patrick chung

BREAKING – Key Patriots Opt-Outs To Return For 2021 Season

February 26, 2021 by Tom Shaw-Mellors

So, we some Patriots news finally! – There were rumblings that some of the team’s opt-outs could return when it was teased it a few weeks ago, but now per a report from Rapsheet, the Pats are expecting some influential players to play in 2021.

Free agency hasn’t started, but the #Patriots are already getting some reinforcements. Their key opt-outs from 2020 — including LB Dont'a Hightower, S Patrick Chung, and OT Marcus Cannon — are planning to be back for 2021, sources say. Physically, all are in a good place.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) February 26, 2021

Out of the names reported, Dont’a Hightower, Pat Chung, and Marcus Cannon are set to return and are expected to be in good shape physically.

Hightower is the main one for me here, given the lack of depth at the linebacker position for the entirety of this past season. I’m excited about High’s return, he’s been greatly missed.

Chung will return to add to an already solid safeties group with Devin McCourty, Kyle Dugger, and Adrian Phillips being the notable names Chung will link up at camp.

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Film Review: Pats Defense All In Sync vs. Vikings

December 4, 2018 by Mike Dussault

The Patriots defense didn’t quite turn in the near-perfect performance that I saw against Miami earlier in the year, but they were pretty close against the Vikings. Despite their road inconsistencies, no one can argue this isn’t a top-10 defense at home.

The addition of some murkiness to the third-and-longs was fun to see, as was some aggressive strategy (Cover 0 blitz!?), but those twists aren’t really what defines why these Patriots are good. They’re good because they’re once again fundamentally sound and all playing in sync. A defense that doesn’t give up big plays and doesn’t beat itself is hard to score more than 20 points. On this day they held Minnesota to just 10.

Now that we’re into December it’s not too much to expect the Pats to put their days of playing down to the competition on the road behind them. That starts with the defense, who showed perfect symmetry between coverage and pass rush to negate a talented Viking offense.

Here’s a bunch of rapid-fire thoughts on what I saw on the All-22.

Pats Posits: Bye Week Not a Magic Elixir, But Pats Still in Playoff Bye Hunt

November 26, 2018 by Mike Dussault

On one hand, I feel like this weekend’s win over the Jets just reinforced what I’m already sure about with the 2018 Patriots, that with Sony Michel going they’re a very good offense. Without him, they’re up and down, and the struggles on third down are very real. Defensively, they’re up and down as well, but technically sound enough to take down an offense like the one the Jets rolled out there. Can they do it against a great offense on the road? Sunday did nothing to alleviate the concerns there, because it was Josh McCown and not some dual-threat quarterback they can expect to see in the playoffs.

But on the other hand, how much of this game was a traditional Jets struggle? How much were the penalties the Pats’ sloppiness compared to the flag-happy refs that call more penalties than anyone? How much was bye week rust? We can sweep this one under the rug, but there will be nowhere to hide on the road in Miami and Pittsburgh.

This sure didn’t feel like the reset button win we hoped would come post-bye, but it was still a solid victory. It might not have allayed my fears about what this editions weaknesses are, but it showed that even if they’re not perfect, the Patriots are still a very solid football team that will give any team problems.

Pats Posits: Maybe the Pats are Just Bored

November 19, 2018 by Mike Dussault

It was nice to get a chance to catch our breath over the bye week and enjoy some non-Pats-stressed football. What seems clear is that the parity of last season has extended into 2018. It’s good for the league that so many games were close with the exception of just a couple blowouts which please the fantasy crowd.

After the Chiefs, Saints and Rams it’s a whole lot of up and down teams that could win or lose on any given Sunday. The Pats are definitely in that lower tier but part of me has to wonder if maybe the Patriots Football Machine is just having a little trouble getting up for non-big games. Especially on the road. At home against good teams, the Patriots have looked like one of the most solid teams in the league.

How you play on the road and against supposed inferior competition does say a lot about the complexion of your team, but I don’t know, maybe this team is just having as hard a time getting psyched up to play all our old friends at the Titans or Lions as I do. And a September Super Bowl in Florida? Whatever. Wake me up for KC, Aaron Rodgers, Big Ben and playoff games.

This is a transition year on offense and injuries have altered things a bit. Defensively, there aren’t any excuses. They’ve played pretty good at home and on the road they’ve looked like a different defense. The struggles on special teams, resulting in field position losses, have been silent killers.

We’ll get a small idea whether or not they can finally just turn it on this weekend. Yeah, the Jets have struggled but so has Buffalo and they hung with these road Pats. New England will get no credit for putting down the Jets, especially if their offense sputters again, but a solid road win to start the post-Thanksgiving push would be nice.

