1FD's Blueprint To Beating The Patriots
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by Oneflydude
So many people are talking about how the New England Patriots are looking more beatable every week. There is this so called, "blueprint" that everyone is looking for. There are only a few ways to beat New England, but not many. It takes a lot of mental ability to figure out how the Pats operate under head coach, Bill Belichick. Now at 12-0, sports analysist’s, opposing teams and other random people are saying that the Pats look more beatable than ever, counting the past couple of weeks.
Well if they do, when is someone going to take advantage of that and beat them? You would think that there would be enough film and do enough research to actually figure these guys out. Pretty soon, another team will resort to
Belichik's spy gate method. But that isn't necessary either. So what
is needed to win against the 12-0 Pats? If you were begging to know,
you're very lucky that there is Oneflydude to give you the main
ingredients in beating New England. In all of my research on the
Internet, my years of playing football, and my complete dominance in
Madden tournaments, I think that I've found out how to beat this team.
Patriots Defense- It would be easy to crown New England's defense as the best in the NFL, but they're not. A very tough and great defense, and in some games, just good, but not the best. All that defense needed was some wear and tear during the course of the season. Now, they are looking pretty vulnerable. In that Monday night game against the Baltimore Ravens, the Pats D gave up more total yards than their own offense had. They let Willis McGahee trample them on the ground as he ran for 138 yards (166 rush yards total). The only time they gave up 100+ rushing yards was when they played the Indianapolis Colts in Week 9 and against the Buffalo Bills in Week 3.
That's cool.
But did you notice that McGahee couldn't even get 100 yards against the St. Louis Rams defense, who are damn awful. What this is saying is that sometimes, the Pats D will sleep on weak offenses. New England's defense is very old, and they have players who have had strokes, retired and came back and need HGH to perform like they did in their prime
(Tedy Bruschi, Junior Seau, Rodney Harrison). So running
the ball is the key to wearing down that front seven. They may have
that high powered offense, but they do have a defense that is ranked
14th in yards allowed. Keep them guessing by having a mixture of
running and throwing. If you are running the ball well, they will fall
for that run play and once you realize that they are doing that, then
catch them by surprise by launching one on them. Don't rely too much
on the pass though, because the Pats do have a great inventory of
cornerbacks in Asante Samuel, Randall Gay, and Ellis Hobbs. Their defense does rank 3rd in the league with 27 takeaways. So the
objectives of getting past the Pats D is to run the football, try not
too get pass happy, keep them guessing and have the offense play as
physical as their defense.
Tom Brady- Half of the reason why Brady is so damn good is because he rarely sees the turf. Well these last couple of weeks, he's seen more turf than he has all season. He has been sacked six times in the last two games. It may not seem like a lot but it is compared to him being sacked only 16 times total all season. Now as much as everybody wants to get at Brady and knock him on his ass, teams will have to be careful.
The Pats offense is smart and Brady will be able to recognize
when the blitz is coming. Sending in blitz packages will catch Brady's
eyes and if you've watched him, he will always have an emergency
receiver running a short route that he can dump it off to. So the
blitzing scheme will have to be limited during certain times of the
game. However, all a team has to do to is play the right defense at
the right time. Belichick runs a "pass first" offense, so teams will have
to slow that down. Last week against a mediocre Ravens defense, they held
Brady to a 47.4 completion percentage, his lowest all season. What the
Ravens were able to do was hold down New England's receivers and stop
them from getting past them by playing with a man-zone mix. Brady was
only able to get two touchdown passes; could've only been one if the
Ravens didn't fall apart in the last few minutes. But everyone saw the
frustration on Brady's face, and that is what you can say, "motivated"
the Ravens D.
The Ravens are a blitzing team, so they did have success by knocking Brady to the ground. Brian Billick didn't hesitate
one bit by selecting a blitz on the plays he thought they were needed.
Especially since they held the Pats running game to only 90 yards,
Billick knew that Brady would be passing a lot. Brady threw 38 passes,
and he only completed 18 of them. That shows opponents that the Pats
will give up on the run when its not moving well, and they will rely on
the passing game to get it done for them. So the objectives are to
clog up holes for their running game, occasionally blitz to rush Brady's
passes, keep linebackers in the flats in order to stop those short
passes, and either play deep zone, or loose man to man coverage on
single receivers; Brady will recognize the loose coverage and it will
give the DB a chance to make an open field tackle on a quick throw to a
receiver.
Randy Moss- Moss didn't jump out at you in last week's game against the Ravens. It's a shame that the leading receiver last week was the running back, Laurence Maroney with 79 yards. Moss has only had 9 catches, 77 yards and one touchdown in these last two games. This has analysist’s believing that Randy Moss is doing the same thing he did in Oakland; not making an effort to get to the ball and giving up on plays. But don't sleep on Randy Moss for a minute because despite the last two weeks, Moss still has 17 touchdown receptions along with 1129 receiving yards. Opposing teams, including Pittsburgh, cannot think for a second that Moss has lost his ability because as soon as you think that, he will hurt you so bad. That is what people thought when he came over from Oakland, but as soon as game day hit as a Patriot, Moss showed everybody that he still is one of the most dangerous receivers out there.
