so pats are done, fuck. please 49ers get it for randy (sry aidan).
couldnt agree more with the guy some posts up. pats tried so hard to establish this big, physical group that wont be run over in january. well that worked, but neither mayo nor spikes can cover eligible receivers well enough in the open field.
that can probably be solved with a bigger safety opposing to mccourty though.
and yes, they need a deep threat, but one of the reasons they dismissed moss and went to this underneath TE thing was the lack of oline consistency. over the last few years, a lot of changes had to be made and they usually look good for those 1-3 seconds they are protecting, because its really a quick-pass offense. i would say the offense is fine if they continue to work on their rungame.
its really splitting hairs to talk like that about a team with so much success, because it is so tough to win the super bowl, and if you have one bad game, youre done.
ravens simply played the pats waay too often, they knew everything. pats had to fight for every yard, there was literally never anyone open, expect for the TD. brady played ok. he had to hit small windows a lot and obviously was off on a couple throws, but thats part of the game. he wasnt awful, the defense just didnt give him anything.
changing point imo was talibs injury. he blanketed boldin on two throws. after that, noone could stop boldin.
as good as the pats are, they couldnt overcome losing their biggest deep threat (and the best blocking TE in the league) in gronkowski, their best pass rusher and their best DB.
its not an excuse, but has just taken into account before bashing such a successful franchise. obviously, sometimes teams overcome injuries, but that doesnt mean that they have no effects.