Quote:
Originally Posted by Megatron96
After watching that clip about a hundred times, it's pretty obvious that Breeland wasn't supposed to follow Edelman across the field. It was subterfuge; he was always supposed to fall up-field. It was a trap and it worked.
Though it seems obvious that someone was supposed to cover Edelman I(can't leave him just wide open?), but not sure who that was supposed to be.
Not Ragland; he's not in any position to cover Edelman once he turns up-field to trail the TE. It's an impossible ask for him, or really any LB from where the play starts.
Maybe Hitchens?
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Well unless Ragland was never suppose to trail the TE and it was supposed to be Breeland picking him up on an exchange just like he did. If he was supposed to just pop the TE off the line to knock him off his route and then stay in a short zone on the left side, that would seem to cover Edelman out of his break, then Hitchens takes him as he comes across.
That puts a TON of stress on Thornhill because the inside guy from the bunch formation (81?) got behind Mathieu as Mathieu picked up the RB and Ward was in man, so if Brady had seen Breeland and waited out that route, Thornhill would've had a touch choice on who to provide help to, the deep crosser or the possible deep flag from the TE.
But that's the kind of thing you can risk when you have Thornhill's speed and Tom Brady's wobble-launcher of an arm.
That Patriots offense has some REAL problems if they can't get their running game picked up in a big way. Anything beyond a 3rd and 5 means they need to get deep into their bag of tricks or hope for a busted coverage (or penalty). They hardly have anything to attack even the intermediate areas with.