2012 Patriots Pandemonium Positional Preview ~ Safeties!!

[Off The Grid]

DS Pat Chung

Pat Chung has never had a strong partner out there since he's been here. The slowing James Sanders and that lunatic, Hurricane Merriweather, were followed by chaos and confusion. Now that he's got a smart, young, talented crew to work with, my feeling is that a lot of the perceived weakness in his Coverage is going to vaporize.

Mind you: I'm not saying that he's gonna be The Human Blanket out there. But his job as Strong Safety is to direct these guys, not babysit. And babysitting can be extremely detrimental to your own performance. Chung can cover.

Pat Chung has always been a ferocious Run Defender, an hard hitter, and a savvy Field General.

And now ~ like Jerod Mayo, like Vince Wilfork ~ he can stop babysitting...and just play.

And I think that that's going to make an enormous difference in'is Game.

DS Steve Gregory

Gregory's pretty good in Coverage, though not that great in Run Defense.

He boasts outstanding Verticity, and can Turn + Burn exceptionally well.

He's not a Juggernaut, by any means, but he's a very smart player who understands how to work as part of a unit.

DS Tavon Wilson

Wilson strikes me as still pretty raw, which is hardly shocking, of course.

My sense is that he's going to be far more effective in Run Defense than in Coverage. We'll see.

DS Nate Ebner

It's time for people to stop wondering if Nate Ebner has starting potential, and start wondering how could he can be.

Nate Ebner commands a breathtaking constellation of outstanding Processing Speed, Fluidity, Lateral Agility, and Burst, sweet Verticity ~ Turn + Burn Acuity, Earthlings!! ~ and a savage, voracious appetite for Contact.

He is a force, out there.

This guy is mastering the nuances of our Defense at a million miles an hour, and I think, frankly, that he's going to become one of the very best Safeties in the Game in the next couple of years.

Positional Prospectus​

1 ~ The transformation of Safety ~ virtually overnight ~ from a position where we were embarrassingly, pathetically weak, to one with tremendous Depth of Talent has been exhilarating. We are now ~ suddenly ~ rich with Talent.

2 ~ As I believe that Defenses are about to accelerate towards far more "245" Fronts in the very near future, that 5th Defensive Back ~ I'll call it the Bandit, to employ Coach Pete Carroll's rather cool term ~ is a position I expect to become increasingly vital to success. It might even be that you want your best Safety there. For us, I believe it's not going to be too long before that man is Will Ebner.

The Future​

1 ~ I'm no fan of drafting Safeties at all, preferring to draft CornerBacks for conversion...But I must say that Mad Bill has expanded my horizons with his unearthing of the remarkable, phenomenal Will Ebner. Even so, he was really a Rugby player ~ neither a Corner nor a Safety. I'd much rather troll Day 3 CornerBacks and UFA's for Safety talent.

2 ~ Ultimately, I'd like everybody in my Secondary to have the beef to play Safety, but the Verticity to Turn + Burn in Man Coverage...and I'm not entirely sure I can't have that, which is why I like to target raw Day 3 and UFA CornerBacks with a mind to developing them. Desmond Marrow was a UFA that I especially liked this year.

 

[captain stone]

I'm glad that Bill finally understood what many of us already knew: that the lack of any real talent
whatsoever as personified by the 5 Stooges - Sergio, Barrett, Diggy, Bubba Jr & Mal Williams -
had to be replaced, in its entirety, immediately.
Today we will learn if experience is all that is lacking from our new foursome.

 

[mayoclinic]

DS Pat Chung

Pat Chung has never had a strong partner out there since he's been here. The slowing James Sanders and that lunatic, Hurricane Merriweather, were followed by chaos and confusion. Now that he's got a smart, young, talented crew to work with, my feeling is that a lot of the perceived weakness in his Coverage is going to vaporize.

Mind you: I'm not saying that he's gonna be The Human Blanket out there. But his job as Strong Safety is to direct these guys, not babysit. And babysitting can be extremely detrimental to your own performance. Chung can cover.

Pat Chung has always been a ferocious Run Defender, an hard hitter, and a savvy Field General.

And now ~ like Jerod Mayo, like Vince Wilfork ~ he can stop babysitting...and just play.

And I think that that's going to make an enormous difference in'is Game.

DS Steve Gregory

Gregory's pretty good in Coverage, though not that great in Run Defense.

He boasts outstanding Verticity, and can Turn + Burn exceptionally well.

He's not a Juggernaut, by any means, but he's a very smart player who understands how to work as part of a unit.

DS Tavon Wilson

Wilson strikes me as still pretty raw, which is hardly shocking, of course.

My sense is that he's going to be far more effective in Run Defense than in Coverage. We'll see.

DS Nate Ebner

It's time for people to stop wondering if Nate Ebner has starting potential, and start wondering how could he can be.

Nate Ebner commands a breathtaking constellation of outstanding Processing Speed, Fluidity, Lateral Agility, and Burst, sweet Verticity ~ Turn + Burn Acuity, Earthlings!! ~ and a savage, voracious appetite for Contact.

He is a force, out there.

This guy is mastering the nuances of our Defense at a million miles an hour, and I think, frankly, that he's going to become one of the very best Safeties in the Game in the next couple of years.

Positional Prospectus​

1 ~ The transformation of Safety ~ virtually overnight ~ from a position where we were embarrassingly, pathetically weak, to one with tremendous Depth of Talent has been exhilarating. We are now ~ suddenly ~ rich with Talent.

2 ~ As I believe that Defenses are about to accelerate towards far more "245" Fronts in the very near future, that 5th Defensive Back ~ I'll call it the Bandit, to employ Coach Pete Carroll's rather cool term ~ is a position I expect to become increasingly vital to success. It might even be that you want your best Safety there. For us, I believe it's not going to be too long before that man is Will Ebner.

The Future​

1 ~ I'm no fan of drafting Safeties at all, preferring to draft CornerBacks for conversion...But I must say that Mad Bill has expanded my horizons with his unearthing of the remarkable, phenomenal Will Ebner. Even so, he was really a Rugby player ~ neither a Corner nor a Safety. I'd much rather troll Day 3 CornerBacks and UFA's for Safety talent.

2 ~ Ultimately, I'd like everybody in my Secondary to have the beef to play Safety, but the Verticity to Turn + Burn in Man Coverage...and I'm not entirely sure I can't have that, which is why I like to target raw Day 3 and UFA CornerBacks with a mind to developing them. Desmond Marrow was a UFA that I especially liked this year.

I really like this group. Gregory as terrific processing speed, and while he's not an elite talent I think he will improve overall communication and stability of the unit. Wilson has versatility and experience in different roles that gives him more value than his pure talent level would suggest, and I think he'll be solid - somewhere between James Sanders and an early Eugene Wilson. Ebner is the wild card of the group, and his upside is tremendous.

Like you, I had guys in the draft who I wanted, particularly Brandon Hardin, who I believe has earned a starting job with the Bears. But this group should be a big improvement over the motley crew we had last year, and potentially the best group we've had since the Rodney years.

 

[captain stone]

Except for the opening drives of the halves, I thought that the Safeties played pretty well
in both coverage & tackling. The Tavon Wilson INT in particular was outstanding.
Now they just need to stay healthy.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

It's time for people to stop wondering if Nate Ebner has starting potential, and start wondering how could he can be.