nick in* england

He was swapped in and out all night. Presumably this is all about personnel packages???

Only at times. Let me be clear. I am citing the OL as culprits for the quality play of this team AS WELL AS poor decision making by Bledsoe... etc etc etc...

Like BK - you got it... I am in

At least you didn't do what I did... "20 to nothing - all we need is a ST score! Yes!! We got it! Hope is back. All we don't need is another INT. Man - it's 4:30am and I'm watching stevestojan go dry'

The Pats were misfiring early. Its less a case that our D stopped them, than they actually stalled themselves.

Who leads the O in the absence of Bledsoe? Shane Matthews may not be WORSE than Bledsoe - but I am convinced he will not be any better - so why bother? It may be that Drew has lost the respect of the team - and if that is the case, then sure bench his ass. But if they rally around him, the why hurt what little chemistry they already have?? MM has benched Travis and sent the right message there. By bringing in JP at the end of the game there he sent another message. Drew alone cannot be solely blamed for killing the team. He just can't. Its a different situation to Travis/Willis as we have no 'prospect' to bring in other than JP - and bringing in a Rookie QB now just fills me with dread. Maybe I am wrong - but I say we stick with Drew and ride out the storm. There is no need to deploy the inflateable liferaft when we know that the tide will overpower it. (Was that a naval analogy?? Egad )

I still hate him. Even when we are winning. He is overrated and a real knucklehead showoff. He has really weak coverage skills too... Hey Fletch :I starred in Brokeback Mountain:

Sorry dude. I completely and respectfully disagree. Bledsoe needs to start the next 2 games at least. I'd prefer if he saw out the season. Matthews is an emergeny option that I'd rather not see on the field at all. Its got to be Drew all the way with little flashed of JP to help his development. Come January - Matthews goes to be replaced by a proper long term backup and Drew can see out his contract until 2006 to do the same job on JP as he did on Brady.

Sorry - but there is no defending the D after that performance. Players that piss me off on D. #1 London Fletcher - I HATE him. he may be a leading tackler. he's also leading boneheaded play-maker. #2 Izell Reese. #3 Jeff Posey. Good only as a result of the stelaar play of Spikes and (dammt) Fletcher

Sort of. There were numerous cases where the pocket was collapsing FAST and Drew was forced to throw off the back foot, thus hurrying the decision making process. ESPN ran those pocket timers pretty often. Brady consistently had 3.8, 3.9 seconds (and more if he held on to the ball) of pocket time - compare this to Drew how was being given 3.0, 3.1 seconds in the pocket. Against the D we played the WR routes too a long time to develop - meaning we needed a long time to get the balls away. I do agree that the PB was better than the RB - and that Drew could have made better decisions, but on about 50% of the pass plays Drew had someone in his face, or very close to it.

And this is in large part down to the effective game planning by BB. He managed to confuse Drew plain and simple. The coverages were masked a lot of the time making it hard to work out exactly what was happening. However, at times, when it was obvious what was going on Drew just made bad choices.

i'm not sure on what grounds. the OL coach for example is a respected/revered position coach in the NFL. the players can't ask for much more than that

Welcome to the problem we face with Losman

worse than that. I stayed up to watch the end of the game in the vain hope we could come back. it was 4:45am by the time the game ended

simply because the coaches have no faith in the guys we have available.

well said. it's there - hes developing - but the OL is regressing...

Yup you are right. And this rookie clearly needs time to develop. And thats not going to happen if he is thrown to the wolves now - he's a gunslinger right now. He'll take stupid shots down field - force throws that aren't there cos he thinks he's got a stong arm - and he'll take off too soon cos he's got happy feet. All of that is a recipe for an injured QB if you ask me... We don't need a Pennington type guy who is great but never plays cos he's knackered.

i'm bumping cos these boys pissed me off THAT MUCH

On the JP and Drew debate - I still contend that Drew remains the 'best available option to win' - and while we still have a mathmatical chance of going 9-7 and therefore making the playoffs I think we have to go with him. If we lose against the Rams that al changes - but I don't want to see JP against the Seahawks D, so its a waiting game with some mop up appearances until Cleveland.... Yes Drew was at fault for much of the game - but the the OL leaked pass rushers like a sieve. I only see one guy I would want to keep from the starting unit last night and that is Villarial (maybe Tucker at a push)... I have defended Williams and Jennings enough. Can them. They are average at best. Schobel was picked on - as he reverted to his same old same old pass rush of the 'speed move' to the outside. Doesn't work - I thought he'd worked on more moves. But apparantly not. He negated himself.

I totally agree.... One flaw of the game planning that stood out to me was with Travis Henry. Travis and Willis TOGETHER in the backfield is not something any team has seen so far this season. Last night would have been perfect. Even using Travis to between the tackles may have helped, cos Willis looked like a rabbit in the headlights at times, not helped by the OL of course. I saw Travis on maybe 5 plays. Mainly to block on passing downs, and one draw play (his first) that fooled no-one. I think we could have used way more 2 TE sets, more Bunch formations, motions out of the backfields, a simple screen would have been nice. We rely WAY to heavily on a featured back and our star WR. The game plan revolves around those 2 elements. If you neutralise that, you give Drew no room to manoever. It's not that we plan and use Drew wrongly, we use his supporting cast in a formulaic, predictable way...

I have to call out Smith for his play last night. One play in particular stands out to me... Sometime in the 3rd Quarter L. Smith appears on the OL, not for the first time... Jennings picks up the LB on the blitz and makes a very good job of it - Teague, Villarial and Williams are doing a very mediocre job of holing off a 3 man pass rush on the right side. And then we have #72 L. Smith... OK he was against Richard Seymour, BUT, Smith didn't even get a hand on him. Seymour makes a pretty easy move up the inside on Smith, who is flailing his arms around like he is trying to put out a fire on Seymours butt. Smith then flaps in mid air trying to turn 480 degrees to find him man (I can't be sure but I think he had his eyes closed) and then falls on the ground like a big sack of stevestojan. The result. Seymour gets a VERY easy sack. Thats my shining example of what is wrong with the OL. But they were all of them abysmal against the Pats. I know it is hard and the Pats prepare well, but in a WHOLE WEEK to prepare for the SUPERBOWL CHAMPIONS you are telling me that the coaches and players couldn't have worked through a LARGE number of possible formations and blitz pickups to slow down that rush??? Even when the Pats DIDN'T send a LB or DB as an extra rusher our fat boys up front backpeddled out of their way faster than if a car ful of homebos with Uzis was coming at them... Yes Drew was awful. Yes the playcalling was pathetic. Yes McGahee dances too much. Yes the Defence decided they had enough. Yes we should have made better use of Travis. But where is the battle won and lost in football? On the Offensive Line. If our group of lard arses can't do a better job than that, then I think we're looking at a WAY WAY WAY sub-.500 season... Even if we correct every other problem we have. When I see line play like that, it makes me ashamed to feel part of the OL bretheren.

Drew will start next week. We have St Louis and Seattle in must win games to have ANY chance of keeping the season alive. Based on what the coaches will have seen of JP - now is NOT the time to gamble and throw him in. That boy has happy feet and is worth 5 losses automatic at this stage in his development. For the stevestojantty game that Drew had, I just don't believe the team has any other realistic option that to start with Drew to try and keep the season on track. If we get the the Fins game without another win I think that is the time to see JP a little more.

what heppened toour #2 D??? they look like #22

twats

The OL isn't helping. I see L. Smith is back in