PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

offensive line

The Redemption of the 2017 Offensive Line

by

The Patriots made a statement Sunday night, dominating the Atlanta Falcons to the tune of a 23-7 blowout in which Atlanta’s lone score occurred with just 4:09 left to play in the game. While the defensive effort made most headlines, it was the unheralded work of perhaps the Patriots most important unit, the offensive line, that deserves their share of the credit for the victory.

After the Tampa Bay game, I wrote about the Patriots offensive line struggles and the essential nature of protecting Brady, and it is clear that they red what I wrote, because we have seen a marked improvement from the unit in the two games since. In the first five games, Brady was sacked 16 times, which already eclipsed his sack total from last season ( just 15). The offensive line conceded three sacks Week 1, two Week 2, five Week 3, three Week 4, and three Week 5, good for an average of 3.2 sacks allowed, and 3.4 quarterbacks hits allowed, in that span. After Week 5, the Patriots were on pace to allow 51 sacks on the season, which would set a record for total sacks in a season with Brady under center.

However, in the past two weeks, we have witnessed a profound rise in the performance of the offensive line, led by the interior line, particularly center David Andrews (Pro Football Focus’s 3rd ranked center) and guard Shaq Mason (Pro Football Focus’s 5th ranked guard). Against the Jets last week, the Patriots did not yield a sack for the first time all year, and in Sunday’s contest with the Falcons, the Patriots did not allow a quarterback hit, also for the first time all year. Brady was sacked twice Sunday night, but one can be attributed to a communication breakdown between Brady and his line, not an offensive lineman being beat by a rusher.

[Read more…] about The Redemption of the 2017 Offensive Line

Breaking Down Pats O-Line Struggles vs. Tampa Bay

by

Despite being the first team in NFL history to allow five straight 300 yard passers in a single season, the New England Patriots defense looked immensely better Thursday night in Tampa, grinding out a 19-14 victory thanks in large part to the woes of Nick Folk. The defense, despite coming in to Thursday’s game ranking last in the NFL in points allowed and yards allowed, showed signs of improvement, and in my mind, the defense is not the unit that could cost the Patriots the shot at a return trip to the Super Bowl.

To me, the struggles of the offensive line thus far have been far more concerning than the defensive woes, because New England returns the exact same starting group as 2016, a year in which Brady was only sacked 15 times (in just 12 games), yet he has been sacked 16 times already in just five games. Brady has been hit 32 times, meaning he has been hit on 17% of his drop backs this year, a rate that is certainly not ideal for the 40-year old quarterback. Despite Brady’s seemingly impenetrable youth, it is now more important than ever to protect him, and the offensive line needs to do its job and step it up.

And it’s not like Brady needs a ton of time too; on Thursday night, when he released the ball in under 2.6 seconds (13 attempts), Brady’s quarterback rating was 116, and his adjusted completion percentage was 92.3%, meaning all Brady needs is roughly 3 seconds in order to be successful, yet the offensive line isn’t even giving him that.

[Read more…] about Breaking Down Pats O-Line Struggles vs. Tampa Bay

Patriots Offensive Line Review: Week 1

by

The worst thing that could have happened prior to playing week one was an injury of any type to Nate Solder. The $6 million dollar left tackle was unavailable due to a suspected hamstring injury. This unforeseen situation would mean that several young offensive lineman would be called upon to perform well immediately against the Cardinals. Sebastian Vollmer is likely out of the season and it appears that Belichick will ride out the year with Waddle and Fleming as his depth tackles.

It certainly didn’t appear that the outlook was promising for the Patriots in pregame. News broke that Rob Gronkowski would not play Sunday. His skills as a blocker would be sorely missed, especially with a new quarterback under center. Shaq Mason had a broken hand but played with a club. This is certainly a testament to his toughness as a player.

Snaps

There would be a total of 71 offensive snaps in the unbelievable victory against Arizona. Four lineman stepped up and played every single down week one: Cam Fleming, Joe Thuney, David Andrews, and Marcus Cannon. Rookie Ted Karras and Shaq Mason saw less reps in the game. Karras totaled 57 plays and Mason 14.

The Patriots pulled it off with a solid performance from their offensive line. Fleming, Thuney, and Karras have never seen/had limited NFL reps. Shaq Mason and David Andrews are both second year players. The only veteran on the line was last season’s biggest disappointment in the trenches: Marcus Cannon.

