The NFL Thread 2014: New England Patriots Win Super Bowl XLIX

[Arkaign]

Well, the Eagles are a solid team with some good wins. A ton of games could have gone either way.

I have a theory :

In game one, Romo was able to audible (badly) and change up plays. He often makes disastrous decisions to try to force balls into double/triple coverage. Why? Because when he's playing well, he CAN make those throws. When they connect, it's all forgiven, when they don't, they're drive-killers. But we also saw in game one that the new Dallas O-line can open holes for Murray, and Murray can take those holes and crash down regular success through them.

Coaching saw that, told Romo : no audibles unless we give you the OK, and bang : we had success week after week. You could tell that they doggedly stuck to the game plan overall. You only really saw super brave pass plays in 3rd and long. Everything else was by the book, even when down by a lot like against STL.

In this game, that all appeared to be out the window. Dallas never adjusted to the blitzes. All those 3rd downs where you knew the house was coming, the Dallas receivers were still running 20y+ routes, and they didn't bring an extra TE.

How does Dallas beat a blitz? Easy. You run 8 men on the line, you run a quick out around the edge with one WR, you leave one deep in case the line holds and you have time for a deep burner, and you have a pitch available to the RB available as well. You run a two step drop with your QB and bang-bang you make your decision.

Did you notice that Weeden handled the blitzes better than Romo? He did. It's not because he's better. It's because with less prep time, they had shorter routes run for him, and that gave the receivers time to turn and face Weeden to get a ball thrown before all 53 Washington starters ran around our 4 man front.

In closing, you simply don't run 3 times in a row when you need 3 yards when your RB is averaging WAY WAY more than 5 yards a carry, and the O line has finally worn the D out to where they can regularly tear a gap for him out. Protip : when a team blitzes, they're not stacking the box, that front 4 will find a hole for your RB every_single-time. As all the assholes come around the edge trying to hunt the QB, your RB is already popping out the middle like a boss.

Going forward, Romo needs to be re-stripped of his play-calling privileges, and the coaching staff needs to sit in a room watching those tapes over_and_over_and_and_over until they get it through their heads :

(1)- Run the ball.
(2)- Run the ball again.
(3)- ADJUST TO THE BLITZ : 7-8 man box, RUN THE BALL or 2-step screen.
(4)- Run the ball.

The defense got a lot of criticism, but they held up well. The offense gave up TERRIBLE 3rd down failures by not running the ball and not adjusting to the blitzes, bad ball handling coughed up the rock, sometimes in terrible field position, and they held to 17 points while losing time of possession by a huge percentage. That's REALLY not bad.

The goats are the offensive playcallers at #1 easily. And for #2 : bad ball handling by the backs (carried away from the body by Randle, and the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th effort by Murray way down the field after already getting the ball deep on the play).

It was truly a strange game, and the second time this season they've abandoned the (VERY SUCCESSFUL) run with dire consequences (SF being the other where Murray was tearing them a new one).

The last time those errors were made in the season opener, they made corrections and won 6 straight.

What will they do after these obvious errors? The Arizona game will let us know.