Patriots 2019 Season

[Neurotic Guy]

Yeah but that was mostly based on his age and doing things not done before based on that age.  Statistically he is way down across the board this year.  His last 8 games in particular, he has been a bottom 5 QB in several of the most meaningful metrics/statistics and that has never been the case in the past.   Maybe he has a switch to flip, but after losing to the Dolphins I don't see how he does.  They needed to win that game and came up epically short and Brady was bad.  Brady just hasn't failed in must win games many times in his career and he came up lame in their most recent game.

I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Titans, heck I might even give them the slight edge, but I'd be shocked if they beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

I get that you are one of the great contrarians in CB/CS history, but what is even the point right now? Even if Brady is done, why try your hardest to slam home the final nail in the coffin through age/stats. The Pats have literally just won 3 of the past 5 SBs and Brady has proven the world wrong time and again. People saying he's done and needs to retire sound foolish these days. It's been a broken record for years. He may not be as elite as he was in his prime, but he still has a little left in the tank. He certainly didn't look 'done' earlier in the season with some real weapons around him.

He’s not done unless he wants to be.  Brady being among the top QBs in the league next year seems possible to me if he has a good O-line and weapons.  Hope it’s with the Pats.

How many of you think he wouldn’t be among the top 8 in the league this year if he was QB for the Saints?

I don't, though he'd obviously be better if he had Michael Thomas to throw to.  Though the Saints don't really have much outside of Michael Thomas to throw to.  I mean an older TE and a RB had the 2nd and 3rd most receiving yards, followed by Ted Ginn and then another RB and their 3rd string QB that is a jack of all trades.  Thomas is clearly awesome, but the Saints aren't exactly flush with pass catching talent outside of him. 

Edit: Let's also be clear, the Patriots receiving group is better than several of the other top teams that ended up with much better QB play like the Seahawks, Packers, Titans (once Tannehill took over), and arguably teams like the Niners and Ravens (though they have solid TE's, they aren't good at WR).

I can't analyze the other teams too well as I haven't watched enough of them.  But Edelman was a shell of himself over much of the last half of the season.  After that the Pats had a group of 4th/5th receivers and a 39 yo tight end.  I noticed you didn't dispute the O-line issue which in combination with a receiving core that had trouble running routes, trouble getting open and trouble catching the ball, is a quarterback's nightmare.  Somehow TB had 22 TDs and 7 INTs and was the 16th ranked QB in total QB rating (fwiw).   Yeah, maybe Saints with their other-worldly receiver, Ingram pretty solid at RB, 2 OK TEs, and solid/deep O-line wasn't the best example, but yeah Brady probably would have been top 8 with Saints offense.

By yards, the Patriots had the 8th ranked passing offense and were 18th in rushing which equated to 7th overall.  Brady though was not a top 8 QB, despite having a top 8 passing offense overall.

You've just made me yearn for more Tom.  He had the 8th ranked passing offense with that line and that receiving core, and that running game?  Wow.  He was better than I thought.

[nickagneta]

Yeah but that was mostly based on his age and doing things not done before based on that age.  Statistically he is way down across the board this year.  His last 8 games in particular, he has been a bottom 5 QB in several of the most meaningful metrics/statistics and that has never been the case in the past.   Maybe he has a switch to flip, but after losing to the Dolphins I don't see how he does.  They needed to win that game and came up epically short and Brady was bad.  Brady just hasn't failed in must win games many times in his career and he came up lame in their most recent game.

I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Titans, heck I might even give them the slight edge, but I'd be shocked if they beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

I get that you are one of the great contrarians in CB/CS history, but what is even the point right now? Even if Brady is done, why try your hardest to slam home the final nail in the coffin through age/stats. The Pats have literally just won 3 of the past 5 SBs and Brady has proven the world wrong time and again. People saying he's done and needs to retire sound foolish these days. It's been a broken record for years. He may not be as elite as he was in his prime, but he still has a little left in the tank. He certainly didn't look 'done' earlier in the season with some real weapons around him.

