Monday, October 03, 2005

Why the Patriots lost

Everyone is talking about how the injuries have finally caught up to the New England Patriots. Everyone talks about how the the coordinators have moved on. But that's not what I saw yesterday. What I saw was the defensive line getting beat.

It looked like it was part of the game plan. They weren't pressing Drew Brees like they did Big Ben last week and the reason behind that is LT. They were hanging back, waiting for what the Chargers were going to do, reacting instead of acting.

Since they weren't pressing Drew Brees, he had all day to get his passes off. Which led to a big day for Drew 19/24, 248 yards and 2 TDs. By trying to contain LT (which they weren't very successful at), they ended up relying on a depleted secondary, which had a hard time keeping the passing game down. Instead of making the Chargers defense work against their strenght (i.e. the defensive line), they let them charge ahead into what is their weakest unit right now, the secondary.

Maybe I'm mistaken. Maybe the Chargers were just the better team. Maybe they just took advantage of the injuries. But the 1-2 record the Chargers came into town with says differently.

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