New England Patriots Thread Mod Warning Post #253

Apologies if I made my point too simply. Our OL is not in such a state, or likely to be improved so much by the acquisition of Strange, that the pass and run blocking improve to the point of making a difference versus getting a 3-down impact linebacker, shutdown corner or stud receiver, all of which are more likely to add another number or two to the win column. Indeed, we could probably pick up someone on the vet minimum, plug them in, get a slightly worse level of performance and still broadly get the same results. We won’t be picking up any impact 3 down backers, corners or wide receivers in free agency at the level we could get in the draft.

Bit of a perplexing draft by the Patriots really. Seems mad drafting 2 RB's with Harris, Stevenson and White already there and seemingly more immediate priorities elsewhere.

There does seem to have been a big focus on speed with most of the picks, and let's hope a few of them pan out.

I'd say White and Harris are gone after this year so probably an eye on that with those RB picks.

Jarrett Stidham being traded to the Raiders. As you might expect we are not getting a whole pile in return - we give up a 7th rounder and get a 6th rounder back.

I'd be hoping for 12 wins out if that schedule, any less would be disappointing, a few more would be great.

I purposely waited until now to watch Man in the Arena. Two episodes in and I'm loving it because it's all about the Patriots and I'm getting to see great plays and interviews with Patriots legends.

I'm also realising how lucky we are to have had such a great coach and quarterback for so long and all the other great players we had. I could name elite players for quite a while and great players all day.

Examples would be McGinest, Tippett, Slade, Johnson, Milloy, Law, Vrabel, Seymour, Wilfork, Light, Bruschi, Samuel, Harrison, McCourty, Gilmore, Butler, Hightower, Dillon, Faulk, White, Brown, Moss, Welker, Edelman, Gronk and let's not forget probably the greatest ST'er of all time Slater.

The above is just elite players in my opinion. The great ones is at least three times as long as that list.

Obviously I left Brady out as he is the Man in the Arena.

Anywhere to watch man in the arena.. no access to disney

Harry finally off the books. The Bears have kindly given us a 2024 7th round pick for him.

Probably worth noting that Jason McCourty (twin of long-time servant Devin) retired this week. He played a big part in the 2018 season where we went on to win our 6th Superbowl. He also made perhaps the biggest play of that Superbowl where he broke up the long (under-thrown) pass down the middle for what would almost definitely have been a Brandin Cooks TD and a huge momentum builder for the Rams.

(Long video but the play is showed in first 10 secs)

See James White has called it a day due to injuries. Fabulous player who played a huge part in 3 Superbowl wins

Watched the game last night.

Zappe looked decent, Kristian Wilkerson looked very good. Nixon and Humphrey also looked good. Reserve OL had some good performances but I didn't get the names.

On the defensive side Uche didn't play much but got a sack. Cameron McGrone stood out.

No turnovers but they very much kept Miami's speed pretty quiet. The 2 4th downs (the TD and another was never snapped due to a defensive lineman jumping offside) was obviously an issue but they kept the Miami offense to 13 points out of 7 drives or so (ignoring the one that the Dolphins just wanted to kill time and didn't want to score). I think any team would take that as a good result from their defense.

Mo

Hard to know if there's things to build on from last week. First drive either half, the offence looked competent and executed well (leaving aside the interception and dodgy PI miss). At other times, they looked flat. Didn't see coaches cam but I don't get the sense that receivers are getting open. Sitting Bourne for most of the game didn't help either, although can't figure out if that's a function of us spending so much time in our 12 package. Think the biggest problem, aside from OL which you'd like to think we will fix, is that we can't seem to throw anything beyond either short 5-7 yard routes or deep shots. We don't really seem to have much if any intermediate passing, which makes us easy to defend. I thought playcalling was OK aside from some really odd calls (Humphrey run on 3-and-3). D was OK aside from the horrid line Dugger took for the Waddle touchdown, which is a pity as up til then he was making the kind of plays which should put him in the discussion for the Pro Bowl.

Interestingly, Marcus Cannon signed to practice squad yesterday. Not sure if he's any gas left, but if he does, be interesting to see how/if he slots in. Might not be good news for Trent Brown, as I suspect they might swap Wynn back to the left and plug Cannon in right. Alternatively, maybe it's just to up the pressure on Brown to perform.

More bad decisions from Mac today.

This Patricia experiment has to stop. It's only been 8 quarters and has been an absolute disaster so far. Watching our offence is such a chore.