PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

A PatsProp Ninkovich Retrospective

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Rob Ninkovich came along roughly the same time this blog really kicked into high gear and thus I felt really attached to him and his incredible emergence. As I’ve written many times, what interested me most in the early days of PatsProp was the defensive rebuild that occurred in 2009, the year Nink arrived.

No one embodied the Patriots rebuild more than Nink and when we talk about Belichick rebuilding the defense from scratch to win two more Super Bowls, Ninkovich will be exhibit A of how they did it.

2009 was the year that the Patriots lost Bruschi, Harrrison, Vrabel and Seymour and began laying the groundwork for a defense that would make critical plays to win Super Bowls just a few years down the road. That leadership void needed to be filled and who better to fill it than a free agent long snapper? It’s so Belichick it hurts.

But it wasn’t an easy progression. The 2010 and 2011 Patriots defenses ranked 21st and 30th respectively in Football Outsiders’ DVOA efficiency ratings, the worst and t-3rd worst under Belichick. From those ashes only a couple players survived to become building blocks, none more impressive than Ninkovich.

The comparisons to the previous #50 Mike Vrabel are apt. Ninkovich was a castoff on his last chance who turned that chance into two Super Bowl trophies.

I thought a fun way to look back would be to pull my commentary from the early days of the blog, to track Ninkovich’s progress through the eyes of your faithful blogger. I was always one who believed in Ninkovich, even if I called him Ninkopoop, which was a term of endearment.

Let’s take a look back, and if you’d like to see all the Ninkovich posts from the old blog, including media and lots of quotes from coaching and analysts about him you can CLICK HERE.

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Patriots Sunday Practice Report

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It was a surreal day to say the least. It was my first time as a credentialed member of the media so I got an up close look at practice, but it also just happened to be the day Rob Ninkovich, a longtime favorite of the blog, announced his retirement.

My head was spinning, between meeting some of the Patriots writers I’ve followed and tweeted with for so long to then suddenly sitting in the press conference room surrounded by the team as Ninkovich hung them up, it was an awesome day and one I won’t soon forget.

But ultimately I was there to finally get an up close look at some football and that’s what this was all about. I even bought some binoculars as I learned are a must-have for these kind of practices where the team can often be all the way across the field working behind a wall of players. Hard to see it all, but I still saw plenty.

Let’s start with some officially credentialed observations from practice.

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Patriots Training Camp Practice #3 Tweets of Note

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Sounds like it was a quiet practice after expectations were high for the first day of pads. Hopefully that means tomorrow, when your faithful blogger will be credentialed, will be a really up tempo and physical practice. That’s the kind of practice I’d love to get a close look at.

In the meantime here are some tweets that stood out to me from today.

 

Again, hopefully just setting the stage for things to go down tomorrow.

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Pats Posits: Padurday

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Two days of practice down and I caught glimpses of both of them, but today training camp gets real in full pads. I’m looking forward to getting an uninterrupted look at team on Sunday, but will likely roll through Saturday to at least hear the crack of some pads.

Belichick had a classic presser today. Just look at some of his savagery:

You know, you guys are asking a lot of questions about what have we seen from ‘this’ guy, what are we seeing from ‘that’ guy. We’ve yet to put on pads, alright? I understand that this is a pretty talented group of evaluators in this room, but in all honesty our evaluations come more in training camp when we actually practice… So I know everybody’s all excited when a guy catches a pass, but when the defense doesn’t jam him or their not allowed to really, because we don’t want heavy contact out there, aren’t competing for contact at the end of the play then it’s not quite the same as when all of that’s going on… The competitive level out there is not what it’s going to be starting tomorrow, so to evaluate players competitively when they’re not on a competitive level, I have a hard time with. But I know a lot of the people are real good at that and they can make a lot more out of it than I can, but due to my personal limitations and my personal inability to make those evaluations, I don’t make them.

Fire.

What I find most interesting at this point is who’s out there when and getting a better sense of how the depth chart has settled after an offseason of work.

Some notes on that:

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The Patriots Aren’t Going Undefeated…and that’s okay.

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Great day at camp yesterday and the excitement for the 2017 season was palpable. No visit to Gillette today for me, but I’ll have the old “Tweets of Note” later this morning to keep us all in the loop of what went down. I am planning on a fan visit tomorrow and the Sunday I’ll be attending practice as a credentialed member of the media (gulp).

I had to take this morning wake up call to briefly comment on all the 19-0 talk that has been the latest fad in Patriots media coverage because if there’s one thing 2007 taught us, losses are often necessary and can be a good thing.

The 2007 team really should’ve lost at least two games — one to the Ravens and one to the Eagles. They were far from their dominant selves for most of those contests, only putting together enough plays and benefitting off a Ravens meltdown, to miraculously pull off both.

In hindsight a loss in one or both of those games would’ve taken off enormous pressure. By the time the Pats got to Super Bowl 42 they were limping. Their practices in Arizona were terrible and they were a shell of the dominant team that we saw in September and October.

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Patriots Training Camp Day One Report

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Just got back from Gillette where the first day of Patriots training camp was PACKED. Yes, we all know how popular the Pats are and that they’re just coming off a Super Bowl win, but it’s still shocking to see just how many people pack the practice fields to catch a glimpse of the team as they open training camp.

At one point they opened up the ramps that run up the side of the stadium to give the excess number of fans another way to get a view of the field.

Today I was there with my two kiddos, their first experience getting to see the Patriots firsthand. So while I was able to watch some good chunks of practice, there was plenty of time spent away from the fields, doing all the great activities that the team has set up for families visiting — jumpers, football throws and kick stations, plenty of food and all kinds of great Patriots stuff on display. Stay tuned for a video coming later documenting it all.

In the meantime here are my limited observations from day one of camp.

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5 Most Intriguing Patriots of Training Camp

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-JomKcygQ0&t=91s

I drove by Gillette this morning and the excitement in the car was palpable. Inside the stadium, I imagined the Patriots’ rookies getting thrown into the deep end of the NFL training camp pool, preparing for their conditioning tests and the month-long grind upon which they’re about to embark.

The Patriots entered this offseason with a huge amount of cap space, so we knew there were going to be significant additions and extension and the team did not disappoint. For a team that just won the Super Bowl, their offseason looked far more like one of the offseasons where they had fallen just short of the ultimate prize.

So it’s difficult to pin down which players I’m most excited to see. I mean, if I don’t write Tom Brady here is it sacrilegious? Because of course I’m excited to see him, as well as Gronk back out there with a “healthy” back and all the rest of the players who we’ve grown to love in recent years.

This list of most intriguing

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