AFCCG Re-Watch - First World Problems

This again...?

Every Monday, win lose or draw, I go back and take a second look at the game. I do my best to separate the passion and emotion of Sunday from the retrospect of Monday.

Well, nobody wants to end their season with a loss, but that's what we've done for the past 4 seasons. Nobody wants to play their worst game of the season in the Title game, but that's what did in 2012. The #1 offense in league was held without a single point in the second half, and squandered many more chances in the first half. Still, despite the Patriot hate parties that are popping up on the internet, despite Terrell Suggs' accusation that our entire organization is, "arrogant," and despite my genuine desire to lash out violently, I have to give a ton of credit to The Ravens.

The haters have plenty to say today, but they always seem to have firepower anyway. The way I see it, the best way to deal with it is to ignore the noise. Don't engage the trolls. Don't complain about the injuries. Don't whine about anything. If you want to call it "arrogance" when walk away from a battle of words, so be it. Maybe we are arrogant, because we're above it all: the trash talk, the spygate jabs, the pictures of Brady crying, everything.

I am not going to jump ship on my Patriots. I am not going to find a new team because everyone else is rooting for us to lose. I am just going to take this one on the chin, and move on. I am just going to re-watch the game, and try to figure out what went wrong. Likewise, I am going to try very hard to avoid the excuses, and get to the reality.

I don't have a warm fuzzy feeling about Ray Lewis,
but he's great competitor to be sure.

So, what is the reality? The reality is that The Ravens were the better team. The only aspect of the game we could argue to have won is the field position battle. In the other two phases of the game, Baltimore outplayed us. Their Defense didn't allow a run of more than 9 yards, our Defense couldn't get any consistent QB pressure and couldn't stop Bernard Pierce and Ray Rice in crucial short yardage situations. Our Defense certainly suffered from injuries to Chandler Jones, Kyle Love, and Aqib Talib, but overall they did enough to give us a chance.

The reality is that most weeks, we would have taken that performance from the Defense. The biggest blemish was their inability to hold up in the red zone, but still, they held the opponent under 30 points. Its just inexcusable to get shut out for 30 minutes as the #1 Offense in the league. We kept shooting ourselves in the foot. Whether it was poor play calling on 3rd down (Ridley run stopped), bad on-field decisions (Hernandez staying inbounds and Brady trying to spike it), an utter lack of coaching adjustments, the practical absence of the no-huddle attack, or dropped passes, The Patriots just didn't do enough on Offense.

Despite a poor QB rating and criticism from the media, I thought Tom Brady did plenty to put his team in position to win. He had pretty good protection, and he made pretty good decisions. The execution on 3rd down just wasn't there as a unit. McDaniels invested a lot of time and probably some good opportunities to pass by establishing the running game with Ridley, but for the most part, The Ravens kept the lid on Ridley. Ridley never broke loose, and therefore the play-action never really opened up. Likewise, deep passing was a crap shoot in the strong wind. The Ravens were able to lock down the middle, and The Patriots were never able to make them pay.

So close to being down.... it's maddening.

Finally, in the fourth quarter, Ridley started to gain momentum. He had a 9 yard run, and followed it up with another promising-looking run. Unfortunately, the second play was the end of Ridley's day, and it resulted in a lost fumble. The Patriots would never be able to recover from the blow of the late turnover because The Ravens converted the miscue into a 28-13 lead. It's hard to call it a "miscue" considering the circumstances involved (erhm.. Bernard Pollard), but this fumble was definitely the difference in the game.

Even down 15 points, The Patriots had a pulse. Brady hit Welker on a deep pass that had everyone feeling for a moment that the comeback was in progress. However, those hopes were dashed on the very next play when Pernell McPhee batted Brady's pass high into the air. As soon as the ball flew up there, I knew it would be intercepted, and I knew the season was over. 

Like I said, all the credit in the world has to go to The Ravens. McPhee and Pollard did what Vince Wilfork and Brandon Spikes could not. Bernard Pollard's hit was clean, and it resembled the type of play we hoped Spikes would make. Likewise, McPhee had 3 batted balls, and Vince Wilfork was invisible. I think that Wilfork's workload was too heavy after the Kyle Love injury, but that doesn't excuse him from his awful performance. His 1 QB hit came on a play that ended in a deep completion to Torrey Smith. 

Likewise, Flacco played a great game, especially when The Ravens put the ball in his hands. The Ravens deserved to win because they made the big plays. We knew they were a tough team, but we had hoped to compete better than we did. We got out-played, out-coached, and out-hustled. It pains me to say it, but we didn't deserve to win.

I'll prove it to you with the keys to victory that we didn't accomplish:

1. Stop Torrey Smith By Any Means Necessary - Meh, we did alright with this. I guess I should have said stop Ravens WRs by any means. Anquan Boldin was the centerpiece of our demise because no one could cover him after Talib got injured. I don't want to blame it on an injury, but we talked all week about how much Talib meant to the Defense. Unfortunately we were all correct. It was deja vu all over again but with Marquise Cole playing the role of Julian Edelman.

2. Hold Ray Rice Under 100 Yards - We actually did very well against Rice, but we couldn't stop Bernard Pierce. Likewise, we weren't able to tackle Rice in critical moments like near the goal line (Mayo and Hightower) and we whiffed badly on a 3rd down screen pass. Overall, we couldn't stop the running game, it just didn't come from Rice.

3. Win Special Teams/Field Position Battle - Well, we did this. However, I am thinking we should have gone for it on 4th down a few more times. That was especially true when we didn't even capitalize on the field position (offensively or defensively).

4. Wes Welker Needs 10 Catches - Well, he had 8 catches and 117 yards, but he also had 2 huge drops. You do the math... He had a huge drop on a 3rd down in the red zone, and he dropped a deep pass in the first quarter that could have been a TD.

5. 60 Minutes - Yeah, getting shut out in the second half is all you need to know here. We played awful in the second half. We didn't make the proper adjustments, and we didn't compete. It wasn't for lack of effort, but we did not play a complete game by any means.