Brady will definitely be looking for him against the
Pittsburgh Steelers because that is the best receiver he's got.
Most people resort to double coverage on Moss, but that is starting not
to work. Sometimes, teams would even put triple coverage on the guy,
and it still didn't work. Moss has the best leaping ability in the
NFL, and with that, I'm sure that even Tony Kornheiser could launch a pass
to him and Moss would find a way to get it. But by putting double and
triple coverage on Moss just tells Belichick that the opposing defense
is panicking. What other teams did was play horrible double coverage that
Moss was able to get past. What the Ravens did do was not only double
cover Moss, but also other receivers.
The Ravens looked at Moss as just an average receiver, so they paid about as much attention to him as they did all of the other receivers. Thus, confusing Tom Brady and forcing him to find a different receiver to throw to. What any other team must do to Moss is frustrate him. If you're going to play double
coverage on him, play one of your DB's in front of him, and another DB
a little behind him, so if Tom decides to throw far or short to him,
you'll have a DB in position to make a play on the ball. Moss gets
frustrated when he is covered to a point when Brady can't throw the
ball to him because of well played defense. But how many times has that
happened this year? Once, maybe even twice.
This is the main reason why Moss is one of the best receivers in the game. He understands the purpose of well executed defense, and he makes adjustments to how he is being played. Any team can play double coverage, but rarely can teams execute it to perfection. If it is executed right, it will get into
Moss' head and it will hurt him mentally.
Note: talking trash to Moss also helps.
The objective to stopping Randy Moss is to frustrate him, don't panic by putting to many DB's on him, stay in front of him, and get into his head.
Pats O-line- It is almost impossible to get past the Patriots offensive
line.
Note: I said 'ALMOST' impossible.
There is still a bit of leeway to get past them. They have only allowed 16 sacks on Brady all season, but that is only because teams will only send as many blitzers than Patriots blockers. Here's a fact. All five of New England's running backs have a combined total of 46 receptions out of 302 of Tom Brady's pass completions. That is almost 1/6 of his passes going to his running backs. That tells me that he uses his running backs as blockers, probably about 4/6 of the time. The other 1/6 will most likely go out in the flats for a pass, but they won't get the ball. This is important because whether there is one or two backs in the formation, 4 out of 6 times, they will be blocking. So five offensive linemen plus two blocking backs equals seven total blockers (by the way, I'm a genius when it comes to math). You're in big trouble if they have a tight end(s) blocking. Don't go that extra mile to get past the O-line because it will hurt you, badly. If there isn't eight seven blockers, there are either six or five, depending upon the formation or play. Now the smartest thing to do if you're the defense is to not only figure out what players you are going to blitz, but where you are going to blitz them from and how you plan on blitzing them. No, it's not confusing nor complicated. All you have to do is be very smart as a coach. The right play will determine how you will get past the offensive line. For example, corner blitzing is a plus.
As long as you have a safety or another corner back deeper to watch the receiver that the blitzing corner was on. Don't get too carried away though, because that will only make Tom Brady even happier, as he will see the man to mancoverage and launch a long one on you. If you send a corner, he must be very quick to get to Brady. But you don't want to send more blitzers than
you do blockers. If you don't want Brady to kill you, don't send more
than six blitzers. The objective to wear out this O-line is to
occasionally blitz, don't send more blitzers than blockers, pick smart
plays, and watch the extra blockers that the Pats have.
Mental mistakes- Please, please limit the stupid things that would help help you lose a game, or more importantly, help the Pats win the game. If a ref throws a flag, don't go picking it up and throwing it to a fan as a souvenir. Every team that New England plays, they have a mental edge over them, just because they are the team to beat. Sure teams can go around saying that they are not afraid of them, but they don't have to be scared to be beaten. The Patriots are a very smart football team and they will go out on the field with the state of mind that they will "kill" them, as stated by Tom Brady. But there is nothing wrong with saying that as long as they're doing that. Don't let these guys intimidate you. This is pro football.
These players have went through the same stages as you have. They played little league, high school, and college football. If they get physical with you, then you have to get twice as physical with them. If they anger you, you must anger them twice as much. If you want to stop this so called, "Pursuit to Perfection", then you have to play a game of perfection. Whether you're
a pitiful 0-16 team, or a very dominant playoff team, stopping the 12-0
Pats will boost the confidence of your team, and your self esteem. The
Pats are very good at getting into the head of the opponents and that
is the first thing they want to do you, but that is the last thing you
want them to do to you. Don't commit stupid penalties in situations when
you don't need them to happen. Don't yell at a ref for calling you a "boy",
when you know good and damn well that you will be fined $25K one week
later. Do your job, play a tough, hard, physical, and dominant game
and the results will come out good.
Now all of the things that I've explained are easy to read and easy to say you'll do, but will a team actually realize the things that they need to do? Maybe so, maybe no. But these are the things that I see in the Patriots that can be stopped, as long as you play well. I'm no NFL expert, nor an analysist, but I do know how to decipher things in a football team that can easily be picked apart. I've played the quarterback, the running back and the safety position in all of my years of football. So in playing those positions, I know what goes on through the head of those position players. If a team cannot do these steps and the Pats go undefeated, it can always work in Madden.
