The Patriots could follow their philosophy against the Andrew Luck-led Colts teams and go bigger while leaning heavily on the run against a Jacksonville run defense that ranked 26th by DVOA. Maybe they'll avoid the cornerbacks and focus on Gronk, White and Dion Lewis, trusting that they're better than Myles Jack, Telvin Smith and Jacksonville's safeties. Maybe they'll go back to the no-huddle that flummoxed Tennessee and try to tucker out Jacksonville's front four. We know Belichick will have a plan, and we know Brady is capable of executing it. What matters is whether the opposing defense manages to disrupt the league's longest-running symphony.
From Weeks 13-15, as I Matthew Dellavedova Youth jersey mentioned in my column last week, Bortles posted the league's best passer rating (128.6) and Total QBR (85.1). Over Kevin Klein Youth jersey his three subsequent games, Bortles was 30th in passer rating (62.3) and 18th in QBR (44.9), with most of the latter owing to his work as a scrambler in the wild-card win over the Bills. The Jaguars narrowly beat Buffalo, but Bortles looked bereft of confidence, and they looked badly overmatched on offense for their game to come with the Steelers. And then, on Sunday, Bortles was a genuine threat again. He got off to a hot start, completing his first three passes for 53 yards with touch on a drive that ended with Jacksonville's second fourth-and-goal touchdown in two weeks. Bortles struggled for most of the two subsequent quarters, but he came alive again in the fourth quarter. The former third overall pick hit Keelan Cole on a 45-yard bomb to set up one touchdown before a well-designed play-fake set up fullback Tommy Bohanon for a second score. On Jacksonville's final two drives, Bortles went 5-of-6 for 118 yards with two game-sealing touchdown passes, going drive-for-drive with a future Hall of Famer in Ben Roethlisberger. As much as Bortles has been in positive situations this year by virtue of his defense, the Jaguars needed the 35 points their offense scored to win on Sunday. Jacksonville forced another defensive touchdown -- something it has done three times in two games against the Steelers this season when no other team has scored one in more than four seasons -- and came up with a pair of fourth-and-short stops, but the Steelers came up with big play after big play to stay in the game. They converted fourth-and-11 for a touchdown before halftime. Later, Le'Veon Bell scored on a third-and-9 TD toss. Antonio Brown hauled in a 43-yard score on fourth-and-5. Three third-down conversions, including two third-and-10s, set up a Roethlisberger lateral to Bell for another score. Those weren't enough because the Jaguars' offense http://www.patriotsofficialsprostore.com/Shea-Mcclellin-Jersey kept answering the bell. Of course, Bortles has been surprising us all season. It looked like Bortles was on his way out after the Jags benched him during the preseason, only to hand the ball back after Chad Henne failed to impress. He alternated great games with abysmal performances the next week at times, throwing four touchdowns against a great Ravens pass defense in London before producing 140 passing yards in a loss to the Jets. Bortles followed the best three-game stretch of his career with one of his worst stretches as a pro. He wasn't even consistent from quarter to quarter on Sunday and still came up with big plays when Jacksonville needed them most. As we evaluate Bortles and other quarterbacks, we have to remember that developing passers don't have the same growth curve and don't have static levels of talent. It's so tempting and simple to put signal-callers on the pass/fail system, where they're either no-doubt franchise quarterbacks or passers who don't have a prayer of ever winning a Super Bowl. There are a few guys who are going to be the best player on the field every week and a whole bunch of quarterbacks who should inspire no hope, but the vast majority of them are somewhere in the middle, and the combination of context and sheer variance changes how they look from week to week or season to season. A bunch of those guys -- Joe Flacco, Eli Manning and end-of-career Peyton Manning come to mind -- have won Super Bowls in recent years. In many cases, they just got hot at the right time. Flacco threw 11 touchdowns without an interception over a four-game stretch during the 2012 postseason and hasn't posted a single four-game run with 11 touchdowns or zero interceptions in 71 ensuing tries. Eli went 8-0 during his two Super Bowl runs and hasn't won a playoff game otherwise. The phrase "This quarterback is good enough to win a Super Bowl" should be launched into outer space like a bad pass. Three or four great games might be enough, and you might not see them coming. It's easy to look at Bortles and assume he'll turn into a pumpkin against the Patriots in Foxborough on Sunday, and indeed, he very well might. It's also fair to remember that Flacco has twice won in the postseason in Foxborough, and might have four wins with slightly better luck. Mark Sanchez won a playoff game in New England. Their respective defenses deserved a huge amount of credit for those wins, but what do you think http://www.brownsfootballofficialprostore.com/gary-barnidge-jersey_c-406.html Bortles is bringing with him to town next weekend? Suggesting that coaching plays a big role in winning football games isn't exactly some newfangled secret, but we often underestimate just how much it really matters in thinking about matchups before a game. Foles wasn't very good on Saturday night, especially during a rough start for the Eagles' offense. It's a small miracle that Foles didn't throw an interception to Keanu Neal, who had the ball bounce off him and to Torrey Smith, which became the biggest play on what ended up becoming a critical field goal just before halftime. Thanks to a smart game plan and a coaching staff that adapted as the game went along, though, Doug Pederson & Co. moved on. Faced with a speedy, undersized defense capable of giving his struggling quarterback fits, Pederson leaned heavily on a power running game that relied more Phil Rizzuto Jersey heavily on his offensive line than the skills of his quarterback. As the game went along, Foles found success as a passer on run-pass options (RPOs), which require him to make a single read after the snap before making a decision. Pederson stuck with what worked, even calling the same play (or plays that at least looked similar) twice in a row on multiple occasions. He would have had more success with a better quarterback, given that the bomb Pederson dialed up on the very first play from scrimmage would have gone for a touchdown with a quarterback who either had a better arm or didn't lose his footing. Foles' duck resulted in a long pass interference call that the Eagles wasted on a subsequent Jay Ajayi fumble, but the right idea was there from a schematic perspective.