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Patriots Film Review: 3rd & 12 with White & Lewis

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One of the packages that I thought could help offset the loss of Julian Edelman was the use of both James White and Dion Lewis coming out of the backfield. While the Patriots did employ this package against the Chiefs it wasn’t all that effective, but it really should’ve been.

In today’s film study I pulled a third quarter play to take a bit of a closer look at why the offense seemed to get off track without Amendola. At this point the Patriots are up 17-14 with just under 10 minutes left in the third. This is a third-and-12, the kind of tough down Edelman lived to convert. In this situation the Patriots didn’t have much to work with, but the direction of the offense should be obvious going forward.

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How Did Patriots Use Their Running Backs vs. Chiefs?

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While the Patriots played about as bad as one could have possibly imagined Thursday night, the sky is indeed not falling in New England, contrary to popular belief. Sure, the defense looked abysmal (at best), and the offense sputtered throughout the majority of the second half, but the 2017 Patriots are still a team loaded with talent that every team in the NFL should fear, and in an otherwise disappointing effort, the weapons out of the backfield showed a mere glimmer of how hard this Patriots offense will be to stop once it hits full gear.

The trio of Mike Gillislee, James White, and Rex Burkhead were a few of the lone bright spots Thursday night, with Gillislee as the unquestioned star of the show in his Patriots debut, racking up 45 yards on 15 attempts, finding the end zone on three occasions, and dominating the touches in the red zone. White also contributed 68 yards on 13 touches, and Burkhead gained 23 yards on his four touches.

Having three running backs of the caliber of this trio is an incredible thing, and I think we saw just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what these three are capable of.

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Belichick Hoping for Ground Balance

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For whatever reason Bill Belichick always seems to open up a bit more than usual when talking with Pat Kirwan on Sirius XM Radio and Monday’s show was no exception. Kirwan, who poked his head into then Ninkovich retirement presser, has one of then best books learning how to watch football — Take Your Eye Off The Ball.

This quote stood out to me, as Belichick mentioned they were looking for more balance out of their backfield.

“Hopefully we will be a little bit less of a Blount on first down [and] second-and-short, Lewis on second down, White on third down — that type of [set-up],” Belichick said on SiriusXM NFL Radio.

“Part of that for us was getting our best player to do what he does best type of thing. Hopefully, this year, we’ll have a little more balance between the running game and passing game. Again, LG was primarily a runner. He didn’t have a lot of receiving production. The reverse is true of James White. So hopefully with our backs this year we’ll have a little more balance and be a little less predictable from that spot.”

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Patriots Positional Preview: Running Backs

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Today we’re taking a look at the Patriots’ running back corps, one of the most intriguing positions on the roster.

With the departure of LeGarrette Blount, who set a team record with 18 rushing touchdowns, things will look a little different in 2017, but the approach should remain the same. The biggest question is of course, who takes those short yardage carries, especially on the goalline where 11 of Blount’s TDs came from just one yard out.

The favorite to be the early down/early game pounder is Mike Gillislee, a restricted free agent the Pats signed away from the Bills and whose one-cut, hard running style is a perfect fit for what the Pats need. But free agent Rex Burkhead, who saw just 13 carries in his first three seasons with the Bengals before getting his shot in 2016 and putting up 4.6 yards-per-attempt, has size and versatility to take some of those carries as well.

As Pro Football Talk pointed out, Gillislee and Burkhead are football analytics all-stars.

Analytics website FootballOutsiders.com ranked Gillislee as the most efficient running back in the NFL last year, and Burkhead as No. 2. Analytics website NumberFire also had Gillislee first and Burkhead second. Analyst Warren Sharp’s metrics had Gillislee first and Burkhead second in success rate, and Burkhead first and Gillislee second in the fewest “missed yards per attempt,” or how close they came to being successful on the plays that weren’t quite good enough to quality as successful.

No matter how the replacing of Blount shakes out, the Patriots have the entire spectrum covered at running back. James White put up an MVP-caliber performance in the Super Bowl, while Dion Lewis, now a full year removed from tearing his ACL, could return to the electric explosion he showed prominently in early 2015.

With battering ram James Devlin leading the way, and a couple young potential practice squad members, there’s nothing this group lacks.

Let’s take a closer look at each.

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Patriots Extend James White Thru 2020

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James White‘s very excellent 2017 continued on Tuesday night as Adam Schefter reported that White had inked a three year extension with the Patriots, a deal that will keep him on the team through 2020.


I’m still pretty flabbergasted by White’s progress over his first three seasons. Couldn’t get on the field as a rookie, was a passing-down only back in 2015 who had just five receptions on 16 targets in the AFC Championship loss and then, in year three, he just keeps getting better all year long until he caps it all off by doing just what we thought he never could do — plow his way into the endzone through multiple tacklers to win the Super Bowl in overtime.

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Pats Posits: Saving Their Best for Probably-Not-Their Last

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In their most thrilling Super Bowl yet, the New England Patriots came back from 25 points to beat the Atlanta Falcons in overtime, 34-28, cementing Tom Brady and Bill Belichick’s place as the greatest Coach-QB duo in history.

A ton of new records were set or tied, including Most Super Bowls Won by a Head Coach (Bill Belichick, 5) Most Super Bowl Games (Tom Brady/Belichick, 7), most receptions (James White, 14), and Largest Deficit Overcome (25 points).

It’s taken me hours to wrap my head around this incredible victory and who knows how long it will take to fully grasp what unfolded. I never would’ve thought Brady’s performance in the fourth quarter of Super Bowl 49 could be topped, but topped it was. But not before I had just about thrown in the towel.

At 28-3 in the middle of the third quarter, I dug into what I had hoped would be my Super Bowl victory cake. I was resigned that the Pats just met up with a red hot Falcons team and played their worst game of the season. Maybe they were bound to get blown out in one?

But like they always do, the Patriots never flinched. Once they cleaned up the mistakes — drops, ill-timed penalties and worst of all, turnovers — and figured out the Falcons’ coverage, Brady moved the ball at will.

Most impressive was that the legendary comeback was such a group effort. So many guys came through with clutch plays — White, Edelman, Hightower and Flowers are just three that jump out to me right away, but it was a team comeback, as much as it was Brady’s brilliance.

I can and will write thousands of words about this game, so let’s get a jump on all the analysis to come with the Posits.

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A Little Bit of James White Appreciation

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James White has had many detractors over his first two years as a Patriot, despite showing some promise. I’ve been one of those, as have other members of the staff here at PatsProp (yup me  – Mike D). All offseason, we had been looking for more from him, or expecting him to go, especially with some of us expecting DJ Foster to take his spot if he didn’t step up.

As for the rest of Patriots Nation, we had observed two camps on this…the pro-James White crowd (as Mike D had dubbed, The White Boys , and the pro-DJ Foster crowd (uh…Foster Families?). Well, nearly one third of the way through the season, the White Boys have been correct here, and it has been a great sight to see.

First, we’ll start with a play versus the Browns that will NEVER show up on a stat sheet that anyone cares about, but I almost jumped out of my seat with excitement when I watched it live:

corner-blitz-pickup

WHEW.

Look at that. James White is lined up at the snap on Brady’s left. White reads the overload blitz from the offense’s right, shifts across the formation, sees Cameron Fleming pick up the inside blitzing linebacker, and continues outside the tackle to pick up the blitzing defensive back. This play would be a film junkie’s DREAM if the pass didn’t end up incomplete on a great breakup by Brian Boddy-Calhoun…but the important thing here is that White showed the awareness to protect Tom Brady from an unabated shot to the chin from the blitzing corner.

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