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Stork, Washington Latest Patriots Casualties

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Significant news this morning as the Patriots released (PM update: traded to Redskins) Bryan Stork, their third-year center who started Super Bowl 49 for them. I can’t say this is a total surprise, as earlier this week I projected Stork to be cut with David Andrews winning the starting center job. This was one of the most interesting starter battles in training camp.

Stork showed a lot of promise as a rookie, but has had four concussions (at least) in his first two years. He was also a little unpredictable, taking a unnecessary swing at one of the Bears last week in joint practices and getting kicked out of practice. When the Patriots jettisoned Logan Mankins, Stork brought hope that another bearded mauler would rise from the ashes. In 2014, he largely lived up to that.

But ultimately Andrews was just the more steady of the two, staying healthy and under control. Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald also reported that Andrews was Brady’s favorite of the two. So now the job is Andrews, and he’ll be backed up by Josh Kline and perhaps rookie Ted Karras who has also taken snaps at center.

The Pats also cut Nate Washington, which could be packaged with the Donald Brown cut from earlier this week. Both players were the kind of free agents the Patriots give chances to, to see if maybe they can find some magic in New England near the end of the career. Neither could and both were jettisoned with enough time to potentially catch on with another team.

Things are starting to shape up as the Pats’ roster now stands at 79. They’ll have to get down to 75 on August 30th, but have some flexibility should they want to bring anyone in for a look before then.

Patriots-Saints: Offensive Line Film Review

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As part of this film review I will look at every single offensive play from the first preseason game. The ultimate goal is to highlight some of the accomplishments, failures, and features of the Patriots offensive line play during the game. We’ll also take a peek at some of the rotation details and grade their overall play.

-Joe Thuney played an outstanding game

–Nate Solder looked terrible early, improved as game went on

–Marcus Cannon was surprisingly good, one of most consistent lineman in this game. I was shocked.

–Shaq Mason looked pretty bad throughout the entire game. He wasn’t technically sound and made mental errors. Very disappointed.

-Andrews and Stork were both pretty strong. Andrews was probably slightly better.

–Josh Kline was solid playing both tackle and guard in the first preseason game

-Waddle was slightly better than Fleming, but neither were very impressive

-It’s evident that Barker feels more comfortable at guard than tackle

–Ted Karras was okay. Good to see that he can play center as well as guard.

-Not enough playing time to judge Halapio, Kerbyson, Milton.

[Read more…] about Patriots-Saints: Offensive Line Film Review

Hello Injuries: Patriots Wounded in the Trenches

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Bright Spots

The first day of camp was extra special for Patriots left tackle Nate Solder. It was the first time he was able to share a football field with his son Hudson. Both father and son have battled extensive health issues in the last year. Seeing Dad in uniform and Hudson present certainly made the first day of practice special.

Another long time Patriot reappeared out of retirement in hope of improving the offensive line. Dante Scarnecchia is back and he brings extensive coaching experience in the trenches. There will be some tight position battles and Scar will be in charge of improving the unit that protects Brady.

Rookie offensive guard Joe Thuney has come into camp and captured attention immediately.  Jeff Howe and other members of the media cited his strength engaged with defensive opponents and his finish on every play. Since Thuney is a strong fundamental offensive lineman he can potentially work on playing tackle in addition to guard. Many suspect that is already the plan.

First Impressions

The first offensive line group consisted of Solder-Thuney-Stork-Cooper-Cannon. During camp these starting groups are subject to change every day. There will be injuries and various reasons that cause the first group to fluctuate.

Joe Thuney and Jonathan Cooper are favorites to win the starting guard job according to some Patriots analysts. Sebastian Vollmer and Nate Solder as expected to return to their starting roles at tackle. The center position is up for grabs between David Andrews and Bryan Stork.

 

Tackle Health

The main positional weakness of the offensive line in 2015 still remains; it’s not injury. It’s the tackles that protect the edge of Brady’s pocket.

Nate Solder has returned to practice. Sebastian Vollmer has not. Solder tore his biceps in week five of this past year and was placed on the season ending IR. It appears that the big money tackle has recovered from his injury. Solder’s cap hit in 2016 is $10,322,666.

Sebastian Vollmer’s situation is concerning. At age 32, Vollmer has opened camp on the PUP list. If he is not activated by the end of camp, Vollmer misses the first six weeks of the season. The right tackle enters 2016 on the last year of his contract with a cap hit totaling $5,208,334. There is no heir apparent at right tackle. It is unlikely Vollmer is resigned in New England at his age.

