Greg Bedard tweets observations from AFCCG tape breakdown

Great stuff from Bedard - as always. I'm glad he brought up the issue of playoff football vs. regular season football.

And I think his analysis on Brady is spot on. It confirms what I felt up until the threw that second pick, that he was playing pretty well.

That 2nd pick was so awful though that it detracts so greatly from his performance.

Still, the playoffs are all about grinding out wins, and the offense did that.

They also got hugely screwed by the refs saying Gronk was out of bounds on that 3rd down red zone catch when on replay he was clearly in. Belichick needs to have a quicker trigger on the challenge flag, IMO. Between that and the Steelers game, those plays were just too huge to let slide.

MoLewisrocks said:

Here is his whole review in the form of his report card. I don't always agree with any of them, but I really respect Bedard - SO FAR - because he is thoughtful in his observations and he takes the time to review the tape before he arrives at any conclusions and he always puts them in perspective based on the situation.

Tom Brady got the job done for Patriots in AFC title game - The Boston Globe

Click to expand...

All the missed reads by brady are the result of perceived pressure .He needed to get the ball out quickly and didnt take time to go through his progressions

Why does the media keep lying and say Brady didn't score a touchdown. He didn't have a passing touchdown but Tom Brady's actually one of only 3 quarterbacks that actually scored a touchdown themselves, and not just pass for one, in the playoffs.

The others: Tim Tebow, Alex Smith.

Tom Brady's the only quarterback that scored the winning touchdown himself in the playoffs.



Did you see the way Tebow looked after the game? Only time he's looked that way. That's because Tom reached down in his soul and stole Tebow's JuJu after the beatdowns, alright? This was the result. We're good!

PS: I tried mentioning this before. But when the Pats beat the Broncos, they put a stop to Tebowmania. It's now their responsibility to carry it forward, because it was a fantastic story. Tom did his part. Jesus would not like it if Tom doesn't win the Super Bowl.

SVN said:

All the missed reads by brady are the result of perceived pressure .He needed to get the ball out quickly and didnt take time to go through his progressions

Click to expand...

Pressure can't be perceived nor consistently achieved if he needed to get the ball out quickly...and he did. When he did have time there were coverage issues, not the least of which were accounting for Ed and Ray who read those same progressions.

Deus Irae said:

To be fair to the "experts", it was Brady who said that Brady sucked.

Click to expand...

To be fair, Brady almost always thinks that he sucked. He's ridiculously hard on himself, but that's part of what makes him great. His self-evaluation doesn't/shouldn't mean much to the "experts" who get paid to assess his performance without regard to Brady's, or anyone else's, assessment.

Ivan said:

...and I think the DL is going to pressure Manning and get to him, and he's going to end up turning the ball over.

Click to expand...

I hope you're right. Nothing can ever heal '07, but it would numb the wound a bit to see EM eating turf as much as physically possible.

DonBlackmon55 said:

Nobody cares if you win by throwing 6 TD's Week before or escape with a win with opposing FG kicker missing a chipshot. In the end the final score is what matters. WE SCORED 23 THEY SCORED 20; WE WIN ! Outside of that "if's" and "but's" were candies and nuts......ya know the saying

Lombardi trophy simply says World Champion. All I care is when clock hits zero in SB46 regulation, Pats have 1 more point than Gints; now if they are up by 30 at halftime and cruise home to victory, I will gladly take that also.

Click to expand...

I don't care if they win 4-2.

Wax Frog said:

I hope you're right. Nothing can ever heal '07, but it would numb the wound a bit to see EM eating turf as much as physically possible.

Click to expand...

I'm basing it on 3 things:

1) The Patiots DL is playing really well and they are getting pressure and collapsing the pocket on a regular basis.

2) The Giants OL is not a real strength for them.

3)Manning is throwing downfield alot and those routes take time to develop, which was a big reason Brady took such a beating in 2007.

We'll see come game day but I like the Patriots more all the way around when it comes to the match-ups in the trenches. I really believe this OL can handle the Giants DL and vice versa.

dogdoctor said:

It was a very un-Brady performance. I'm sure we can all agree on that. A QB rating of 57 something...yikes. What I'm more surprised about is the fact that our vilified defense isn't getting more coverage. Brady throws 2 picks, ZERO TD's, and our D holds on enough to win. I wouldn't have thought that was possible earlier in the year!