He’s not done unless he wants to be.  Brady being among the top QBs in the league next year seems possible to me if he has a good O-line and weapons.  Hope it’s with the Pats.

How many of you think he wouldn’t be among the top 8 in the league this year if he was QB for the Saints?

I don't, though he'd obviously be better if he had Michael Thomas to throw to.  Though the Saints don't really have much outside of Michael Thomas to throw to.  I mean an older TE and a RB had the 2nd and 3rd most receiving yards, followed by Ted Ginn and then another RB and their 3rd string QB that is a jack of all trades.  Thomas is clearly awesome, but the Saints aren't exactly flush with pass catching talent outside of him. 

Edit: Let's also be clear, the Patriots receiving group is better than several of the other top teams that ended up with much better QB play like the Seahawks, Packers, Titans (once Tannehill took over), and arguably teams like the Niners and Ravens (though they have solid TE's, they aren't good at WR).

I can't analyze the other teams too well as I haven't watched enough of them.  But Edelman was a shell of himself over much of the last half of the season.  After that the Pats had a group of 4th/5th receivers and a 39 yo tight end.  I noticed you didn't dispute the O-line issue which in combination with a receiving core that had trouble running routes, trouble getting open and trouble catching the ball, is a quarterback's nightmare.  Somehow TB had 22 TDs and 7 INTs and was the 16th ranked QB in total QB rating (fwiw).   Yeah, maybe Saints with their other-worldly receiver, Ingram pretty solid at RB, 2 OK TEs, and solid/deep O-line wasn't the best example, but yeah Brady probably would have been top 8 with Saints offense.

By yards, the Patriots had the 8th ranked passing offense and were 18th in rushing which equated to 7th overall.  Brady though was not a top 8 QB, despite having a top 8 passing offense overall.

That's because you are only looking at the stats and not the total context.

Brady threw the ball away to avoid sacks more than any other QB in the league. If instead of doing that he turtled and went to the ground, his passing stats would have looked a lot prettier but he would also have been playing much more stupid football...losing football.

Also factor in that the Pats led the league in dropped passes. If the receivers dropped passes at an average rate, again Brady's stats look prettier.

Then add in the context he had two rookies running wrong routes and threw the ball into empty space his receivers should have been in but weren't and you have probably 2-3 incompletions a game because of that.

Also, Brady was on and off the injury report the latter part of the year and looked like he was hurting against Miami(he was constantly shaking his throwing arm out on the sideline and avoided throwing long all day).

Brady declined statistically but a lot of that had to do with factors that had nothing to do with Brady's ability to be a top QB. I am not saying his age didn't lead to a decline of his abilities. It did. But not nearly as much as it is being made out to be.

It would not surprise me at all for Brady to have his 4th straight year of over 4000 yards passing after the age of 40 next year with over 25 TDs and a TD to INT ratio of greater than 3 to 1 while completing around 67% of his passes next year while playing intelligent, winning football.

[SHAQATTACK]

😁😁😁 glad Pats lost and to Miami lol

I don't follow Pats football , but rather see Brady win than most teams,  I was Dolphins fan as long as Celtics way back into the 70's when they were good .   So for 40 years I ve had nothing to cheer for in NFL ...one miserable season after season ...im almost numb to them losing ...  College football is great in FL , but something is just wrong with the Dolphins franchise .  I was worrying the Dolphins would not win even one game this season.  So..beating NE is almost like a superbowl win for me ...LOL. ...gloat 

[Moranis]

Yeah but that was mostly based on his age and doing things not done before based on that age.  Statistically he is way down across the board this year.  His last 8 games in particular, he has been a bottom 5 QB in several of the most meaningful metrics/statistics and that has never been the case in the past.   Maybe he has a switch to flip, but after losing to the Dolphins I don't see how he does.  They needed to win that game and came up epically short and Brady was bad.  Brady just hasn't failed in must win games many times in his career and he came up lame in their most recent game.

