BradyManny
Pro Bowl Player
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BostonHerald.com - Blogs: Rap Sheet Blog Archive Patriots coach Bill Belichick offers some insight into how defenses changed the way they played Randy Moss
This kind of matches my feelings on the matter - and I'd want to lean on some of those here who can diagnose X's and O's in a way I cannot. (Heck, it's hard enough to tell what coverages are on the TV tape even if you do know what you're looking at...)
But, to my pedestrian eyes, it looks like we're in a division with some elite cornerbacks. Again, it looks like the coverages we're facing from the Jets or Phins for instance are not necessarily dictated by Moss, save for Moss drawing said elite corner. Mainly - and someone with a football background correct me if I'm wrong - we're seeing with the Jets a lot of man with a single-high safety. With the Phins it seemed to be predominantly a lot of 2 deep coverage, again, often with man coverage underneath. There did not appear to be a specific rolling of coverage to Moss' side. I don't see either of those suddenly changing tremendously when we go spread against these teams without Moss. (And again, football gurus, correct me if I'm wrong, and feel free to convert the above into more appropriate football-speak).
So how much of an impact was Moss really making? How dramatically will the defenses we face look? I would wager it's a little overstated.
And he insinuated that defenses hadn’t been doubling Moss as much as we thought.
“I don’t know, I’d say there has been less of that since time has gone on,” Belichick said. “So, they’ll have to defend some other guys, we’ll see how they choose to do it.”
And “less of that” means…
“I think teams have been playing more of what they play, less specific coverages for a specific player — Wes, Randy,” he continued. “Not that we don’t see them, just I’d say less, a lower frequency.”
This kind of matches my feelings on the matter - and I'd want to lean on some of those here who can diagnose X's and O's in a way I cannot. (Heck, it's hard enough to tell what coverages are on the TV tape even if you do know what you're looking at...)
But, to my pedestrian eyes, it looks like we're in a division with some elite cornerbacks. Again, it looks like the coverages we're facing from the Jets or Phins for instance are not necessarily dictated by Moss, save for Moss drawing said elite corner. Mainly - and someone with a football background correct me if I'm wrong - we're seeing with the Jets a lot of man with a single-high safety. With the Phins it seemed to be predominantly a lot of 2 deep coverage, again, often with man coverage underneath. There did not appear to be a specific rolling of coverage to Moss' side. I don't see either of those suddenly changing tremendously when we go spread against these teams without Moss. (And again, football gurus, correct me if I'm wrong, and feel free to convert the above into more appropriate football-speak).
So how much of an impact was Moss really making? How dramatically will the defenses we face look? I would wager it's a little overstated.
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