Marcus Cannon returns after a highly criticized campaign in 2015. He was simply ineffective throughout his season. If Thuney cannot capture a starting guard role, it’s very possible that he beats out Cannon as the swing tackle.

Cameron Fleming, LaAdrian Waddle, Keavon Milton, and Kerbyson Kyler are also listed as tackles for the start of camp. Fleming and Waddle will battle on the bubble with Cannon. Fleming offers more cap flexibility than Cannon ($4,100,000 lower) and has played both sides of the line.

The Patriots will likely only keep a total of three tackles on their active roster. Solder and Vollmer are locks if healthy. The battle for third will likely feature Cannon, Waddle, and Fleming. Milton and Kyler appear to be long shots.

Strength at Center

One of the most interesting position battles of the offensive line is likely at center. Bryan Stork and David Andrews have both been outstanding in the majority of their starts. There has been mixed signals so far as to who would take over reigns when both players were healthy.

Stork’s health appears to be hindering his ability to battle for the position. Andrews returned to Patriots camp and captured the off-season conditioning award from the coaching staff. His play has also been strong since Stork dropped due to an unspecified issue or injury in an early practice.

At some point the Patriots will have to make a decision at this position. Right now it appears the goalposts are narrowing with Stork’s absence. Andrews is taking all of the work with the ones, putting in the dirty work as Stork continues to miss time.

Crowded, Injury Riddled Group of Guards

As mentioned before, Thuney and Cooper were mentioned as favorites to win a starting guard role. There are several other guards battling for the position including Shaq Mason, Tre’ Jackson, Josh Kline, Ted Karras, Chris Barker, and Jon Halapio.

Usually a team only keeps nine offensive linemen on a game day roster; right now the Patriots have nine offensive guards in camp. Thuney, Cooper, Kline, Jackson, Mason are the linemen with the highest probabilities of landing on the roster.

The hype for Jonathan Cooper would not last long. He would be carted off with a right foot injury in one of the first practices. Cooper is apparently battling plantar fasciitis. This situation may be related to his condition according to Ian Rapoport. Cooper was a high draft pick and has experienced an injury riddled and disappointing career. He was acquired in the deal that sent Chandler Jones to the Cardinals. If he cannot get back to health his career may come to a premature end.

When Cooper dropped out due to injury rookie Ted Karras was promoted to the first offensive line group. In my draft analysis Karras appeared to be a lineman who needed a season of practice squad work. He is a tough player but not yet fundamentally sound. Much like any other NFL rookie at this point.

Shaq Mason and Josh Kline have not been cleared to participate in team drills. Both are recovering from injuries from this past year. Mason battled through a knee injury in October 2015.  Kline had shoulder surgery during the off-season and Jeff Howe reported it was, “unclear when he’ll be ready to practice”. Tre’ Jackson is also still on the PUP due to injuries from last season. This leaves a total of four guards unavailable to Scarnecchia.

The Walking Wounded

When a rookie guard is your standout offensive lineman in the early days of camp it’s a testament to where the position group is as a whole. With or without Dante Scarnecchia, this group still has work to do. Kline, Mason, Jackson, Stork, Vollmer, and Cooper are not cleared as full participants for practice. This leaves two rookie guards (Thuney, Karras) playing on the first offensive line group.

Pretty much an offensive line coaches’ worst nightmare early in camp. When the group is low on bodies, more stress weighs down on the healthy players. They battle more and more in camp, and are susceptible to wear and tear.

Right now Scarnecchia is at least getting the chance to evaluate his young players. With a mass of linemen out due to injury it forces the young guys into the spotlight early in their careers. It appears Joe Thuney gets the picture. He’s played hard right through the whistle in every practice.

The Bottom Line

It’s simply too early to judge much of the play through this point in camp. Some Patriots lineman still haven’t returned from last season’s injuries.

Nate Solder appears to be the only definite starter on the offensive line. It’d be a shock if Vollmer isn’t the bookend on the right side of Brady’s pocket. Cam Fleming, Marcus Cannon, and LaAdrian Waddle battle for a third roster spot.

Guard is a mess but returning Patriots veterans should have the upper hand over Jonathan Cooper. He is already out due to injury and Josh Kline and Shaq Mason are close to returning. Rookie Ted Karras should be bumped back down in the rotation immediately. Joe Thuney has likely given himself a shot to remain with the ones due to his strong, passionate play on the line. Tre’ Jackson will also return at some point and provide further depth at the position.

It might be better for the Patriots long term if Thuney doesn’t win a starting job at guard. It would give him the opportunity to work at Tackle and potentially allow the Patriots to release Marcus Cannon. Thuney’s strong play could provide roster flexibility further down the line.

