Matt Light blames snap count in Patriots’ AFC Championship loss
Matt Light blames snap count in Patriots’ AFC Championship loss
New England Patriots legend Matt Light dropped some knowledge on us earlier this week, telling WAAF in Boston that the Patriots’ inability to use a silent snap count doomed them against the Denver Broncos this time last week.
Here’s a few excerpts from the former offensive tackle’s interview:
"It was tough, tough for everybody to watch. I haven’t heard one person who didn’t want to discuss what was the obvious — the offensive line issues — with me. And, you know, look, (Denver) is a horrible place to go play, especially in that circumstance, right? You’ve got the best defense in the league, you’re in their place and you don’t practice a snap count? It blows my mind that, really, the game was lost because of a snap count — in my opinion."
Light commented on how things have changed in the Patriots’ offensive line ranks since the departure of his old coach, Dante Scarnecchia.
"It’s amazing how quickly things are forgotten. You take a guy like Dante Scarnecchia, who never let off the pedal for an instant and always drilled into us that it’s got to be better and we’ve got practice this. And, yeah, Dante, we get it. But (the 2015 team) didn’t get it. I don’t think the atmosphere in that offensive line room is the same without a guy like Dante. I don’t think that they practiced their snap count at all, really, to any degree. We went into a game being able to snap silent count five different ways. Not two. Five. And in that game, I watched them on the snap count and I was blown away. You’re handcuffing your tackles, and that’s what happens when you don’t effectively run a silent snap count. And it was terrible to watch."
Light makes several good points. In that hostile Denver environment against an even more hostile Denver front seven, the Patriots’ offensive line was certainly missing something.
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The entirety of Light’s interview can be found here.