LoganMankinsPancakeBlocks

Show me 1 team in the NFL who doesn't need an aging player to play well. Flat out ridiculous to think your entire team is going to consist of 27 year olds in their prime. As for injured, if Welker can come back and play from week 1 on a fully torn ACL at a position totally dependent on cutting and moving on that knee to create seperation, pretty sure a guard in Mankins can come back from a partially torn ACL. Vollmer is the 1 concern for me, especially with how little depth we have at tackle. Cannon doesn't look up for the job at all.

In what world is Mankins unreliable? The guy is an iron man and an elite guard. Or even if you want to hold last year's less than stellar year against him, you still can't call him unreliable as he was merely solid rather than top notch. The guy has never missed a game in his career except for holding out in '10. I believe he hadn't even missed a practiced until last year when he partially tore his ACL.

Vollmer, agreed, like I said earlier. That's my biggest concern for the line, his health combined with the lack of depth behind him. Hoping they can find an under the radar tackle during roster cuts who can at least be serviceable rather than the Wayne Hunter impression Cannon has been giving. Keep in mind we nearly had a perfect season with Nick Kazcur as our RT, so greatness is optional, not a neccessity.

The fact that Waters won't be here next year is irrelevent for this year's offensive line. Definitely agree that the line needs to be addressed in the draft and/or free agency next year due to that along with Vollmer's impending FA/health concerns, though.

PatsWickedPissah

as OLT Kyle Hill was waived today

__________________
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck." RAH

Gronkandez

Looking at the bright side:

At least we know Cannon isn't as bad as Wayne Hunter

Josh McD likes to throw screen passes to RB's.

captain stone

Fair enough re Mankins, and am agreement re next year's needs at OL via draft/free agency.

__________________
Question Authority.

AzPatsFan

Quick thoughts on the O-line.

Patsfans are worry warts. When there are few real problems they must create an issue. The Pats playing without three starters on the O-line, and a newcomer replacing a fourth retiree, have given up all of 3 sacks in 2 games.

One sack of which was to a LB blitz to Mykyl Kendricks, who ran over the blitz-handling RB Vereen, who correctly tried to pick him up, and failed.

Concern sure, Genuine problem, hardly. The JESTs have given up 11 sacks in 2 games. Now they have a genuine problem...

NinjaZX6R

You would think playing at Cal together & going against him in practice, would teach Vereen how to block him.

__________________
Belichick- "I don't use Twitter, MyFace and Yearbook"
Mr. Kraft-“Nut Up or Move On"

Fake FB toss 65 QB dive.

To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Off The Grid

Yeah, but it would also teach Kendricks how to beat Vereen's blocks.

That wasn't good, of course...but Mychal Kendricks is a Force.

No shame in getting beat once by that Savage.

__________________

Love HURTS!!

patfanken

I saw something yesterday. I'm not sure if was on the ESPN blog or the Globe. In it they broke down the difference combinations that played on the OL and how many plays they played. IIRC they had like 7 different groupings all playing pretty much an equal amount of plays. For example they had the 3 Centers (Wendall, Koppen, and McDonald) all getting 17-23 saps on 3 drives each. and Thomas getting the last 10.

The point being that if a great part of successful OL play is a matter of cohesion and the experience of playing together; NO one on the OL got either. Cannon and Solder seemed to have gotten the most snaps, but they rarely played more than 15-20 snaps with the same group.

Too often, we as fans, tend to look at an individual play and assign success or blame based on what we see. There are times when that assessment is correct. However there are also times where things might be better than they seem because of things we don't know.

Personally I'll chose to take comfort in the fact that BB gave both Solder and Cannon some props today. Maybe he was blowing smoke up their asses, but its also possible that maybe, after looking at the film he found more to like about their performances than to dislike. As fans and the media, sometimes we allow a single bad play or two to completely dictate our perceptions of the entire performance.

I find it very strange that the media and fans have done this with Solder based on 2 pre-season scrimmages for christ's sake, and will ignore the 16 regular season and playoff games he started and according to both FO"s and PFF, he played more than adequately

The Pats were missing EIGHT starters off their offense on Monday. You you think there just MIGHT have been a slight a lack of offensive consistency and smoothness. DUH! Lets try and keep some perspective here.

BTW- the defense was also missing 5 starters plus Wilson, and had another 5 who played only 12 snaps or less (Hightower, Jones, Spikes, Gregory, and Chung).

The Scrizz

Lets not go comparing ourselves to Jets. Anything under a 5-1 ratio is unacceptable when talking about them. We should be 15-3 in sacks at minimum.

__________________
I was like, ‘Dang! Um, Mr. Brady, can we line up?’ He didn’t care. He was like, ‘You’re not going to line up.’ When we turned around one time I checked back around and my hand was going to the grass and they were like, ‘Hut!’ And I said, ‘Noooooooooooo!’

patfanken

You know for all our generally inconsistent OL play and fan agnst, we HAVE only given up 2 sacks so far. I guess our version of "bad" is a lot different than the greenbeans'