There’s a good team inside these 2018 Patriots, but their dueling personalities have drawn skepticism about their Super Bowl chances. All I know is they’ll keep at it, and go down swinging no matter what. It’s just what they do, even when they don’t win.

Patriots Film Review: Four Bad Plays

October 16, 2018 by Mike Dussault

As I wrote in my Posits, 28 of Kansas City’s second-half points came directly as a result of four bad Patriots plays. Overall, the Patriots did a pretty solid job for most of the night containing what is one of the best offenses in the NFL. An offense that on paper looked like it should have its way with a defense that has had second-level athleticism problems for a couple seasons now.

But overall the Patriots overcame those shortcomings with great downfield coverage and consistent disruption that muddied Patrick Mahomes‘ reads and threw his timing off. Having done these film reviews for going on five years now, I’ve had a close eye on the defense and this week’s film review only reinforced for me that I just like this defense a lot better than any of the recent editions.

I don’t want to put all the blame on Matt Patricia but things just simply look more coordinated between the front and bad. The pressure is better without heavy blitzing and the secondary seems almost always in sync. Maybe they’re just thinking less and executing faster? It looks that way to me, especially in these last three games despite some problem plays.

That said, and I hate to focus on the negative, but here’s a look at those four plays — two defensive, one offensive and one special teams that marred the Patriots victory and ultimately made it a last possession game when it didn’t even really have to be. Not to say the Pats were that much clearly better than the Chiefs, but these were the anomalies to near-perfect gameplan execution.

Can the Pats Defense Stop KC?

October 10, 2018 by Mike Dussault

If there’s one thing that was clear from the 2017 Patriots’ bookend losses to start and end the season, it’s that they lacked athleticism at the second level to counter the explosion of versatile offensive attacks. Plays like the read option, a nightmare for a slow linebacking corps, got the Patriots off balance early and opened up the playbook to a variety of other things like the Philly Special.

This offseason my biggest goal for the team was to get more athletic at linebacker. It looked unaddressed until Ja’whaun Bentley burst onto the scene, bringing some hope that the Pats finally had a second-level player who could make plays sideline-to-sideline. But alas, Bentley was lost for the season with a torn biceps, Dont’a Hightower has seemingly lost a step, and the Pats are dead in the crosshairs of an offense that has opened the season on fire, with the same defensive weaknesses they had last year.

The Chiefs have torched the Pats before, in 2014 and the 2017 opener, but with Patrick Mahomes under center they are playing at an even better level than either of those Alex Smith-led squads. They have speed, they have quickness, they have power and they have a quarterback that can not only throw the ball to any spot on the field, but one who excels making plays outside the pocket on the move.

The Chiefs pose a myriad of problems for every defense in the league and on paper, it would appear the Pats are really lacking what they need most to slow them down. But the Pats do have the pieces in front and on the back end to win this game, even if they do give up their share of plays. Spoiler alert — they will.

Here’s a pre-gameplan feel for what the Pats need to focus on to beat Kansas City.

Patriots Gameplan: Week 4 vs Miami Dolphins

September 28, 2018 by Mike Dussault

The 1-2 Patriots return to the friendly confines of Gillette Stadium after a two-game road losing streak to face the 3-0 Dolphins. The Pats last left Foxboro looking like a team mostly rejuvenated, especially on defense, but after losses in Jacksonville and Detroit the tide has turned against them. Usually, we should remain even-keeled about what happens in September but a 1-3 start would put the Pats in uncharted territory and behind the eight ball in the division for the first time in forever.

It’s been a long week of buildup as 2017 continues to get drudged up and every former Patriot free agent is now seen as the one who got away and has set the Patriots on course for demise. Still, football is a weird game. You can say the Pats lack talent, but that’s always kind of been the case. They’ve built their dynasty by believing in the system and everyone doing their job. And everyone has not been doing their job.

That’s where we can find hope. That with simply better one-on-one play and tackling things can turn around quickly and a team that looks like it might be falling apart can return to playing winning football.

The Dolphins have a huge opportunity. The Pats are on the ropes and a win for Miami would put them firmly in the driver’s seat in the division, especially since they haven’t won at Gillette since 2008’s wildcat game. They’ve won five times against the Pats in Miami since then which would make the rematch in December all the more exciting no matter what happens between now and then.

Miami has played good football and deserves their 3-0 record, but the Pats have a way of busting out their best football when their backs are against the wall. It’s hard to remember a time when they were more backed into a corner than right now and I’m sure we’ve all been itching to see them get back on the field.

What do the Pats have to do to turn their season around and avoid a disastrous start? Here’s the gameplan.