o-line

Pats are ranked number one here, and I love how they’re pointing out Cannon’s potential at guard.

The 49ers are better in run blocking, but New England gets a big enough edge in the pass-blocking phase to put position coach Dante Scarnecchia’s unit over the top. Despite ranking fourth in the league in pass attempts last season, the Patriots allowed the fifth fewest sacks in football. Pass pro is pretty important in an increasingly pass-first NFL. The Pats didn’t lose any key line members and could receive a youthful, physical injection if 2011 fifth-round steal Cannon unseats incumbent right guard Connolly. Cannon is a nimble 6-foot-5 and 360 pounds. Solder and Vollmer were both top-17 offensive tackles in Pro Football Focus’ 2012 ratings, while Wendell was a top-five center. Mankins, 31, is gunning for his fifth consecutive Pro Bowl berth.

Interesting read about how the Pats o-line struggled to generate any push up front in the run game. The pass protection has been generally graded out as solid, but this shows where the problems are…

The biggest problem by far for New England’s running game was their inability to knock anyone off the ball. It isn’t that they gave up a lot of penetration, because, with the exception of a couple memorable third-down failures, they didn’t. It’s just that they weren’t moving any defenders off their spots. The Cardinals were in a 2-4-5 alignment for a large portion of the game. The only two defensive linemen Arizona had in this set were Calais Campbell and Darnell Dockett. Whichever one of them was on the play side got double-teamed on just about every running play. Despite a 2-on-1 advantage, the Patriots were unable to budge either Campbell or Dockett for most of the game. Left guard Logan Mankins in particular struggled to generate any type of movement.