20 comments

1. We were simply out matched. We needed some big lucky breaks to go our way to have any chance at winning that. Couldn’t possibly have asked more from the D, but realistically we needed a pick 6, so it was obviously a long shot.

   I’m almost sure Maye’s shoulder was worse than they disclosed. It was beyond just conservative how much they refused to throw the ball down field. It seemed like they were actively avoiding it, until the Seahawks scored and they had no choice.

   But the biggest thing for me, was his release on those deep balls. I’ve never seen him throw like that. He was leaning way back and it looked like it was taking him a ton of effort to get any arc under that ball. Usually it’s effortless for him.

   And on a bitter sweet note: can’t ever take getting there for granted. You never know how many chances a core group will have. I obviously wanted the win. But this is a really high end chip on the shoulder for these guys to carry with them into the future seasons. They didn’t get handed an “easy SuperBowl”. They’ll either grow from it and come back better, or crumble.

   On to next season!

2. On to the offseason, ugh. That hurts man.

3. Look I have the full scope of the teams youth, the “happy to even make it this far” attitude, etc etc but last night was catastrophically bad from Drake and Campbell: two pillars of your team going forward. You can’t say “we’ll be back”. You can’t say “they’ll learn from this”.

   Sometimes things set you back. Scar you. Make you worse than you were before. I’m not saying Drake Maye is forever altered but the drop in his play from the regular season to the playoffs was so jarring, so drastic, that he and everyone else has to wonder if that will happen again- no matter how much success he has in the regular season next year. Your defense gave you a chance to win the superbowl and you repaid them with missing throws, not running when pockets collapsed, and just straight up sucking.

   You can blink and in 5 years we haven’t made it back to a superbowl for one reason or another. Health, other teams getting stronger, whatever. This was your chance and he was one of the worst ever. I’m not able to excuse that away or act like it’s *only* a good thing.

4. It stings, man. Getting back to the Super Bowl is never, ever guaranteed.

   Way too many doomer yesterday, though – reminded me of the 2010s, filled with huge overreactions

5. Hurts so bad. We will have a good defense for the next 3-4 years and after that, it’s not a guarantee that we will be able to put a unit like this together. Our offense better start figuring it out before it’s too late.

6. I’m pretty excited to see what Vrabel does with another off season on building this team out. He’s going to know better than anyone what we should be looking for to improve.

   Here’s to a good draft and our rookies putting in a good offseason.

7. The Patriots have some serious decisions to make over the next month or so when free agency starts. The need to have serious talks about whether or not Campbell needs to move to LG and Wilson back to C. They have to extend Gonzalez, he was by far their best player last night and they can’t fuck it up with him. They also need to make decisions regarding Diggs and Barmore depending on how their court cases go. Diggs getting cut regardless of his court case wouldn’t surprise me given his age and cost, but they could likely void Barmore’s guarantees if he faces any sort of legal discipline. They’ve got a lot of key Das that they need to decide on as well.

8. Need someone/anyone on the OL—probably a center unless Wilson can hack it, since Bradbury is so small that he can’t facilitate inside runs AND can’t pass-block against real defenses—and a WR1 just like we did all year. A TE would be nice too. Henry seems like a nice guy but he really adds nothing even remotely special to the passing game. Maye is taking the heat, but the pass catchers were unforgivably useless. And the OL should be sent to jail. Maye’s fumble happened because the D-lineman somehow was able to immediately get beside him and swat the ball the nanosecond he stepped up in the pocket. And on the downfield interception he might as well have had his feet planted horizontally behind Bradbury. Just nasty stuff.

9. Great year everyone.. excited to see what next year brings

10. People need to understand that there is a more likely chance we don’t reach the Super Bowl again with Maye vs. getting back to it. Everyone saying “house money” doesn’t grasp that there are so many good QB’s that made it early, and never made it back.

    This was a wide open AFC and we were able to take advantage of that, but in the end our offense (and frankly, Maye) fell way short.

    I hope Maye isn’t dealing with a major shoulder injury, but if he is I would almost feel better about his performance with some of those throws. I feel the All-22 is going to show some horrible moments for Maye, and even though our O-line beyond struggled, he had openings but failed to take advantage of them.

