PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

malcom brown

Patriots Gameplan: Week 15 at Steelers

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With the Chargers upsetting the Chiefs last night, the Patriots are right back in the hunt for the top overall seed in the AFC. Despite a last-second, depressing loss, at this moment not much has changed in the regular season standings. We’re not dead (in KC) yet.

Regardless of the Chiefs, the Patriots let one slip away on the road last week. This trip to Pittsburgh marks the final chance to put forth on the road the same kind of great team performance that we’ve seen plenty of at Gillette Stadium.

The final two weeks of the season are as easy as they can get in the NFL, so this is really the climax of the regular season. Let’s. Go.

Here’s the gameplan for what the 2018 Patriots need to do to culminate their season appropriately.

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Patriots Gameplan: Week 12 at New York Jets

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Is it really already week 12? Yes, we’re after Thanksgiving, when the “real” football starts and the push to the playoffs begins. After a week off the Patriots are back in contention for a bye, a vitally important piece of the Super Bowl run equation. There are just six games left, with three of the next four on the road. That’s where we’ll learn the most about who these Patriots really are.

They kick things off with the 3-7 Jets who will be without rookie quarterback Sam Darnold. The Jets have been hit hard with injuries this year, with running back Bilal Powell ending up on IR. Losing your best running back and young quarterback when you’re in rebuild mode is never a good thing and the Jets have lost four in a row and have put up just 26 total points in their last three games.

Still, no matter how bad the Jets appear on paper they always seem to play their asses off against the Patriots. Last October they put up 400 yards on the Patriots and lost by just a touchdown and that was a team that won just five games. The season finale was a meaningless affair just as this year’s finale will likely be.

But for now the Pats have a lot to prove on the road, and the Jets have the 2nd-best third-down defense in the league. That hits the Pats where they’ve struggled most. Tom Brady and the offense will get a good test. Defensively there aren’t any excuses. They’ve played down to the competition on the road and to do it again this week after getting a break will be unacceptable and another sign that the Pats are sputtering when they usually don’t sputter.

Let’s dive into both sides of the ball and come up with a gameplan that will get the post-Thanksgiving train rolling!

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Trey Flowers or Bust in Free Agency 2019

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Maybe this is the wrong time to take a look at the expiring contracts on the Patriots considering we’re coming off such a poor performance, but it’s the bye week and in just a few short months the free agents will be at the forefront of everyone’s mind no matter how the season ends.

The list of pending free agents has one big name at the top — Trey Flowers — and after him, and maybe Josh Gordon, is there anyone we’d be all that upset to see leave? Anyone who would truly hurt the Patriots a couple years down the road if they went elsewhere?

Let’s rundown the pending free agents, roughly ranked in order of importance current impact.

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Patriots Camp Leftovers

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Real-ish football is finally back tonight with the Patriots taking on the Redskins at 7:30pm. No, the game doesn’t really count and all that truly matters tonight is avoiding injuries, but it will be fun to finally see the new and young guys have to deal with tackling. We’ll finally get a sense of who might be the guys who just rise to another level in game action.

I had a chance to catch five training camp practices so far, each time scribbling down furious notes on the roster and often forgetting to mention bits and pieces that I might’ve caught but didn’t warrant a full article.

To help get through today, here are a bunch of rapid-fire notes and things I left out of my last couple weeks of writing.

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10 Things We’ve Learned About 2018 Pats

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Four days, four training camp practices. Not that many, but enough to get some answers to some of the questions of the offseason.

I’ll be back at Gillette tonight for the in-stadium practice, which I’m very much looking forward to… sitting in a seat and not getting baked by the sun. Usually, these are special teams and autograph sessions. Still, I bet we get a good chance to see more of the Allen-Bojorquez competition. Despite one bad shank, Bojorquez very well could be in the lead.

One quick note, in case you’ve missed it I’ve added some videos to the blog this season. Please check them out and subscribe for more this season!

Here are 10 more things we’ve learned about the 2018 Patriots.

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Film Review: Pats vs. Jags AFC Championship

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After a day of wonky performance by NFL Game Rewind I was finally able to get it to function long enough to take a look at the All-22 film from the AFC Championship. It’s always nice to get a clean strategic view of the game without my stomach turning after every bad Patriots play.

I came away even more impressed with how the Jags executed, especially early. But really from the start of the second half you could see the Patriots taking their game to another level while the Jags were slowly starting to fade as they got closer and closer to a potential win. It’s just remarkable how steady the Patriots are. Some of the late punts in the second half left an even bigger impression on me because most teams would’ve packed it in.

Aside from the Patriots perseverance it was clear that the flaws of the 2017 team were still very much there. And with Dion Lewis mostly ineffective until the final game-sealing carry, it’s just incredible what Brady did, almost exclusively with Danny Amendola.

Great play designs, great adjustments and an unflinching approach to the game were the hallmarks of this performance.

Here are a bunch of my quick-hit thoughts.

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Pats Posits: One More to Go

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Merry Christmas from the West Coast! It was a unique experience for me yesterday as I was on a plane and left with no better option than listening to the Patriots win over the Bills via the Sports Hub radio stream. It’s been a while since I experienced a game only on the radio, but it was fun to finally get to see the big plays later in the day and I thought Zolak and Socci were fun to listen to.

So here we are, the Pats are 12-3 with one game to go, and really all I see is a pile of negativity everywhere I look. I get it, everyone outside of Patriots Nation is so sick of the Patriots. Now, instead of getting excited post-game it immediately becomes about deflecting that negativity.

Bad calls, the Jimmy G situation and the Alex Guerrero thing are the stories driving the Patriots’ narrative these days. It feels like this was the year that the Patriots finally broke the rest of the NFL. Long gone are the “they haven’t won anything since Spygate,” that was such a reassuring crutch for those who hate the Patriots. Now they’re left with no such crutch.

Wins alone are no longer close to enough for even those in our tribe. Wins are boring now. Wins can’t drive the Patriots’ season narrative because it’s just been so played out. So instead it’s all about the secondary stuff and that’s just so frustrating that here in the last few seasons of Brady we can’t really enjoy a win being a win. Now everyone wants to talk about anything but the wins.

More frustrating is the direction it’s all trending, pointing toward how things will look and sound when the Brady-Belichick era is over. We now know that Jimmy G will be hung around our necks for all time. And it will be even worse if Belichick misfires on the second round pick we got for him. I knew it would be bad for Patriots’ fans in the aftermath of the dynasty as everyone lined up and piled on, but the sneak preview we’re getting now makes me realize it will be even worse than we imagined.

But the good news, that everyone has seemingly forgotten, is again that the Pats will be the top AFC seed with a win over the Jets, the bye is already secure and clearly, the dynasty isn’t over yet as much as everyone outside of our fandom want it to be.

Here are the Posits on the win over Buffalo and even some of the ancillary BS.

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