Patriots' defense last night

[RaidersOftheCellar]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Was going on in real-time as well.

"The Chiefs look like shit!"

Nah, they really didn't. They had some areas where they needed to improve on execution, but really the Patriots just played a really nice game. Let's not act like BB isn't probably the best defensive coach in HISTORY fellas. The guy's a brilliant defensive mind.

And he had his guys playing with a smart plan and executing at a high level.

I don't understand why we can't acknowledge that fact and instead have to insist that they were flat or shitty or whatever. That's simply not the case.

The Patriots have played SB level defense virtually every year for the last 20 years because their HC is a brilliant defensive mind. They had their defense largely intact yesterday so they played good defense.

Not sure why everyone's all in a twist about that.

But we’ve seen Mahomes tear apart better Belichick defenses than this. And he consistently makes better decisions and throws with more accuracy than he did last night.

Belichick deserves credit, but they should have hung more points on the board.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar

But we’ve seen Mahomes tear apart better Belichick defenses than this. And he consistently makes better decisions and throws with more accuracy than he did last night.

Belichick deserves credit, but they should have hung more points on the board.

We've also seen him shut down for entire halves vs. BB defenses and make catastrophically bad mistakes that have taken points off the board and created huge turnovers.

What you saw is Mahomes maturation process. When he was bad, he was LESS bad. That's hugely important against teams that typically don't beat themselves. You have to hang around long enough for them to slip up without cutting your own throat in the process.

Earlier in Pats career, maybe he forces a throw or two that creates a big momentum swing and a hill we have to climb in the 2nd half. It's happened on a couple of occasions in the PM vs. BB matchup.

Today Mahomes simply didn't make the key mistake, prodded for soft spots and eventually found enough to win a game fairly easily.

We're spending an awful lot of time focusing on the negatives here when there's a clear positive to take away from how Mahomes approached this game vs. how he's approached Patriot games in the past. This was another step forward in his march to unassailable GOAT status.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We've also seen him shut down for entire halves vs. BB defenses and make catastrophically bad mistakes that have taken points off the board and created huge turnovers.

What you saw is Mahomes maturation process. When he was bad, he was LESS bad. That's hugely important against teams that typically don't beat themselves. You have to hang around long enough for them to slip up without cutting your own throat in the process.

Earlier in Pats career, maybe he forces a throw or two that creates a big momentum swing and a hill we have to climb in the 2nd half. It's happened on a couple of occasions in the PM vs. BB matchup.

Today Mahomes simply didn't make the key mistake, prodded for soft spots and eventually found enough to win a game fairly easily.

We're spending an awful lot of time focusing on the negatives here when there's a clear positive to take away from how Mahomes approached this game vs. how he's approached Patriot games in the past. This was another step forward in his march to unassailable GOAT status.

Honestly he probably made a couple of those mistakes in the first half, but McCourty dropped an INT and they blew the fumble/INT/sack dead.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by tk13

Honestly he probably made a couple of those mistakes in the first half, but McCourty dropped an INT and they blew the fumble/INT/sack dead.

Eh, I don't blame him for the fumble/int/sack. That was just typical weird shit that happens in a scrum.

I'm not sure what the McCourty drop was. He almost seemed to get stuck in the middle and not know exactly where he was throwing the football.

It wasn't that 'hero ball' mistake he made as a pup or just whiffing on the dropping LBer. It just looked to me like an execution error rather than a processing problem or being too gung ho/sped up.

Dunno - that one was odd.

[tk13]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Eh, I don't blame him for the fumble/int/sack. That was just typical weird shit that happens in a scrum.

I'm not sure what the McCourty drop was. He almost seemed to get stuck in the middle and not know exactly where he was throwing the football.

It wasn't that 'hero ball' mistake he made as a pup or just whiffing on the dropping LBer. It just looked to me like an execution error rather than a processing problem or being too gung ho/sped up.

Dunno - that one was odd.

That's fair, they definitely weren't hero ball mistakes. It felt like maybe we ran too many long developing plays. It's hard to be patient and just take what's there. Manning definitely got better at that as he got older. You're already seeing Mahomes make smarter decisions and he's still young.

[RaidersOftheCellar]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

We've also seen him shut down for entire halves vs. BB defenses and make catastrophically bad mistakes that have taken points off the board and created huge turnovers.

What you saw is Mahomes maturation process. When he was bad, he was LESS bad. That's hugely important against teams that typically don't beat themselves. You have to hang around long enough for them to slip up without cutting your own throat in the process.

Earlier in Pats career, maybe he forces a throw or two that creates a big momentum swing and a hill we have to climb in the 2nd half. It's happened on a couple of occasions in the PM vs. BB matchup.

Today Mahomes simply didn't make the key mistake, prodded for soft spots and eventually found enough to win a game fairly easily.

We're spending an awful lot of time focusing on the negatives here when there's a clear positive to take away from how Mahomes approached this game vs. how he's approached Patriot games in the past. This was another step forward in his march to unassailable GOAT status.

He did make some critical mistakes though. Two throws that could’ve/should’ve been picked, and a lucky break on the fumble/INT/whatever it was.

I’m not worried about it. I just think if he were on, he’d have put up at least 10-14 more points. I think they expected to coast to an easy W and got careless.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar

But we’ve seen Mahomes tear apart better Belichick defenses than this. And he consistently makes better decisions and throws with more accuracy than he did last night.

Belichick deserves credit, but they should have hung more points on the board.

Yep.