I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Titans, heck I might even give them the slight edge, but I'd be shocked if they beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

I get that you are one of the great contrarians in CB/CS history, but what is even the point right now? Even if Brady is done, why try your hardest to slam home the final nail in the coffin through age/stats. The Pats have literally just won 3 of the past 5 SBs and Brady has proven the world wrong time and again. People saying he's done and needs to retire sound foolish these days. It's been a broken record for years. He may not be as elite as he was in his prime, but he still has a little left in the tank. He certainly didn't look 'done' earlier in the season with some real weapons around him.

He’s not done unless he wants to be.  Brady being among the top QBs in the league next year seems possible to me if he has a good O-line and weapons.  Hope it’s with the Pats.

How many of you think he wouldn’t be among the top 8 in the league this year if he was QB for the Saints?

I don't, though he'd obviously be better if he had Michael Thomas to throw to.  Though the Saints don't really have much outside of Michael Thomas to throw to.  I mean an older TE and a RB had the 2nd and 3rd most receiving yards, followed by Ted Ginn and then another RB and their 3rd string QB that is a jack of all trades.  Thomas is clearly awesome, but the Saints aren't exactly flush with pass catching talent outside of him. 

Edit: Let's also be clear, the Patriots receiving group is better than several of the other top teams that ended up with much better QB play like the Seahawks, Packers, Titans (once Tannehill took over), and arguably teams like the Niners and Ravens (though they have solid TE's, they aren't good at WR).

I can't analyze the other teams too well as I haven't watched enough of them.  But Edelman was a shell of himself over much of the last half of the season.  After that the Pats had a group of 4th/5th receivers and a 39 yo tight end.  I noticed you didn't dispute the O-line issue which in combination with a receiving core that had trouble running routes, trouble getting open and trouble catching the ball, is a quarterback's nightmare.  Somehow TB had 22 TDs and 7 INTs and was the 16th ranked QB in total QB rating (fwiw).   Yeah, maybe Saints with their other-worldly receiver, Ingram pretty solid at RB, 2 OK TEs, and solid/deep O-line wasn't the best example, but yeah Brady probably would have been top 8 with Saints offense.

By yards, the Patriots had the 8th ranked passing offense and were 18th in rushing which equated to 7th overall.  Brady though was not a top 8 QB, despite having a top 8 passing offense overall.

That's because you are only looking at the stats and not the total context.

Brady threw the ball away to avoid sacks more than any other QB in the league. If instead of doing that he turtled and went to the ground, his passing stats would have looked a lot prettier but he would also have been playing much more stupid football...losing football.

Also factor in that the Pats led the league in dropped passes. If the receivers dropped passes at an average rate, again Brady's stats look prettier.

Then add in the context he had two rookies running wrong routes and threw the ball into empty space his receivers should have been in but weren't and you have probably 2-3 incompletions a game because of that.

Also, Brady was on and off the injury report the latter part of the year and looked like he was hurting against Miami(he was constantly shaking his throwing arm out on the sideline and avoided throwing long all day).

Brady declined statistically but a lot of that had to do with factors that had nothing to do with Brady's ability to be a top QB. I am not saying his age didn't lead to a decline of his abilities. It did. But not nearly as much as it is being made out to be.

It would not surprise me at all for Brady to have his 4th straight year of over 4000 yards passing after the age of 40 next year with over 25 TDs and a TD to INT ratio of greater than 3 to 1 while completing around 67% of his passes next year while playing intelligent, winning football.

Pats didn't lead the league in drops, they were tied for 5th with 23.  The Falcons led the league with only 8 drops.  So let's just say the Pats had only 8 drops or 15 more completions.  Brady would have upped his completion % to 63%, which is still a fair amount lower than his most recent seasons.  Of course Atlanta plays in a dome and not outside so it isn't reasonable to assume the same sort of drops.  The Chiefs for example had 19 drops.  The rest applies pretty much across the board for teams.  All teams have rookies, throw aways, etc.  All I see are a bunch of excuses because you just don't want to believe Brady is actually 42 years old. 

