thebandit27

He can be in obvious decline and the team can still win as long as he can make enough plays. Are you saying that you didn't believe Peyton Manning was in obvious decline the year Denver beat NE and went on to win the Super Bowl?

Only if you're purely looking at the box scores. Literally everything about the 2018 Patriots is geared toward a run-based offense. They got rid of Brandin Cooks, let Amendola walk, tried to trade Gronk, let their best pass blocker leave in FA and traded for the biggest offensive tackle in football, drafted a guard in the 1st round, drafted a RB in the first round, and signed another RB in free agency. Brady's No. 1 target in the passing game this year has been...a RB. Under Belichick, NE has always been a take-the-easiest-path-to-victory team on offense. If they can run to win, that's what they're going to do...this year has been different; they have to run to win. The eye test shows it, the numbers show it, and--more obviously--everything they've done before and during the season shows it. If you disagree and believe that this is still a Tom Brady-based offense, fine, I'm open to hearing that case. I know you wouldn't be saying so if you didn't believe it and have a reason for believing it. The narrative of the article posted in the OP, however, isn't lazy or inaccurate. Brady is in clear decline; that doesn't mean that (a) he's done, (b) the team won't still find a way to win the majority of their games, or (c) he can't still be effective.

Good...he's a grade-A jerk. https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/1/9/5288648/bobby-petrino-louisville-scandal-timeline

I'm not a big fan either, but I still think it could happen Indeed...fortunately, they have a talented stable of running backs, some underrated OLmen, and perhaps the best OL coach the game has seen in the last 30 years...which is why against the Packers, Chiefs, and Bears they were able to rush for 123, 173, and 108 yards and score a total of 6 rushing TDs versus 5 passing (with 2 STs TDs in there as well). They're able to win when they can run; they've lost 3 games, and in those games their rushing totals were 89 (Jax), 87 (Det), and 40 yards (Ten). Their lowest rushing output in a win was 79 yards against Buffalo, and they generated only 18 points on offense in a game that they'd have lost to any competent offensive team. Stop the run, and you stop NE's offense.

Why? He doesn't need the money, he's got 2 Super Bowl rings, he's made 5 pro bowls...what does he have to prove professionally? The only decision he has to make is whether or not he wants to play. After that, it's up to NE if they want to keep him...and if they don't, the only decision he has to make is where he wants to play.

Total sidebar: I've long felt that Gronk will play his last season in the NFL for the Bills. If NE thinks he's too banged up to come back and lets him go, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see him come home.

Make no mistake: I'm not saying that Brady is done. I'm saying that he's very clearly in decline, and that it wouldn't surprise me if he decided that he didn't want to finish his career as anything less than the Tom Brady we've all come to expect, and therefore hung 'em up at the end of this year.

Have you watched them much this year? When they can't run the ball, they're toast.

It's worth noting, since the subject of defensive ppg allowed keeps coming up, that I had Buffalo at 14th in the league when normalizing the data to account for defensive and ST scores allowed per team. I haven't updated it in a week, so that may no longer be the case, but I do know that Buffalo has allowed a league-high 4 defensive TDs. Indy has allowed 3, and nobody else has allowed more than 2. UPDATE: I re-ran the data set, and here's what it looks like... 1 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 9 32.3 290.7 2 30.7 32 2 Cincinnati Bengals 9 32 288 1 1 30.4 31 3 Oakland Raiders 9 30.2 271.8 1 29.4 30 4 Atlanta Falcons 9 28.2 253.8 1 27.4 29 5 Detroit Lions 9 27.1 243.9 1 2 24.8 23 6 San Francisco 49ers 10 26.6 266 2 25.2 26 7 Indianapolis Colts 9 26.6 239.4 3 24.3 22 8 Cleveland Browns 10 26.3 263 1 25.6 28 9 Carolina Panthers 9 25.8 232.2 1 25.0 25 9 New Orleans Saints 9 25.8 232.2 1 25.0 25 11 Miami Dolphins 10 25.6 256 1 2 23.5 17 12 New York Jets 10 25.4 254 25.4 27 13 New York Giants 9 25.3 227.7 2 23.7 20 14 Buffalo Bills 10 25.1 251 4 22.3 12 15 Arizona Cardinals 9 25 225 2 23.4 16 16 Green Bay Packers 9 24 216 1 23.2 15 16 Kansas City Chiefs 10 24 240 24.0 21 18 Denver Broncos 9 23.7 213.3 23.7 19 19 New England Patriots 10 23.6 236 23.6 18 20 Pittsburgh Steelers 9 23.2 208.8 23.2 14 21 Los Angeles Rams 10 23.1 231 23.1 13 22 Minnesota Vikings 9 22.7 204.3 1 2 20.4 9 23 Jacksonville Jaguars 9 22.1 198.9 1 21.3 11 24 Seattle Seahawks 9 21.3 191.7 2 19.7 8 25 Los Angeles Chargers 9 20.7 186.3 2 1 18.4 5 26 Houston Texans 9 20.4 183.6 20.4 10 27 Philadelphia Eagles 9 20.3 182.7 1 19.5 7 28 Chicago Bears 9 19.4 174.6 2 17.8 3 28 Washington Redskins 9 19.4 174.6 19.4 6 30 Dallas Cowboys 9 19 171 1 18.2 4 31 Baltimore Ravens 9 17.8 160.2 17.8 2 32 Tennessee Titans 9 16.8 151.2 1 16.0 1 First number column is games played, followed by total PPG against, then total points against, then ST TDs against, then defensive TDs against. The final two columns are defensive PPG against (assuming that each TD is worth 7 points) and ranking in defensive PPG against, respectively. Buffalo ranks 12th in the league in defensive PPG allowed...do with that what you will.