The concern before this past game centered around giving the rookie quarterback an early boost of confidence. Belichick kept the pocket moving through play action and a variety of misdirection plays centered around Julian Edelman. This helped to keep the edge rushers honest and eliminated some of the pocket pressure. They also lined up in heavy sets and ran the ball consistently to keep Arizona honest. This opened up longer plays downfield like the 37 yard heave to Chris Hogan.

[Read more…] about Patriots Offensive Line Review: Week 1

A Look Back at the Patriots Silent Snap

by

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.

Patriots Will Let Scarnecchia Develop the Offensive Line, Not Buy Him a New One

by

One thing is for certain, when a season doesn’t end with a Super Bowl victory the specifics of the playoff loss are dissected and whatever went wrong in that one particular game becomes the offseason’s object of focus. This year it’s obviously the offensive line, but don’t expect the Patriots to suddenly blow everything up because Von Miller and his Broncos pals blew up our pass protection.

Brian Waters might be the only significant free agent offensive linemen Bill Belichick has ever added. Even then Waters wasn’t signed until September, just days before the start of the season. Otherwise, the Patriots offensive line has always been a combination of draft picks and street free agents who were developed over time. Some of their best success stories were guys like Stephen Neal, Dan Connolly and Ryan Wendell who were molded from scratch.

Now, with the return of Dante Scarnecchia, it’s even less likely for the Pats to depart from their methodology for building an offensive line. Scarnecchia’s fondness for Marcus Cannon also makes it less likely the Pats cut ties with him. Cannon is everyone’s favorite scapegoat, but even he worked through injuries this year and really, how many right tackles out there could’ve handled Von Miller during this playoff run?

Over the 16 seasons of the Bill Belichick Patriots there have been plenty of angst about the offensive line at times, but that’s just football. Nothing breaks down an offense faster than when the line is out of sync. More often than not the Pats always have pulled it together. The rotation of the last couple season has made it harder and perhaps with the departure of Dave DeGuglielmo, we’ll no longer see that kind of player management.

But if you forget how the season ended, you can see that the Pats now have a very promising group of young interior linemen, an area they were completely deficient in just a couple seasons ago. Shaq Mason and Tre’ Jackson showed excellent development over their rookie seasons and both could be full time starters in 2016. Meanwhile the Pats have two promising young centers in Bryan Stork and David Andrews. They’ll likely go head-to-head for the starting spot in training camp in an interesting roster battle.

Outside at tackle is where the Pats could bring in some help, but I can’t see them springing for an expensive free agent like Mitchell Schwartz, it’s just never been their style, especially when they’re already paying Nate Solder, Sebastian Vollmer and Marcus Cannon over $21 million combined.

Sebastian Vollmer is getting close to the end, but back at right tackle, where his fading mobility is easier to mask, he should have another very good season in him. With Scarnecchia back and a return to full health, Cannon should be just fine in his third tackle role. Let’s not forget Cannon was extremely solid filling in full time at right tackle for Vollmer. He has it in him and he has experience. You can’t just cut those kind of guys, plug in a more expensive free agent and count on better results.

Tackle should be a draft priority and one I’d consider with the highest picks the Pats have. The key missing ingredient to the Solder-Vollmer-Cannon-Fleming group is athleticism. Solder certainly has it, but the others don’t, and let’s face it, the differences between the left and right side have been diminishing for years. An athletic swing tackle who can play either side with good feet and mobility to get into space would only help what the Patriots do best. Drafting a tackle now, as Vollmer and Cannon enter the final years of their deals is also very much in line with how the Patriots build their team with an eye to the future.

Despite the season-ender, the Pats are in relatively good shape along the offensive line. The key is Solder’s return and reinforcing the tackle spot with an eye to the future. But as far as the 2016 season goes, don’t expect any monumental shifts, especially via free agency.

by

A lot is being made in New England of Bill Belichick’s strategy to use multiple offensive linemen early in the season. Most of it has to do with getting the two rookie guards, Shaq Mason and Tre’ Jackson, some much-needed reps. Actually, coaches have been crazier in their NFL rotations. With the Buccaneers, starting in 1992, line coach Bob Wylie used two totally different line shifts to keep his players fresh in the Florida heat. “We actually used a platoon back at Holy Cross,” says Wylie, who coached there in the 1980s and was in the NFL for 15 years before landing in the CFL with Winnipeg. “With Tampa, the other teams would be struggling with the heat, and our guys would be fresh in the fourth quarter. Good to see somebody brought it back.”

NFL Week 4: Coaches discuss the state of O-line play – NFL – SI.com

Interesting nugget from Bedard and it features a shoutout to my alma mater Holy Cross!

https://www.patspropaganda.com/a-lot-is-being-made-in-new-england-of-bill/