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He's presented his opinion now multiple times in multiple places. Most recently, he's been on BST after the release of the schedule. Felger and others have been trying to figure out how they will get to 5 or 6 wins given their schedule. Curran was undeterred. As he sees things, the defense will have more speed and a better secondary to go with a strong pass rush. Gonzalez is the next Revis or Gilmore. BB will have so many guys that can play all over the field and so many schemes, teams will struggle to figure out what they will be doing from series to series.
I don't think this can be understated enough. The offensive play calling last year was... well... offensive.
I'm not that optimistic but NE had the second worst Net Days of Rest vs Opponent last year (-10) and Buffalo had the league's easiest Net Days of Rest (+12). This year the Pats have the toughest strength of schedule but there net days of rest is favorable (+6) while Buffalo is neutral (0). If you're big on these net rest stats, the Jets are supposed to crush it this year with the (+12) advantage Buffalo had last year.
www.patspulpit.com
There are many reasons the Patriots should be better on offense, starting with the coach. The same could be said about the Miami defense with Fangio, plus they improved their seconday and LB core. The Bills have improved their offense a little IMO, better at TE, better at run blocking with rookie guard Torrence, Diggs is still elite, new competition at WR 3, and Allen is an MVP candidate. Maybe they won't win 13 games, but I don't see the decline. The Jets improved their worst position dramatically. A tough division.
Lots of faith in BB and his defense. They were top 10 last year, but struggled vs the better offenses, with the exception of the Lions. This year, they face even more good offenses, including 6 divisional games, KC, DAL, PHI, LAC. The NE offense should be better, but I'm not sold on the defense being top 10 again.
In what kind of league is he not a good RB?
Speculating a significant improvement over last year's offense isn't a massive stretch given universal disdain for Judge and Patricia. Further speculating a modest improvement in defense (or neutral, sans the 2022 offensive albatross around their necks), and its not hard to see how SOME are projecting a bounce back year. For me, the biggest moving part in the division is seeing whether or not Buffalo will maintain excellence. I'm selling Tua shares and avoiding volatile Rodgers stock....though that's a great play for aggressive investors.
The number reported is the max contract value with all sorts of incentives added in. It’s full expected that the actual salary will come in around $6 million a year and the last year is likely a crazy make believe number that he will never see.
Nothing concrete I've seen, but one can assume (hope) that BoB will use Henry and Gisecki similarly to how he used Hernandez and Gronk. Obviously, not the same talent at TE, but the same OC.
Brown showed up to camp early, in shape, and motivated. There has been talk that the team may have promised him a bump in pay or other sweeteners and incentives (keeping his weight down, how many games he plays in, etc.) to keep him motivated. He's in a contract year, so the better he plays, the better chance he gets another contract and more money. Brown, Strange, Andrews, and Onwenu is 4/5 of the way to a decent line. TBA at right tackle is the mystery that needs to be solved. Reiff or McDermott probably aren't the answer. They may have to kick Onwenu outside and play one of the three rookies at guard. (It should be noted that by the end of the season last year, PFF had the NE OL ranked in their Top 5 (!) when they were playing Brown-Strange-Andrews-Onwenu-McDermott. People can say PFF is full of it, but that's how they ranked that unit.)
Yeah I don’t think Boutte is making the cut, barring an unforseen turn of events. Sad because I liked him as a prospect and was hoping the Pats got a steal. Maybe he finds success on another team, though if Belichick can’t coach him up, who can?
If no other team loves him then Boutte likely ends up on the practice squad.
Good point. Unless he really flashes in preseason I can’t see another team committing a non-PS roster spot to him.
... all reports out of training camp are cementing my concerns about the offensive line. Jones running for his life ... just like all of last season.
I love Belichick for everything he’s done for the franchise but calling a spade a spade here, he has absolutely mismanaged the roster lately. Get that coveted five year rookie QB contract to have extra money to play with, only to surround that QB with middling talent. Ignored offensive tackle this offseason when it was a glaring hole. Overdrafted on Thornton, a guy who had something like a 5th round grade going in to last year’s draft. Investing a first rounder on a guard who isn’t a Quenton Nelson level unicorn. Willing to spend on Agholor but not Hopkins. Mac is not an agile QB who can throw on the run to make up for breakdowns in pass protection. Belichick knows this and still didn’t properly address it. It’s like self sabotage. I want Belichick to beat Shula’s record badly but this isn’t the way to do it.
Lots of topics to address. Hard to really evaluate the OL so far when every practice they are missing 4 starters. The O line certainly could be a huge problem if all of those players are out at the same time. People can agree with or poo-poo PFF's rankings, but by the end of the season last year, the starting OL group of Brown-Strange-Andrews-Onwenu-McDermott was ranked in the Top 5-10 range. If people aren't sold on McDermott being an option, they could kick Onwenu out to tackle again . . . and IIRC they are also using Sow at tackle. Bottom line, having an actual OL coach should be a huge upgrade over Patricia last year.
I only brought up the first two rounds because there had been some discussion about recent players selected in the first two rounds.
Just makes me remove all Patriots from my draft board, except the RB, but moved him down a lot.
