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Best of PatsProp Offseason Round Up

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In case you missed any of them here are eight of my favorite pieces from the offseason.

5 Most Intriguing Returning Patriots – Still very much believe in this list, though I am probably overestimating Damarius Travis.

A Brief History of Patriots-Inspired Rule Changes – Pretty amazing the impact the Patriots have had on the NFL’s rule changes over the years.

Patriots 2018 Draft Recap – Always exciting to get a new crop of promising players.

Tom Brady Will Finish Career as Patriot, On Own Terms – Brady Ride or Die till the end.

Tom Brady’s Helmets: A Retrospective – Brady will have switch helmets at the end of his career, likely starting in 2019. A look back at all he’s worn over the years.

Stop Worrying and Enjoy the End of Belichick/Brady – My philosophy as the end of the Belichick-Brady dynasty approaches the end.

Can Flores Fix the First-Down D? – Critical element of the defense that needs to be addressed.

Brady: 2022 – Imagine a world where Tom Brady plays injury free until he’s 45. What records will fall? How many Super Bowls could he win? It’s Brady: 2022.

Tweets of Note from Patriots 2nd OTA Week

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After a quiet week, unless you like playing Where in the World is Tom Brady, the Patriots were back in action for the media on Thursday. These brief glimpses in on the team only give us a taste of the excitement to come in less than two months at training camp.

Per the usual disclaimers, don’t get too worked up about anyone playing anywhere at this point. Sometimes it’s just a temporary look at how players fit surrounded by starters than it is necessarily them actually being considered as a starter. This is still a teaching phase.

Here are the tweets of note that keep us going through the May-Jun post-draft void.

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Tweets of Note from Patriots OTAs

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The media was allowed to peek behind the curtain today, sadly I was not there and thus must rely on their accounts of what went down. First, credit to Doug Kyed for figuring out the riddle behind the rookie numbers.

Always have to love when Belichick devises a new coaching scheme to remind players that it’s a new year and all that matters is what you do now.

Let’s jump into what went on at practice!

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CNBC: Belichick on Everything

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This is a can’t-miss Belichick interview in which he touches on just about everything — from his coaching start, to Brady, to his mistakes and his kids. I can never get enough of this stuff and it’s always great when you get him relaxed and ready to talk.

Maybe the most interesting moment for me was Belichick describing the moment he realized he could coach at this level and ironically it came against the Patriots.

We were 1-4. We were playing the Patriots, who were 4-1. They had a great team, and I went back to an experience that I had in Baltimore. I talked to our offensive coordinator at that time, and said, “Look, I know we haven’t used this formation, but I studied this formation when I was at Baltimore last year. I think this is really going to give the Patriots a problem. Can we take a look at this?’ So we went through it, we looked at it and used it. We won the game by three touchdowns. It was a huge upset. That was kind of one of those [moments] where I was like okay, I can coach in this league.

This one is well worth the entire 15 minutes!

Gosselin: How Bill Belichick gives the Patriots an edge over every other NFL team at draft time | SportsDay

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If you’re grading drafts, there are lots of As and Bs to hand out after the first three rounds. But it’s what teams do in Rounds 4-7 that can make a good draft great.And no one knows the draft board — the entire draft board — like Patriots coach Bill Belichick. There are no throwaway picks when the Patriots are on the clock. New England has become the NFL’s dominant team because the Patriots own the back end of the draft.

Source: Dallas Cowboys: How Bill Belichick gives the Patriots an edge over every other NFL team at draft time | SportsDay

Gosselin is one of the most respected football writers out there, so obviously, as you can see above, he gets it. As much as the draft and all the amateur draftniks out there annoy me, there’s a special place in my heart for those who still try to tell me “Belichick can’t draft” or “Belichick the GM doesn’t help Belichick the coach”.

This assumes that somewhere out there there’s someone who CAN draft. Someone who hits on every pick. Someone who would never draft Ras-I Dowling 33rd overall. Okay, maybe that one has a point.

But the draft is really just an elaborate lottery. Even the guys making the picks don’t know for sure how any selection will truly work out. You see their body of  work in college, their timed measurables, you’ve talked to them, maybe even brought them into the facility and shown them around, but when training camp rolls around no one knows for sure how the player will respond.

How will he handle not being the most talented player on the field anymore? How will he handle having a fat bank account? How will he handle not getting the playing time he wants? How will he pick up the playbook? Will his career just be injury after injury?

NOBODY KNOWS. It’s impossible to know. So for every seven-round mock draft out there by some random dude in the proverbial Mom’s basement, there’s guys like Mel Kiper who might be just as wrong.

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LaCanfora: NFL personnel man convinced Darrelle Revis is going back to New England

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“We did our work on him. He can still play. He can cover. He doesn’t have that long speed anymore; he’s not going to cover a No. 1 receiver deep. But he can cover in tight spaces and he has great instincts. The film is not as bad as some would have you believe. He’s a perfect fit in that quarters scheme Belichick runs, and they have the kind of safeties who can help him out, too. We’re convinced he’s going back to New England. It just makes too much sense.”

Source: NFL personnel man: We’re convinced Darrelle Revis is going back to New England – CBSSports.com

Interesting. I still don’t really see it but let’s play along and figure out how Revis might fit in if he were to come back.

First, who knows what’s going to happen with Malcolm Butler. The Patriots hold all the cards and the only way they trade him to the Saints is if they get a boatload of draft capital. As I speculated last week, Belichick might just be letting the Saints to the dirty negotiating work, and if they come to a acceptable offer for Butler who’s to say the Pats won’t just take their cap space and take the chance to match the deal and lock up Butler long term like we all hoped they would do all along?

But for our purposes here let’s just assume Butler gets traded to the Saints. That leaves the Pats with five corners — Stephon Gilmore is the best guy, Eric Rowe came on late last year but was still brought in as the third corner and played outside while starter Logan Ryan shifted inside to the slot.

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Linkage: The MMQB Podcast with Tom Brady

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Download past episodes or subscribe to future episodes of Peter King, The MMQB Podcast by Sports Illustrated for free.

Source: Peter King, The MMQB Podcast by Sports Illustrated on iTunes

It isn’t often you get an in-depth breakdown from Brady about much of anything, much less one of his epic performances, but here it is. Fascinating to hear Brady’s perspective on one of the craziest comebacks we’ve ever seen.

Just hearing him talk football like this was awesome.

One of the most interesting points by Brady is how in every Super Bowl he’s played the defenses have had trouble stopping the offenses at the end. Never really put that together before but it’s so true.

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