    Getting to the SB and failing like this, where one half of the team balls out and keeps bailing out the other, causes rifts. I hope Vrabel is able to keep the team together, this is going to be challenging off season and next year will be far, far harder with the new expectations and inherently tougher schedule.

    It feels like Mcdaniels didn’t have a plan to get Maye into a rhythm. It was bad, borderline fireable performance. Vabrel is likely talking to Krafts about how he wish he was able to make his choice at OC, cause what ever happened with the game plan was just historically bad. It felt like a plan you put in place with a backup QB, and if it comes out that Maye had a more serious injury that was debilitating then I can then understand the gameplay a bit more… other than the fact that it had no plan to get Maye running on his feet. But if even that was too much for his shoulder, then there isn’t much you can do other than hope the defense can make plays to shorten the field.

    This was a winnable game with how our defense played. People should be angry that our offense literally walked onto the field and shit themselves. It’s games like these where you look back and go “we could have one with, and now we haven’t been to the Superbowl in a decade”

11. It is one thing to lose a game you were competitive in, it’s another to lose when you looked like you should not have been there, and for that to happen in the super bowl is utterly demoralizing, especially so when you have an experienced coaching staff.

12. The Mack Hollis touchdown was so sweet. For a moment, we had life. Go Pats

13. I hear all the critcism and pessimism, and a lot of it is warranted. I choose to believe our young players will learn & grow from this season. There were far more positives than negatives and I believe that experience is valuable. QB, OL, WR, CB are positions that take time to improve at in the NFL. We were way ahead of schedule this year, so all of our faults were magnified and exposed. Can’t think of any better motivation for our team than going through last night.

14. I think the hardest part is, if any of those dangerous throws had gotten picked off in the first half – game may have looked entirely different. But that is every game, every season, ever SB.

    I think next season will be rough – our schedule is going to be a gauntlet, other teams will be healthy, the AFC heavy weights will be back.

    Will have to see what we can do in the off season. Lots of questions. Sad end to a Cinderella season.

    In hindsight, I still think the soft schedule claims are dumb. If we were such a puff piece, at least one of the three teams that faced us in the playoffs should have won. If it was “Buffalo’s year” then they should have gotten past Denver.

    The Pats showed up and did enough all post season, until they didn’t.

    Lots of ugly offensive film to watch in Cancun – wonder if we will hear about injuries on the OL or at the QB that may have been a source of the issue.

15. Surpassed this season’s expectations. Seattle deserved to win. Need to be able to get some first downs in the super bowl, though.

16. I get its mostly trolls not worth spending the time on anyways, but anyone trying to make it seem like this game will define Maye and he’ll never recover seem to forget what QB just won the Superbowl.

17. I’m proud of this team. Like many have said, you can’t take this opportunity for granted, more superbowls are not guaranteed. But they gave us one hell of an entertaining season and got some valuable experience that will hopefully give them a chip on their shoulder for years to come. Time to rest up, get healthy, and reload the roster for a tough year next year. I know I have things I would love to see the team improve on for next year, but for now, I’m just trying to reflect on how many great sundays this team gave us for the past 5 months

18. I guess it’s draft talk time now lol who’s looking good and what positions are we thinking we should target? More O line help, edge rusher, maybe a good value WR in the second?

19. A lot of supposed neutrals talking about what a shit game it was, boring, dud, etc.

    To me that shows to a lesser extent that even though we got steamrolled by their defense we didn’t get the ass whoopin they were hoping to see, in large part thanks to our defense keeping us in the game until that final turnover for the TD. A lot of neutral parties were hooting and hollering over last year’s game which was a completely one sided ass kicking.

    If we keep the D together, fix the line, add another threat or two for Drake, we’ll be back.

20. Really disappointed with the game even though I knew Seattle were favorites. They were the better team for every minute of that game. Darn.

    As good as Maye was this season, he really really struggled in the playoffs, and it wasn’t entirely because of the OL. Off target throws and missing open guys. I suppose the story about injury and/or treatments will come out soon.

    I really thought McDaniels would have dialed up something more successful. That 2nd-and-1 in the 3rd quarter was a huge example of failure, getting stuffed on 2nd down and then on 3rd down a terrible throw.

    Of course my worst criticism is for some of the bad fans of this team and the terrible things they write and say. They need to go cheer for the Eagles or something. They’d fit in great over there.