Week Five - @ Denver Broncos

Well I guess we know one thing for sure now...Denver is legit. Everyone was saying they're not really a 4-0 team but they went out and played some tough ball. I gotta hand it to them...mostly for Josh McDaniels sake. It's a lot harder to hate a team (sports hate) with such a good guy as a coach. How cool was it to see him trade hugs with Ben Watson and Steven Neal after the game...and he was so excited. As much as I hate to drop a game, that makes it a little easier to swallow. But this post isn't about the Broncos...

Another thing we know for sure, the Patriots still have a lot of work to do. The Brady-Welker connection was smoking at the start, but then stalled big time. The O-line did good giving Brady time, so why isn't he finding more open receivers?? Randy Moss caught as many passes from Kyle Orton as he did from Tom Brady! Something's not right with that picture. And the run offense was moderate at best. If it weren't for two key 4th down penalties we wouldn't have had any 4th quarter 1st downs. There's definitely some work to do. And the defense, they made Kyle Orton look like Peyton Manning! Sure he never got anything over the top, which is definitely a strength for our defense, but he had wide open receivers underneath all day! Props to our DBs for their closing speed, but "bend-but-don't-break" defense doesn't work when all they need is a field goal to win. On the flip side, I love the ball-hawing. That brings me back to our 2004 defensive days. And rookies Julian Edelman and Sebastian Vollmer both had solid outings. We'll see how long Vollmer will have to fill in for the injured Matt Light, but he definitely held his own. Fortunately the next three weeks should give us a good chance to tighten some things up against some struggling teams and get a rest during the bye before a November schedule that looks more like a playoff picks sheet.