The job at center is highly contested. Right now it’s a one man job due to unspecified reasons. Bryan Stork left practice in an earlier season and hasn’t appeared since. David Andrews has been strong at center and could win the job. Stork’s injuries have begun to add up.

My early guess for the first group is Solder-Mason-Andrews-Jackson-Vollmer.

A Look Back at the Patriots Silent Snap

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When we last left our beloved Patriots, this is what we were left to chew on for 7 months:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFFZws3Apbo

Some of the plays made here can be attributed to this fact: Von Miller was the second overall pick in the draft in 2011. Many players live up to the expectations of being a high draft pick. Many other players do not. Some, like Von Miller, end up good enough that in hindsight that even using #1 overall pick seems like a steal. The interception and the open field tackles that Miller made throughout the game speak for themselves.

His major effect, though, came through rushing the passer. He appeared to be as dialed in as any single top-tier pass rusher the Patriots have ever faced in a big game…and there have been many. Dwight Freeney, Julius Peppers, Justin Tuck/Jason Pierre-Paul/Michael Strahan, Michael Bennett/Cliff Avril/Bruce Irvin, Terrell Suggs, JJ Watt, Jason Taylor…some had great games, some were completely neutralized, and again…there was Von Miller.

In the following days, several writers and radio hosts attempted figure out what went wrong (many of them simply blaming the entire game on Marcus Cannon), with the most brief but most likely accurate assessment coming from a Matt Light interview on WAAF:

“[Denver] is a horrible place to go play, especially in that circumstance,” he said. “You’ve got the best defense in the league. You’re in their place. And you don’t practice a snap count? It blows my mind that, really, the game was lost because of a snap count. I don’t think that they practiced their snap count at all, really, to any degree. We went into a game being able to snap silent count five different ways. Not two. Five. And in that game, I watched them on the snap count and I was blown away. You’re handcuffing your tackles, and that’s what happens when you don’t effectively run a silent snap count. And it was terrible to watch.”

This was regarding not just a standard snap count, but specifically, the silent snap. The silent snap is a tool for catching the defense off guard when crowd noise is a factor. The essential signal for a silent snap is typically some sort of head move by the center to alert the offense to “snap about to happen!”. If your silent snap is effective, it can do a great job to keep the offensive line in charge…if ineffective, well…scroll up. Video. Hit play again.

These revelations had fallouts on other outlets that caused the blame to be redirected to Bryan Stork, such as this video from an Inside The Pylon article:

This same snap happened multiple times, but made me wonder: Did this same snap happen in the past? As a former center myself (though never past the high school level, being 5’10 and 145lbs at age 18 has some limitations), I’ve always dialed in on movement of the offensive lines, and always thought to myself while watching Patriots games “how is nobody keying on this?”, dating back to the Dan Koppen era.

Let’s take a look back at some other Patriots away losses in big games and see what we have…

Patriots Silent Snap
Dan Koppen at center vs the Broncos in 2005. Several instances of this timing throughout the game, same “tip” as Stork was accused of.

colts 06 snap
Also Koppen, same head bob immediately before the snap. Occurs multiple times.

broncos 13 snap
This is with Ryan Wendell at center. Almost identical timing to the Stork and Koppen snaps, with a very tiny delay between head bob and snap. Perhaps enough to draw a defense offside? Perhaps what Light was referring to? Or simply an idiosyncracy of Wendell vs the other two? This snap happens on seemingly every silent snap throughout the game, and was the last game with Dante Scarnecchia as the offensive line coach…and no Von Miller, as he was injured midseason.

When you dial in on a center’s head bob at youtube quality video for a couple hours, you really start to feel like some sort of 9/11 truther, just digging for clues that don’t exist.

Hopefully, with the return of Scarnecchia and perhaps a few less injuries, we can consider this mystery solved and an offense that runs on all cylinders, with the several types of silent snaps that Light referenced.

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I love the Stork. I love the man. He’s a hard worker. He’s a grimy kind of guy, likes to get down in the trenches. And the good thing is he loves his job. He loves being the center and loves to get in there,” said Vereen. “I was talking to him and I said, ‘I’m looking forward to play with you. I’m glad you’re gonna be in there’ and he says, ‘Shane. You see this ass? Just follow it.’ You’ve got to love it.

Patriots Vereen On Bryan Stork: ‘A Grimy Guy That Loves The Trenches’ « CBS Boston

https://www.patspropaganda.com/i-love-the-stork-i-love-the-man-hes-a-hard/