[nickagneta]

Yeah but that was mostly based on his age and doing things not done before based on that age.  Statistically he is way down across the board this year.  His last 8 games in particular, he has been a bottom 5 QB in several of the most meaningful metrics/statistics and that has never been the case in the past.   Maybe he has a switch to flip, but after losing to the Dolphins I don't see how he does.  They needed to win that game and came up epically short and Brady was bad.  Brady just hasn't failed in must win games many times in his career and he came up lame in their most recent game.

I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Titans, heck I might even give them the slight edge, but I'd be shocked if they beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

I get that you are one of the great contrarians in CB/CS history, but what is even the point right now? Even if Brady is done, why try your hardest to slam home the final nail in the coffin through age/stats. The Pats have literally just won 3 of the past 5 SBs and Brady has proven the world wrong time and again. People saying he's done and needs to retire sound foolish these days. It's been a broken record for years. He may not be as elite as he was in his prime, but he still has a little left in the tank. He certainly didn't look 'done' earlier in the season with some real weapons around him.

He’s not done unless he wants to be.  Brady being among the top QBs in the league next year seems possible to me if he has a good O-line and weapons.  Hope it’s with the Pats.

How many of you think he wouldn’t be among the top 8 in the league this year if he was QB for the Saints?

I don't, though he'd obviously be better if he had Michael Thomas to throw to.  Though the Saints don't really have much outside of Michael Thomas to throw to.  I mean an older TE and a RB had the 2nd and 3rd most receiving yards, followed by Ted Ginn and then another RB and their 3rd string QB that is a jack of all trades.  Thomas is clearly awesome, but the Saints aren't exactly flush with pass catching talent outside of him. 

Edit: Let's also be clear, the Patriots receiving group is better than several of the other top teams that ended up with much better QB play like the Seahawks, Packers, Titans (once Tannehill took over), and arguably teams like the Niners and Ravens (though they have solid TE's, they aren't good at WR).

I can't analyze the other teams too well as I haven't watched enough of them.  But Edelman was a shell of himself over much of the last half of the season.  After that the Pats had a group of 4th/5th receivers and a 39 yo tight end.  I noticed you didn't dispute the O-line issue which in combination with a receiving core that had trouble running routes, trouble getting open and trouble catching the ball, is a quarterback's nightmare.  Somehow TB had 22 TDs and 7 INTs and was the 16th ranked QB in total QB rating (fwiw).   Yeah, maybe Saints with their other-worldly receiver, Ingram pretty solid at RB, 2 OK TEs, and solid/deep O-line wasn't the best example, but yeah Brady probably would have been top 8 with Saints offense.

By yards, the Patriots had the 8th ranked passing offense and were 18th in rushing which equated to 7th overall.  Brady though was not a top 8 QB, despite having a top 8 passing offense overall.

That's because you are only looking at the stats and not the total context.

Brady threw the ball away to avoid sacks more than any other QB in the league. If instead of doing that he turtled and went to the ground, his passing stats would have looked a lot prettier but he would also have been playing much more stupid football...losing football.

Also factor in that the Pats led the league in dropped passes. If the receivers dropped passes at an average rate, again Brady's stats look prettier.

Then add in the context he had two rookies running wrong routes and threw the ball into empty space his receivers should have been in but weren't and you have probably 2-3 incompletions a game because of that.

Also, Brady was on and off the injury report the latter part of the year and looked like he was hurting against Miami(he was constantly shaking his throwing arm out on the sideline and avoided throwing long all day).

Brady declined statistically but a lot of that had to do with factors that had nothing to do with Brady's ability to be a top QB. I am not saying his age didn't lead to a decline of his abilities. It did. But not nearly as much as it is being made out to be.

It would not surprise me at all for Brady to have his 4th straight year of over 4000 yards passing after the age of 40 next year with over 25 TDs and a TD to INT ratio of greater than 3 to 1 while completing around 67% of his passes next year while playing intelligent, winning football.

