NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS WEEK 2 SCOUTING REPORT
OFFENSE...
Reggie Bush was out so a true evaluation of his offense cannot be made...
But I'll try and scout what I saw for this game...
He passed 95% of the time, most were 5 yard cross patterns to Welker... make no mistake Welker is his first option... Fitzgerald was used only on long passes to the sidelines.
He only ran the ball 6 times, and 3 of those were direct snaps to the RB(even though thats against league rules). He uses his TE for quick short passes for 5 yards a shot, and will make the occasional bomb attempt to Fitzgerald.
Warner is very precise and has alot of zip on his short to mid range passes over the middle, which made up the majority of his plays and are almost impossible to defend, but they dont get many YAC's either if you move your coverage up. His passes to the outside or long range were not very accurate and were very weak and usually floated for INT's. Zone D and pressing the WR's seems the way to go against him.
I say his biggest weakness on O besides throwing the ball to much, was his LT... Reggie Hayward was in on alot of passes and hit Warner just a second to late a number of times... he held me to no sacks for the game though, because he gets his passes off so fast but if you do hurry him, the result usually ends up in INT's.
DEFENSE...
Maybe its just Manning, but everytime I dropped back found someone open(which was often), I connected with them without any competition... out posts worked great against his #2 CB... passes to the flats worked very well... screen passes didn't at all... I dont remember any pass deflections or INT's. His D-Line and LB's were decent against the run... he never hit me for a loss, but I didn't break many either(mostly 1-3-5 yd runs with the a couple 10 yarders and one big TD run). His biggest weakness on D was no pass rush... I didn't feel any preasure all game, and was not sacked. He waited until the play calling clock expired everytime to let "Madden" choose his play calling on D.
SPECIAL TEAMS...
Phillip Buchanon and Wes Welker seemed slow and they never got a return any further than thier 25 yd line(again, with Bush back I'm sure that'll change). Kickoff/Punt coverage and kick distances were decent I didn't get any runbacks worth talking about.
He missed one FG pretty badly from 42 yds as time ran out.
All in all...
I got a watered down version of the Pats without a main player(Reggie Bush) in, so I cant realisticaly judge his offensive gameplan. I have no doubt it will change a bit when Bush gets back. As for the D... I'm not to sure about them, it seemed like I was able to do whatever I wanted all game against them.
OFFENSE...
Reggie Bush was out so a true evaluation of his offense cannot be made...
But I'll try and scout what I saw for this game...
He passed 95% of the time, most were 5 yard cross patterns to Welker... make no mistake Welker is his first option... Fitzgerald was used only on long passes to the sidelines.
He only ran the ball 6 times, and 3 of those were direct snaps to the RB(even though thats against league rules). He uses his TE for quick short passes for 5 yards a shot, and will make the occasional bomb attempt to Fitzgerald.
Warner is very precise and has alot of zip on his short to mid range passes over the middle, which made up the majority of his plays and are almost impossible to defend, but they dont get many YAC's either if you move your coverage up. His passes to the outside or long range were not very accurate and were very weak and usually floated for INT's. Zone D and pressing the WR's seems the way to go against him.
I say his biggest weakness on O besides throwing the ball to much, was his LT... Reggie Hayward was in on alot of passes and hit Warner just a second to late a number of times... he held me to no sacks for the game though, because he gets his passes off so fast but if you do hurry him, the result usually ends up in INT's.
DEFENSE...
Maybe its just Manning, but everytime I dropped back found someone open(which was often), I connected with them without any competition... out posts worked great against his #2 CB... passes to the flats worked very well... screen passes didn't at all... I dont remember any pass deflections or INT's. His D-Line and LB's were decent against the run... he never hit me for a loss, but I didn't break many either(mostly 1-3-5 yd runs with the a couple 10 yarders and one big TD run). His biggest weakness on D was no pass rush... I didn't feel any preasure all game, and was not sacked. He waited until the play calling clock expired everytime to let "Madden" choose his play calling on D.
SPECIAL TEAMS...
Phillip Buchanon and Wes Welker seemed slow and they never got a return any further than thier 25 yd line(again, with Bush back I'm sure that'll change). Kickoff/Punt coverage and kick distances were decent I didn't get any runbacks worth talking about.
He missed one FG pretty badly from 42 yds as time ran out.
All in all...
I got a watered down version of the Pats without a main player(Reggie Bush) in, so I cant realisticaly judge his offensive gameplan. I have no doubt it will change a bit when Bush gets back. As for the D... I'm not to sure about them, it seemed like I was able to do whatever I wanted all game against them.
