, if you haven’t seen it check it out here. That’s straight up masochism if I’ve ever seen it.

He also had a solid PBU in the second quarter. Don’t give this kid the splash play PFF treatment. He did a lot of good in this game.

[Read more…] about Patriots vs. Saints: GIFing the Secondary

Preseason Week 1 Rookie Report: Mitchell, Grugier-Hill, Lucien

by

The first preseason game is always exciting, as it is a return to football…even though you know going in that it will probably be a sloppy game, and most of the players that get playing time will be seeing most of the time on the field are (likely) getting most of the NFL playing time that they’ll ever receive.

The players I was excited to watch in some capacity were all rookies: Malcolm Mitchell, Kamu Grugier-Hill, and Devin Lucien.

The first quarter was rather uninspiring for the remaining three, as the only time any of them saw on the field was Kamu Grugier-Hill getting some special teams reps. If Grugier-Hill continues to play early on special teams, he has a good shot of making the roster, regardless of other factors.

[Read more…] about Preseason Week 1 Rookie Report: Mitchell, Grugier-Hill, Lucien