Click to expand...

There is difference between NFL QBing and Tom Brady QBing.

5 scoring drives and 23 points vs the Ravens denotes fine NFL caliber QB play with some points deducted for the INT's.

The performance was sub par Brady.

"Normal" Brady makes this a comfortable, multi score win.

"Excellent" Brady would have produced a blowout.

Flacco has a "career" day and +2 turnovers....and loses.

Jackson 2 said:

To be fair, Brady almost always thinks that he sucked. He's ridiculously hard on himself, but that's part of what makes him great. His self-evaluation doesn't/shouldn't mean much to the "experts" who get paid to assess his performance without regard to Brady's, or anyone else's, assessment.

Click to expand...

1.) Brady doesn't generally go around saying he sucked, so....

2.) Experts who are looking at a game will take his word and ascribe error to him on questionable plays.

It's human nature.

upstater1 said:

It will all come down to whether our safeties get their act together.

It was like that at the beginning of the season, it's the story of this team now.

These are not bad DBs. They can cover and make plays. Their problem is that they are so often confused before the play. Like on Sunday.

If the safeties call the right plays and everyone "does their jobs," I think the Patriots win.

Click to expand...

McCourty has been getting beat when the over-the-top Safeties are never there, while he is playing inside-trail correctly. Now that he himself, is actually playing Safety correctly, and being there, on time, the CBs can play trail and still cover.

Watch for Devin to return to the pro bowl next season, when a competent, speedy Safety is actually where he is supposed to be; and WHEN he is supposed to be there.

Moore seems to be a find and reminiscent of UDFA Randall Gay back in 2005...

Has anyone noticed that this is the first playoff game since the AFC Championship for the 2001 season that Brady hasn't thrown a TD?

AzPatsFan said:

McCourty has been getting beat when the over-the-top Safeties are never there, while he is playing inside-trail correctly. Now that he himself, is actually playing Safety correctly, and being there, on time, the CBs can play trail and still cover.

Watch for Devin to return to the pro bowl next season, when a competent, speedy Safety is actually where he is supposed to be; and WHEN he is supposed to be there.

Moore seems to be a find and reminiscent of UDFA Randall Gay back in 2005...

Click to expand...

I tend to think McCourty will be with the team next year...Arrington..NOPE!

PatsGirl2011 said:

I tend to think McCourty will be with the team next year...Arrington..NOPE!

Click to expand...

This must be why they call the NFL "Not For Long". Anyone remember who led the league in interceptions this season?

PatsGirl2011 said:

I tend to think McCourty will be with the team next year...Arrington..NOPE!

Click to expand...

Where, and why, is Arrington going? He's been the most reliable member of the secondary by a long, long way.

And all these people who think Arrington is gone this offseason fail to realize that before he was a fill-in CB, he was the best special teams guy for the Pats.

RichardHead said:

Last night I watched the replay of the game on NFL Network (first time I saw most of the game on TV, as I was at the game itself). Anyway, for all the talk of how "bad" TFB played when I watching it I couldn't help but notice all the clutch 3rd down passes he completed (including the drive that ended in the winning TD plunge). I think when it comes to the playoffs it's not stats, it's which team makes the plays they need to, and Brady made a bunch of them. Not to channel my inner Felger, but the playoffs are also about which team pukes on themselves in the clutch and makes bad plays, like a shanked 32 yard field goal.

Click to expand...

Anyone who saw those last two Patriot possessions in the 4th Qtr cannot possibly claim Brady "made plays" when he needed to. The Ravens could have and should have won that game because TB threw a foolish brainless pick in the endzone and that powerhouse Patriot offense couldn't get a freakin' 1st down, one little lowly 1st down on their next possession that would have sealed the victory.
Tom had it right. He sucked.

I don't know if this has been mentioned but after watching the game again last night I thought that Welker didn't seem his usual self. On the play that he was interfered with it seemed like he should have been able to catch the ball. It hit him right on the hands. Also on that first missed opportunity in the red zone where Lewis was playing the middle of the field on third down, it looked like Welker quit on the play. If he kept on running the ball would have been right there. It didn't seem like his best game either although I'm sure part of that had to do with all the attention the Ravens were giving him.