After all these years, I still don’t understand why teams haven’t figured out the steps to beat NE. 1) NE usually is happy to have teams run the football. That usually means they aren’t allowing big plays and usually the other team will get a dumb penalty, so most of the time NE doesn’t care. 2) Similarly, NE will usually give teams the underneath dump off passes. Get a four yard run and a five yard swing pass and suddenly it’s 3rd and 1 and not 3rd and 10.
For some reason that I have yet to figure out, most teams try to run much longer routes that usually won’t work but will get their QB clubbed like a baby seal. Many times, the best outcome many times will be an incomplete pass. But INT, sack, strip sack all are in play.
After doing items 1 and 2, then teams can pick their spots to go for big plays. But for some reason they want to skip 1 and 2.
3) Defensively, teams have been covering mid to long range routes and they leave the shallow routes open for Brady to pick them apart. The Patriots line is a mess right now, so teams should cover the LOS to ten yards and force Brady to go over the top. Mix in a random blitzer and NE would be in trouble. They can’t really run the ball this year, and they basically have Edelman and White to worry about. Sure, once or twice a game they will get Dorsett open for a deeper pass, but IMO Brady wont have enough time to consistently hit 20+ yard routes that take time to develop.
That being said, I still think the Pats offense will start doing better with Watson, Burkhead, Harry, Sanu, and Wynn getting integrated into the offense (and they still may add another piece by tomorrow).
I sure make things sound simple, but very few teams seem to have much of a game plan these days.