Pats didn't lead the league in drops, they were tied for 5th with 23.  The Falcons led the league with only 8 drops.  So let's just say the Pats had only 8 drops or 15 more completions.  Brady would have upped his completion % to 63%, which is still a fair amount lower than his most recent seasons.  Of course Atlanta plays in a dome and not outside so it isn't reasonable to assume the same sort of drops.  The Chiefs for example had 19 drops.  The rest applies pretty much across the board for teams.  All teams have rookies, throw aways, etc.  All I see are a bunch of excuses because you just don't want to believe Brady is actually 42 years old.

And all I see is a fan of another team trying to convince himself that Brady is done because he doesn't want to accept that his team sucks so bad so is taking shots at a legend.

Much, much, much, much, much better football minds than you have been declaring Brady dead for years. Go ahead and continue to make yourself look a fool like they all did simply because you are married to stats and can't see and understand the context of those stats.

EDIT: pro football reference has the Pat's at 34 drops

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/2019_advanced.htm

Fox sports has their drops at 40

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/new-england-patriots-team-stats?season=2019&week=100&category=RECEIVING&opp=0&page=1

These make sense because when watching a game like 3 or 4 weeks ago the network I was watching reported the Pat's were leading and had 23 at the time.

Here is what NESN said after the Bengals game:

Brady has the fourth-highest drop rate among qualified quarterbacks this season. He’s tied for first with most total dropped passing attempts.

https://nesn.com/2019/12/patriots-bengals-top-takeaways-tom-bradys-receivers-dont-help-qb/

The after the Miami game:

Of Brady’s 13 incompletions, three were drops.

https://nesn.com/2019/12/patriots-dolphins-takeaways-new-england-is-completely-unpredictable/

[Moranis]

Yeah but that was mostly based on his age and doing things not done before based on that age.  Statistically he is way down across the board this year.  His last 8 games in particular, he has been a bottom 5 QB in several of the most meaningful metrics/statistics and that has never been the case in the past.   Maybe he has a switch to flip, but after losing to the Dolphins I don't see how he does.  They needed to win that game and came up epically short and Brady was bad.  Brady just hasn't failed in must win games many times in his career and he came up lame in their most recent game.

I wouldn't be surprised if they beat the Titans, heck I might even give them the slight edge, but I'd be shocked if they beat the Chiefs at Arrowhead.

I get that you are one of the great contrarians in CB/CS history, but what is even the point right now? Even if Brady is done, why try your hardest to slam home the final nail in the coffin through age/stats. The Pats have literally just won 3 of the past 5 SBs and Brady has proven the world wrong time and again. People saying he's done and needs to retire sound foolish these days. It's been a broken record for years. He may not be as elite as he was in his prime, but he still has a little left in the tank. He certainly didn't look 'done' earlier in the season with some real weapons around him.

He’s not done unless he wants to be.  Brady being among the top QBs in the league next year seems possible to me if he has a good O-line and weapons.  Hope it’s with the Pats.

How many of you think he wouldn’t be among the top 8 in the league this year if he was QB for the Saints?

I don't, though he'd obviously be better if he had Michael Thomas to throw to.  Though the Saints don't really have much outside of Michael Thomas to throw to.  I mean an older TE and a RB had the 2nd and 3rd most receiving yards, followed by Ted Ginn and then another RB and their 3rd string QB that is a jack of all trades.  Thomas is clearly awesome, but the Saints aren't exactly flush with pass catching talent outside of him. 

Edit: Let's also be clear, the Patriots receiving group is better than several of the other top teams that ended up with much better QB play like the Seahawks, Packers, Titans (once Tannehill took over), and arguably teams like the Niners and Ravens (though they have solid TE's, they aren't good at WR).

I can't analyze the other teams too well as I haven't watched enough of them.  But Edelman was a shell of himself over much of the last half of the season.  After that the Pats had a group of 4th/5th receivers and a 39 yo tight end.  I noticed you didn't dispute the O-line issue which in combination with a receiving core that had trouble running routes, trouble getting open and trouble catching the ball, is a quarterback's nightmare.  Somehow TB had 22 TDs and 7 INTs and was the 16th ranked QB in total QB rating (fwiw).   Yeah, maybe Saints with their other-worldly receiver, Ingram pretty solid at RB, 2 OK TEs, and solid/deep O-line wasn't the best example, but yeah Brady probably would have been top 8 with Saints offense.

