Dominique Easley - what it could mean.

patfanken said:

4. I think that they would have traded the pick in a nano-second if the opportunity arose, but when it didn't, they went for the best guy on THEIR board, and it was Easly.

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BelichickFan said:

You are wrong on that, Minnesota traded up two picks later so they clearly could have traded down.

They didn't pick Easley because they couldn't trade down, they didn't trade down because they loved Easley. The Minnesota trade proves it.

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Had he stayed healthy throughout the 2013 college football season, Dominique Easley probably would have locked himself into the first half — maybe even the top-10 — of Round 1. An ACL injury served as a setback, though ultimately not major enough to drop Easley either out of the first round or behind fellow tackles Ra’Shede Hageman and Timmy Jernigan.

Tommy Kelly is 33. Vince Wilfork is 32 and nearly left the Patriots this offseason. Easley may not be ready to go for Week 1, but eventually he’ll step into the lineup as a regular contributor.


Strengths: Easley’s most prominent attribute is that he can play convincingly and at a starter level in so many gaps. There are multiple examples of him blowing up protections everywhere from 1-tech (between the center and guard) to 3-tech (between the guard and tackle) to end. He even has the speed and turn to disrupt from a wide-nine stance. For his size (6-foot-2, 288), Easley flashes tremendous upper-body strength — he plays 20 or 30 pounds heavier than he is in that sense, but he has the field speed and agility of a linebacker when he’s in space or covering in short areas. Gets his hands on blockers right off the snap and uses his hands very well — will use hand-strikes, swim and rip moves, and pure bull-rushes to drive through or get past to the backfield. Didn’t do a lot of stunting and looping for the Gators, but he clearly has the skillset to do so.

When lined up in a stunt formation (at a 45-degree angle against the line), Easley is just about unblockable because he gets through with such explosive speed. Understands leverage and will get under a blocker’s pads, adding to his strength advantage — it’s uncanny how often he’ll push a guy back who seriously outweighs him. Can split and move from gap to gap with great agility; he’s always looking for an opening. And when he gets in the backfield, Easley is very balanced and disciplined — he doesn’t fall for foot fakes and agile moves. At his best, he’s a play destroyer.

Weaknesses: Where Easley’s size shows up in a negative sense is when he’s asked to take on double teams, especially against bigger blockers — he tends to get eaten up and can’t always get through even with all his attributes. And if a blocker gets his hands on Easley first, it’s tough for Easley to recover consistently — his hand quickness is clearly an adaptive strategy, and it works well, but he’s got that issue.

Injury issues will hold him back, to be certain. Though he recovered well from the 2010 ACL tear, the fact that he’s now had serious injuries to each knee will certainly present a red flag that will drop him at least a full round from where he would go otherwise.

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Rob0729 said:

In fairness, the Seahawks only got a fourth to trade down. The Vikes might not have been willing to give up enough to trade up for the Pats' liking.

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goheels22002 said:

http://walterfootball.com/scoutingreport2014deasley.php

Great write-up on Easley including his fit with the Patriots.

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PatsfanKen said:

Initially looks like a reach, but I'm more interested in what we can infer about what the Pats were looking for, since Easly clearly doesn't fit the "typical" mold that BB has utilized the last 30 years in a DLman. Especially given that there were several of the those "typical guys" there when the Pats picked. Nix, Hageman, Tuitt, Jernigan, etc were all there for the taking and BB seemed to go for Aaron Donald-lite. I think that tells us a lot.

1. We continue to move away from the 3-4 toward the 4-3 as our basic alignment.

2. The Easly pick once again points out the key importance of the inside pass rush. Push up the middle was a need, and a healthy Easly would have been highly thought of because of this very rare skill.

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Gumby said:

nice read - thanks. they seemed to have it fairly well pegged with Easley's fits (only SF, cincy, Pats, Den) ahead of time.

Not quite sure why you see this as a REACH. It is more a RISK than a REACH. Everybody in the world said he is top-15 talent who would fall to late 1st or 2d round based on injury history and the exact where only depended on if a team was willing to take a chance on his injury history. If a player falls exactly where predicted; HOW IS THAT A REACH????

Check box # 1 as MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

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patfanken said:

Sorry Gumby, I probably should have said a "bit of a reach". Most of the talk here was about Easly being a 2nd round pick who probably wouldn't last until 62. I keep forgetting about casually inserting words that might set people off.

I wish people would forget about whether it was a reach or not, and continue the discussion of what Easly's pick might tell us about how this team is going to attack opposing offenses this fall. It's not going to be your "father's old Pats D" this fall. For example if Tuitt or Nix had been the pick, I might have inferred that we might be headed back to the old 3-4 look more this season. Clearly we are NOT.

I also thought it was an interesting pick since Easly doesn't physically fit the DL model that we've seen here for the last 13 seasons. BB has always, in the past, built his defenses on big DLmen and LB's (see Richard Seymour and Ted Johnson). Now BB shows us the same kind of flexibility we've come to expect by acknowledging how far the game has changed that he's willing to abandon the base D and concepts that he's held for over 30 years.

The more I look at the significance of this pick and realize how we are likely to be playing an attacking front 7 in front of an aggressive physical press man secondary, its like the polar opposite from the read and react front 7's in front of a secondary playing mostly zone defense, that we've seen for the vast majority of the BB era here.

I find this a much more fascinating topic than whether this pick was a reach or not.

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