Good and bad news about the Pats...

The punting game was pretty bad, the third string tackles looked lost on screen passes, but they looked great on pass blocking.
No penetration for the defenders on most plays, even when they blitzed. The middle of the offensive line looked great on passes. Four people coming up the middle was not much of a problem, the outside rush didn't really threaten the QB. If we were a team that only threw timing patterns, we could do pretty well with our play today.
Unfortunately, the screen passes looked pretty horrendous. The receivers didn't block, the o-line didn't do anything on the screens, and the backs didn't cut back behind the blocks.
Maybe our second and third stringers can't run the screen that well, but as it team, it looks like we have a lot of room for improvement.
The defense actually played much better as a unit than it probably looked on television. The breakdowns that allowed the Bucs to score and move the ball down the field and into the endzone were individual mistakes. Blown coverage from the seven led to the Bucs touchdown before the fourth.
We didn't get a great pass rush, but the Patriots haven't really been a pass rush team in years. The defensive line occupies space, sees what the offense it trying to do, and reacts. That doesn't allow for the type of aggressive play that leads to double digit sack for any individual, and keeps the team sack total down. The D Line stops the big gains and jumps up to swat the pass, forcing the quarterback to put a little more under the ball than he would with a team with pure pass rush ends. This allows the defensive backs more time to react, and hopefully gives them a better chance of reacting and stopping the long gains, hopefully causing more interceptions for the defensive backs.
Over-all, we didn't dominate both sides of the line like we should have, but maybe the Bucs back-up offensive and defensive lineman are as good as our back-ups. If we suffer a bunch of injuries on one side of the ball, we're going to need a much more aggressive playbook to stay dominant.
We called plays with our back-ups that we would never call if we needed them, although the screens really need to be cleaned up. If the tackle can't get excited about the chance to knock out a defensive back on a screen, he may look better in Greenbay Green and Yellow.
The third string nose tackle, number 63 also gave up on way too many sweeps and cut-backs. Those timing passes are also going to look a lot better with Stallworth, Moss and Graham going up and getting their mitts on the ball. And hopefully the punters can learn not to punt the ball into the endzone from the enemies side of the 50. That would be make huge difference.
A special shout out goes out to Knife and Gats for watching the game with me for the second year in a row you showed up. Hope you had as much fun as I did.