By yards, the Patriots had the 8th ranked passing offense and were 18th in rushing which equated to 7th overall.  Brady though was not a top 8 QB, despite having a top 8 passing offense overall.

That's because you are only looking at the stats and not the total context.

Brady threw the ball away to avoid sacks more than any other QB in the league. If instead of doing that he turtled and went to the ground, his passing stats would have looked a lot prettier but he would also have been playing much more stupid football...losing football.

Also factor in that the Pats led the league in dropped passes. If the receivers dropped passes at an average rate, again Brady's stats look prettier.

Then add in the context he had two rookies running wrong routes and threw the ball into empty space his receivers should have been in but weren't and you have probably 2-3 incompletions a game because of that.

Also, Brady was on and off the injury report the latter part of the year and looked like he was hurting against Miami(he was constantly shaking his throwing arm out on the sideline and avoided throwing long all day).

Brady declined statistically but a lot of that had to do with factors that had nothing to do with Brady's ability to be a top QB. I am not saying his age didn't lead to a decline of his abilities. It did. But not nearly as much as it is being made out to be.

It would not surprise me at all for Brady to have his 4th straight year of over 4000 yards passing after the age of 40 next year with over 25 TDs and a TD to INT ratio of greater than 3 to 1 while completing around 67% of his passes next year while playing intelligent, winning football.

Pats didn't lead the league in drops, they were tied for 5th with 23.  The Falcons led the league with only 8 drops.  So let's just say the Pats had only 8 drops or 15 more completions.  Brady would have upped his completion % to 63%, which is still a fair amount lower than his most recent seasons.  Of course Atlanta plays in a dome and not outside so it isn't reasonable to assume the same sort of drops.  The Chiefs for example had 19 drops.  The rest applies pretty much across the board for teams.  All teams have rookies, throw aways, etc.  All I see are a bunch of excuses because you just don't want to believe Brady is actually 42 years old.

And all I see is a fan of another team trying to convince himself that Brady is done because he doesn't want to accept that his team sucks so bad so is taking shots at a legend.

Much, much, much, much, much better football minds than you have been declaring Brady dead for years. Go ahead and continue to make yourself look a fool like they all did simply because you are married to stats and can't see and understand the context of those stats.

EDIT: pro football reference has the Pat's at 34 drops

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/nwe/2019_advanced.htm

Fox sports has their drops at 40

https://www.foxsports.com/nfl/new-england-patriots-team-stats?season=2019&week=100&category=RECEIVING&opp=0&page=1

These make sense because when watching a game like 3 or 4 weeks ago the network I was watching reported the Pat's were leading and had 23 at the time.

Here is what NESN said after the Bengals game:

Brady has the fourth-highest drop rate among qualified quarterbacks this season. He’s tied for first with most total dropped passing attempts.

https://nesn.com/2019/12/patriots-bengals-top-takeaways-tom-bradys-receivers-dont-help-qb/

The after the Miami game:

Of Brady’s 13 incompletions, three were drops.

https://nesn.com/2019/12/patriots-dolphins-takeaways-new-england-is-completely-unpredictable/

I just typed in league leaders and found a listing at nbc.  It didn't indicate a date so it could have been old. 

As I've stated in this thread most of the football minds based their analysis on Brady's age and not any real evidence as that quite simply didn't exist as Brady was still performing at an elite level.  Football guys just couldn't believe he could keep it up given his age.  That isn't the case mow though.  Statistically Brady has dropped across the board pretty significantly.  He has been dropping for years but it was gradual. He hit. acliff this year.  At some point it happens to everyone.  Lebron has slowly been getting worse as well.  At some point he is going to hit the cliff face and drop pretty precipitously as well.  It happens to everyone.  Brady is there.  His receiving core isn't much different than last year, yet money of these things existed last year because Brady is just old now.

