PatsPropaganda

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Roundtable

Behind Enemy Lines with Adam Crowley of ESPN Pittsburgh

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Thursday morning, I had an outstanding phone call with Adam Crowley (@_adamcrowley) of ESPN Radio in Pittsburgh to preview the upcoming playoff match. Adam is a Pittsburgh native and hosts “Locked on Steelers” and also covers the Penguins for ESPN’s iHeartMedia Radio cluster. Adam is a smart guy with lots of knowledge on the team so I figured he’d be the perfect guy to go to for an inside look on this playoff team. Below is the transcription of our conversation where we talk about the Steelers players you haven’t heard of before but should know, Tedy Bruschi, Steelers red zone percentages, ridiculous Le’Veon Bell stats, and the similarities between Marty Bennet and Big Ben.

ADAM MAGNACCA: So we all know about Big Ben, Le’Veon Bell, and Antonio Brown, but give us some background on some other weapons on the Pittsburgh offense and who you think the #4 guy is.

ADAM CROWLEY: Yeah that’s interesting, if Ladarius Green is healthy, it’s certainly him. He’s a big play guy, he’s got height, he’s got speed, and he’s deceptively fast. you watch him running down the football field and it doesn’t look like he’s going all that quickly, but he’s got long legs. He’s able to go up and make combatted catches and is a big time red zone target. We’ll find out as the week progresses whether or not he’ll be able to go in this game on Sunday. If I’m a Steelers fan I wouldn’t be optimistic that it would happen. We’ve seen this before, he did practice in a limited capacity and if he were able to go he’d be a big time weapon for the Steelers offense. If not him, I really think its a committee. The Steelers don’t really have another option other than Bell and Brown who is going to terrify New England, but they guys who can get it done. Eli Rogers is productive out of the slot. Really good football player, shifty after the catch, as is Demarcus Ayres, who is very similar. One of the PR/KR guys as a 7th round draft pick for the Steelers this year out of Houston. He’s a guy that can make you miss in the open field. Cobi Hamilton is a guy who can be utilized in the red zone, can get down the field sometimes on the deep route. He has made some clutch catches for the team this year as has Jesse James, the other Steelers TE who has filled in admirably for Ladarius Green since he went down. Darrius Heyward-Bey is the guy who can be used to stretch the field. Same thing with Sammie Coates although he hasn’t been used since the early part of the season because of injuries and some inconsistencies with him. So the Steelers really don’t have an elite weapon after Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown except for Ladarius Green and he very well might not play on Sunday.

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Pats-Jets Q&A with Turn on the Jets

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tom brady

Happy Thanksgiving! In the spirit of the day I’ve joined forces with a rival blogger once again to get some intel on the enemy!

It may be hard to believe but one of my favorite football bloggers out there is Joe Caporoso who runs TurnontheJets.com. Joe writes his site the same way I try to write mine, with level-headed and insightful analysis, so over the years we’ve enjoyed trading emails talking football. No, it’s not just a “you suck. no, you suck” marathon, and hopefully you can glean some insight into the game this weekend from someone who follows the Jets as closely as yours truly follows the Pats.

Here’s our back-and-forth for this weekend!

MD: What’s gone wrong with the Jets this year? Even I am shocked (and yes, a bit dismayed) that they’ve fallen apart and now I’m seeing calls for Bowles to be fired. How did it come to this so quickly?
 
JC: To start, they have the worst quarterback in the NFL by a decent sized margin. It is hard to appreciate just how bad Ryan Fitzpatrick has been without watching him week to week but it has been ugly. The Jets are basically starting every game with an anchor tied to their foot at the bottom of a lake with him under center. Outside of that, they have had severe regression in key areas like redzone efficiency and turnover margin coupled with player regression from Darrelle Revis, Calvin Pryor, Brandon Marshall and Marcus Gilchrist among others. So basically, everything is broken. Bowles is becoming the primary scapegoat because he’s been bad this year but few people want to dig deeper into the larger problems with this roster.

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Patriots Season Kickoff Contributor Roundtable

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With the season opener in Arizona quickly coming upon us, we took a moment with a few of the PatsPropaganda contributors to reflect upon training camp and get some generally feelings about the Patriots heading into the 2016 campaign.

Here’s what everyone had to say.

What was your biggest surprise of training camp?

Niko Davos: Cruel surprise? The extent of Sebastian Vollmer’s hip injury, which is expected to end his 2016-2017 campaign before it started. On a related note, however, the most pleasant surprise was the play of his replacement, Marcus Cannon. Cannon looked good throughout camp and preseason, and it would be a major factor if he could continue to play at this level into the regular season and beyond.

Adam Magnacca: I’m thrilled that all of the surprises this camp were good ones but I definitely wasn’t expecting Joe Thuney come in from Day 1 and lock down the LG position. I thought he was gonna come in and be a good to great backup on the interior of the line but boy did he prove me wrong. The more I learn about him the more I wanna grab a beer with him. But more importantly, I want him to play out of his mind this year and I have a good feeling about that position for the next 10 years.  *Honorable Mention: I loved watching Jacoby Brissett playing. I think if he keeps improving he could turn into a great Roethlisberger type player. I’m excited about his development. 

Rick Starke: I had Bryan Stork as a starter at guard in my preseason offensive line projection, so to go from “penciled in starter” to “total free agent, picked up by nobody” is kind of a big surprise, especially considering the calming influence he had on the line in 2014, and that he started at center, guard, and tackle last year.

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