Depends...if you want the investment to last for as long as possible, your best bet is Edmunds, since he's on year 1 of a 5-year rookie contract. Milano is in year 2 of a 4-year contract. Neither is a bad choice player-wise.

As good as JJ Watt has been, I don't know how it's anyone other than Andrew Luck. 3+ years of shoulder problems, missed an entire year of practice and game time, and then comes back and leads a team with very little talent to a competitive record.

That's exactly what I see too, right down to the design of the offense. In Kelly's final 2 years, that offense was in real trouble when they couldn't run. I don't think Brady wants to play past when he can be Brady, so it wouldn't shock me if he retired as soon as the end of this season if he felt that were the case.

He's right, and Belichick saw it coming. Their entire offseason, draft, and in-season game plan was/is predicated upon transitioning to a run-based offense. If they can't run the ball, they're in real trouble. They've scored 27 or more points 5 times this year, and those outputs came in their 5 best rushing efforts. Stop the run, and you stop NE. We saw it vs. Buf on MNF--a team with a half-competent offense would've won that game.

I hope you're happy

Purely by the numbers: They rank 14th overall in defensive points per game allowed (which is normalized to remove all defensive TDs allowed). They rank 2nd overall in yards per play allowed 7th in 1st downs surrendered per game 13th in 3rd down conversion rate against Tied-8th in total takeaways I would say that the above indicates that they're very good, but not top-5

If Oakland is looking to keep shedding salary, I'm happy to flip them a 3rd for either of their guards. Beyond that, go after Daryl Williams and Ramon Foster in FA. Draft a center in the mid rounds. You go into next offseason with a starting 5 of Dawkins-Osemele-Bodine-Foster-Williams with Teller and a rookie backing up.

I want to see what the Chiefs' D looks like when Berry comes back

Hang 'em up man; you're wrong here

Here's my creative way of answering this: Nathan Peterman beat Clemson the year that they won the National Championship

It's not a routine issue, but it happened once or twice on Sunday and it was my number one concern from preseason. I think right now he's going to struggle when he faces the stouter interior pass rushers. I'll be very interested to see if he gets one on one reps vs Leonard Williams on Sunday. Of course, the real test will come right after the bye going against Jax's interior of Malik Jackson, Dareus, Abry Jones, and Campbell (when they shift him inside on passing downs).

It's not really about getting stronger in terms of generating more force--which is what the raw weight numbers tell you. It's a lot more about developing strength that meshes with the technique to a specific NFL position. Don't get me wrong: a strength base is critical, but it's a starting point, not a finished product. For example, my lifting coach had athletes that could deadlift 3x body weight, which is phenomenal. Those same guys struggle with strength when put up against a big body with low center of gravity, because all of a sudden the load isn't stationary and the leverage points have changed. Put that same guy through an offseason of NFL strength training, where he practices unevenly loaded deficit deadlifts from a Jefferson stance (this was the protocol he said one NFL asst S&C coach used for OLmen) and all of a sudden the same guy can go from a kick slide to anchoring seamlessly without giving up ground.

Like I said, Teller was crushing fools in the preseason, but he's going to need a full offseason in an NFL strength program to be able to handle every down action--in that respect, he's a lot like John Miller, though I think Teller is a better athlete. Where he's got a shot to succeed over and above Miller is if he can learn to improve his hand placement. He does a nice job re-directing his feet, and if he can get his hands to operate in concert he'll be a solid guard.

All of what you say makes sense; I just happen to evaluate the QB play mutually exclusive from the rest of the offense. It's possible that Peterman would be an ok QB3 if he were surrounded by excellent role players; he isn't. Thanks for the well wishes; little miss Bandette is doing great! I'm more of a workhorse dad than an avoider; I'd say the diaper ratio has been 98/1/1 for dad/mom/twins ?

He is, statistically, the worst QB ever to play the game We're not talking about one bad game distorting an otherwise solid body of work; he's absolutely atrocious all of the time. As in unforgivably bad. He's been outplayed by a rookie from Wyoming that isn't close to being caught up to the speed of the NFL game. He's literally thrown away 3 games purely on his terrible passing.