The off-week

[GM]

How's this for a theory...?

Lots of people seem to think the extra week off will benefit the Patriots...the reasoning being that "Give Belicheck an extra week and he will know this Panthers team inside out".

Has anyone considered this...if you are one of those who believes he is a superior-coach: Perhaps Belicheck benefits LESS from the extra week off than John Fox does. If Belicheck is that efficient, at the end of a week he will already know more about his opponent than John Fox will (that's a given if you believe he is superior). He'll probably already know almost all there is to know. The extra week therefore allows Fox to catch up in preparation and bridge the gap.

Yes? No?

 

[Dizzayton]

I wouldn't put too much into the extra week off. My gut feeling is that it doesn't affect Pats and Belicheck, not sure about Panthers. I hope it has a positive efffect on Panthers, but part of me worries it will give them too much time to think instead of riding the wave they are on.

 

[badjab]

GM, the answer is "yes" it is an advantage to the Panthers. Belichek has shown (last week) that he can fashion a solid game plan in a week. The Panthers have had to play an extra game in the playoffs and the last two have been on the road. The extra week will allow Davis and other players to heal up, which will be a huge boost.

 

[Vegas Dave]

If you want to talk about things from an injury perspective, I think the extra week does benefit Carolina a lot more (just because Stephen Davis is such a key player) but if you want to talk about it from a coaching standpoint I don't know if it really helps either coach that much more.

Belichick knows what he's going to do, and it probably won't take him that long to figure out how to exploit the Panthers from watching footage and so on. And the same thing for John Fox. He knows what his plan will be fairly quickly, I mean these guys are not planning out a war.

The extra week will give both teams another week of preparation, working on fundamentals and practicing the gameplan's that they are going to run.

I think its a misconception that both coaches are going to sit watching film, devising new plays, and new ways to run the team (a la Mike Martz). Both coaches have a fairly good idea of what they want to do, and the extra week will just help the teams prepare better for the meeting.

P.S. John Fox is a very underrated coach in this league.

 

[fla]

Advantage Panthers because they didn't have a bye in the playoffs. Also, their regular season bye week was early. Maybe week 3?

 

[AR182]

i think it also helps n.e. because it has given their linebacker, ted bruski(sp?) an extra week to recover from his injury that he suffered in the colt game.

 

[jmizeus]

not a bad point gm! but when pats won the superbowl vx rams 2 yrs agao, i believe he also had 2 weeks to prepare for rams. that game i believe the world was on rams? and why not,rams were far superior than pats in that game, but belichek w/the 2 weeks to prepare, found a way to stun the world
it had to be 2 weeks because they flip-flop every year

 

[Blitz]

jmizeus, Only 1 week before the Rams & Pats Super Bowl...