And for the record I'm a Ravens fan. I thought that was fairly well known. The Patriots even with a prime Brady wouldn't be a real threat to Baltimore this year as they are just better.

[Roy H.]

  The Patriots even with a prime Brady wouldn't be a real threat to Baltimore this year as they are just better.

The Ravens might win, but Prime Brady was a threat to everybody. He has won plenty of games as an underdog.

[Moranis]

  The Patriots even with a prime Brady wouldn't be a real threat to Baltimore this year as they are just better.

The Ravens might win, but Prime Brady was a threat to everybody. He has won plenty of games as an underdog.

True.  Been a more interesting game rather than the destruction it was in the regular season this year. The Ravens though have never shied away from the Patriots even with lesser teams.  This Ravens team might very well be their best team ever (obviously have to win 3 more and close it out).

[Roy H.]

  The Patriots even with a prime Brady wouldn't be a real threat to Baltimore this year as they are just better.

The Ravens might win, but Prime Brady was a threat to everybody. He has won plenty of games as an underdog.

True.  Been a more interesting game rather than the destruction it was in the regular season this year. The Ravens though have never shied away from the Patriots even with lesser teams.  This Ravens team might very well be their best team ever (obviously have to win 3 more and close it out).

What happened in weeks 7 - 10? Two losses and two unimpressive wins?  Outside of that stretch, they’ve looked historically good.

[SparzWizard]

  The Patriots even with a prime Brady wouldn't be a real threat to Baltimore this year as they are just better.

The Ravens might win, but Prime Brady was a threat to everybody. He has won plenty of games as an underdog.

True.  Been a more interesting game rather than the destruction it was in the regular season this year. The Ravens though have never shied away from the Patriots even with lesser teams.  This Ravens team might very well be their best team ever (obviously have to win 3 more and close it out).

What happened in weeks 7 - 10? Two losses and two unimpressive wins?  Outside of that stretch, they’ve looked historically good.

I thought the Ravens' best teams were the Ray Lewis teams stymying Tom Brady.

[SHAQATTACK]

not counting Brady out yet 

[nickagneta]

Looks like NFL will be clearing the Patriots of cheating in Spygate 2.0. They found no connection between Belichick and the football operations and what happened with Kraft Sports and Entertainment.

The Patriots corporately will most likely be fined but the football operations will not be involved(fines or suspension of Belichick, loss of draft picks).

https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/patriots/report-no-evidence-implicating-bill-belichick-or-patriots-football-staff-spygate-20

[Phantom255x]

  The Patriots even with a prime Brady wouldn't be a real threat to Baltimore this year as they are just better.

The Ravens might win, but Prime Brady was a threat to everybody. He has won plenty of games as an underdog.

Yeah that was such a strange statement. A prime Brady would absolutely be a real threat to Baltimore. Are you kidding me? 

[Phantom255x]

FWIW, the forecast for this Saturday night at Gillette Stadium calls for rain (at times, heavy) and temps in the low 40s.

I looked it up hoping for a cold night (like below 35 degrees which would give us an advantage), but noticed that the forecast is actually for rain which could make things real interesting.

On one hand, I feel like the team actually does pretty well when the weather conditions aren't that great and they prepare well for it. But on the other, it'll just make an already tough task of stopping Derrick Henry and the Titans run game even more tougher. This could be a sloppy, low-scoring affair with the wet conditions, and turnovers could determine it. Just need to hope we don't turn it over while the defense can create 1 or 2 themselves.

If the game were on Sunday, there'd be snow earlier in the day with temperatures in the low to mid 30s.

[jambr380]

Looks like NFL will be clearing the Patriots of cheating in Spygate 2.0. They found no connection between Belichick and the football operations and what happened with Kraft Sports and Entertainment.

The Patriots corporately will most likely be fined but the football operations will not be involved(fines or suspension of Belichick, loss of draft picks).

https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/patriots/report-no-evidence-implicating-bill-belichick-or-patriots-football-staff-spygate-20

Thanks for the update. Of course it won't keep the haters from adding this to the other nothings the Pats have supposedly done, but, really, this is great news.