PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

I’m really excited about the defense this year. A hopefully healthy Mayo, Easley, Jones and Hightower. Sheard, Nink, Collins, DMac, Chung. Dennard, Butler, Ryan all have another year in. Fletcher isnt as bad as they make it sound I think. I think if not for last years D with Revis and Browner, more people would be excited. We could actually have a good pass rush AND decent coverage! What do you think?

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Look it’s hard to be as excited as I was last year when we had the best corner in the game on the roster, but that said, there are always things to be excited about and it will be even more so after the draft.

The aspects I’m most curious about is how the front evolves with Wilfork no longer in the fold and how the coverage in the secondary changes. They’ve got an entire offseason to process how they want to do things without Wilfork. It’s something not really being talked about because Wilfork gave them so much flexibility. Now, even if they take someone like Eddie Goldman, it will have to be done with more of a rotation. Can they still play a mix of two-gapping and single-gapping?

It seems a safe assumption that there will be less Cover 1 Robber, last year’s early down coverage of choice, and a shift to more Cover 2 (man and zone) and Cover 3. 

How will that play out at safety? Will it be Harmon in Cover 2 and Chung in Cover 3? That’s a little too predictable for the Patriots.

Ultimately the most important thing is the front seven taking a big step forward and I hope that guys like Easley, Chandler and Sheard, along with Hightower playing with more flexibility because Mayo is back, lead the way.

Mike, I’ve read your big board, but if Cam Erving, Eddie Goldman, Byron Jones, and Eli Harold are there at pick 32, who’re you going with and why? Feel like you might not go in order they are on your big board.

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It would be down to Erving and Goldman and I’d probably go Erving. Why? There’s literally no starting guards on the roster. Wendell way exceeded expectations last year, but I still see him as a stopgap. And Connolly is still out there. So give me a guy who could possibly play every single spot on the line. Re-sign Connolly and the put Erving as a Day 1 starter at RG and I think we’d be okay.

I love Goldman, but at least there are some interesting other options at DT already on the roster. If I was allowing my heart to make the pick though, I’d probably go with Goldman.

The one argument that could be made is that there are some decent guard options down the board with less drop off from Erving that the defensive tackles will drop off from Goldman. So I don’t know, it’s a tough call. The Pats would probably trade down regardless.

why do the patriots end up playing the giants in the preseason so often? would you look forward to joint practices with the packers?

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I think it’s just a proximity thing as they’re close but also not in the same conference. Last thing teams want to be doing is flying all over the country for an essentially meaningless final game of the preseason.

Any kind of joint practices are going to be great. I think that’s the way the NFL will head eventually, cutting back to two preseason games but with a couple weeks of joint practices sprinkled in to make up the difference. 

That’s probably one part of how they’ll get to 18 games, along with some roster expansion so you don’t have to trim your team down to the bare 53-man team.