An Independent Patriots Blog
The owners and players are now fighting major battles on four legal fronts in three federal courthouses and two offices of the National Labor Relations Board, and they’re using at least two dozen top-of-the-line lawyers from eight of America’s most expensive law firms.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/the-owners-and-players-are-now-fighting-major/
Great stuff here and here from Tom E. Curran over the past couple days and it looks like there will be even more coming. Here are some of Cosell’s most interesting Patriots observations:
On Brandon Tate
GC: Very often, the way players are used tells you how a coaching staff feels about them. The way the Patriots use Brandon Tate tells that they don’t think much of him at this point. He runs about three routes and the only time the ball comes to him is when a play is specifically called for him. In terms of physical ability, he’s very good. If you look at the skill set of a wideout, he has it. He’s big, he runs well, he’s got good lateral quickness. But in taking the spot of Randy Moss, he was stepping in for someone who was as good a vertical receiver as we’ve ever seen. Tate has vertical skills but not Randy Moss vertical skills and that’s why coverage was different for Tate after Moss left. I also think Tate’s hands can be erratic That can’t happen with the few plays they run for him. They just don’t feel he was ready last year. And he’s the kind of guy getting killed by the work stoppage. He really needed this offseason.
Two things to add here… Randy Moss was really only running one route at the end of his Patriots tenure, and Tate should clearly benefit from having a year in the system. Still Cosell is right, the lockout is killing guys like him and Taylor Price.
GC: “Reading the defense before the snap is critical for all quarterbacks. Tom Brady, (Peyton) Manning, (Drew) Brees and (Aaron) Rodgers are the best in football at deciphering the personnel packages and the favorable matchups that are there to take advantage of. The magic with Brady happens before the ball is snapped. With all the Patriots’ personnel packages and multi-dimensional tight ends, it makes it difficult for a defense. It makes them declare their personnel and their coverages and when they declare, that’s when quarterbacks like Brady have the advantage."
On Presnap Reads of Tom Brady
GC: "Reading the defense before the snap is critical for all quarterbacks. Tom Brady, (Peyton) Manning, (Drew) Brees and (Aaron) Rodgers are the best in football at deciphering the personnel packages and the favorable matchups that are there to take advantage of. The magic with Brady happens before the ball is snapped. With all the Patriots’ personnel packages and multi-dimensional tight ends, it makes it difficult for a defense. It makes them declare their personnel and their coverages and when they declare, that’s when quarterbacks like Brady have the advantage."
Maybe it’s just my lockout depression but I’m having a hard time really caring about the Pats all working out together. I think the Patriots are arguably the best prepared team to deal with a prolonged lockout especially if games are missed.
There aren’t major free agency questions, they have a coaching staff and systems that have long been in place, and they really shouldn’t have to be overly reliant on rookies.
So they’re working out together. Great. A good bunch of them have been working out together all off-season. Brady’s there now, that’s good for the young guys, but most of the team are self-starters anyways so I’m sure one way or another everyone has been working out, staying in shape, and doing their best to stay football sharp.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to know they’re all together and building some team camaraderie. But I’m not one of those people clamoring for them to make a media spectacle of it, or have t-shirts made or any of that stuff like a certain other team.
The best news to come out of today is:
There are between 40-60 players in attendance, including several rookies (Nate Solder, Ras-I Dowling, Shane Vereen and Ryan Mallett).
It appears just about every starter is in attendance, including Wes Welker, Deion Branch, Jerod Mayo, Devin McCourty, Rob Gronkowski, Patrick Chung, BenJarvus Green-Ellis.
Also of note: Ty Warren, Mike Wright and Aaron Hernandez are working out. Warren and Wright ended the season on the disabled list, and Hernandez had post-season hip surgery. This is the first group football activity for them in some time.
Having those injured guys back out there is really good to hear, especially in Wright’s case since most people fail to acknowledge him at all when they get into the “Patriots pass rush sucks” observations. Would be nice to know if Myron Pryor was back yet for the same reasons.
I’m sure this will be the talk of all things Patriots on the internet for the next couple days. Hopefully we hear more about the formerly-injured and rookies that were in attendance. Otherwise, it’s like mini-camp without pictures which is hard for me to get too pumped up about, because who knows when football will even start for real.
So what does a quarterback need to play in [the Erhardt-Perkins] offense? Not very much. The quarterback needs to possess only limited ability: good football smarts, short to medium passing accuracy, an arm good enough to make the deep ball a possibility, and a good play action fake. Brady fits this mold perfectly and plays as one would expect a quarterback who fits a system perfectly to perform.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/so-what-does-a-quarterback-need-to-play-in-the/
Air Erhardt continues to evolve in mid-90s Pittsburgh
One of the more interesting things about the Erhardt-Perkins offense is that it was really born out of a smash mouth football, but as the NFL evolved so did Erhardt. This article talks about the evolution of the offense to rely more on the pass to move the ball.
“What you do is try to adjust to your personnel. My philosophy is you pass to score touchdowns, but you run to win. That hasn’t changed. We’ve passed it a little more, but we still led the league in time of possession.”
While the core concept of the offense remains the same there is far greater use of the short passing game to keep the chains moving now than when the offense was first conceived. As always, football schemes are constantly being tweaked to stay on top of the latest innovations in the game.
Air Erhardt Offense born with 1990 Giants
Good read here, and a real benchmark kind of a moment not only for the Erhardt-Perkins offense but surely for Bill Belichick who was on the Giants when this evolution happened.
With tough run defenses like the Bears and 49ers the Giants were forced to alter their smash mouth approach by opening up the passing game enough to keep the defenses spread out and on their toes. This was really one of the major steps toward the modern Patriots offense which will employ spread looks but is unafraid to run out of them, or utilize a horizontal attack.
Ultimately one of the core values of the offense always remains “maximizing the time of possession”. That takes greater value than necessarily just being “smash mouth”.
“Any offensive coach would like to throw the ball,” Erhardt said. “But as you change people, you do different things to win. Bill keeps saying we’re not in the entertainment business; we’re here to win.” Robinson said it was a Catch-22 situation. “I think any of us is capable,” said the sixth-year receiver. “But are we a big-play offense? We haven’t opened up because we haven’t anyone to open up to. But can we have someone like that if we don’t open up?
Patriots offensive snag concept
Interesting playbook breakdown of the “snag” concept.
