Pats extend Cannon 2 years

Scar on Cannon:

"Love his physicality. Love his passion for the game. He’s a smart kid, a great kid to coach, he’s driven to be very good. I think he’s a really good tackle. [What we’re doing in OTAs with him at guard] is trying to get this guy to make himself as valuable a player as we can, and valuable for us. We have five starters and if we lose a guy we have to have a guy that is capable of getting in there and doing a great job. So we want to train him at guard, and we’re going to give him more tackle work as we go forward in this minicamp. I like what he’s doing. I like how he’s doing it. Every day is a growth day for him. He’s a special kid. He’s a starting quality player. I love the kid. I think he’s a good player.”

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http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/new-...d/4774066/analysis-on-marcus-cannon-extension

Belichick has also said favorable things about Cannon, including recently:

http://www.patriots.com/news/blog/a...-to-play/164c6c65-fd7e-4499-b204-debbe5a6541a

Sure haven't seen it this year, but again, maybe the Pats know something that we don't, hard as that is to believe.

mayoclinic said:

Sure haven't seen it this year, but again, maybe the Pats know something that we don't, hard as that is to believe.

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Not buying it.

VJCPatriot said:

4.5m per season sounds like a lot for a guard who can sometimes swing to tackle.

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He's an end of line, more athletic, tackle--definitely not a guard. He looked horrible at his attempt playing inside this year.

Apparently Mike Reiss feels the same way, since he stated that this new pact removes any doubt about whether or not he's a tackle.

A couple of thoughts come to mind:

1) I think these early "2/9" reports are with ALL incentives reached, and that we're likely to see something much closer to "2/6" or "2/7" when all is said and done.

2) It provides the team flexibility and options for both tackle spots, particularly at a time when Solder's negotiations may get heated (David Dunn is his agent...WWW anyone?), and/or Vollmer still has some injury tendencies and could need replaced at the drop of a hat.

In other words, we may have locked up a potential starter at tackle for relatively cheap money. Only time will tell what the full plan is, but we know that BB always has both a short-term AND long-term plan in mind.

I am a believer that money talks and BS walks. If the Patriots are paying Cannon on average 4.5 a year he is not here to just back up. I think they don't like what they see from Solder and the fact he has Welker's agent hurts his chances of coming back too (though it shouldn't).

It all depends on how much Solder wants to be paid and what the market demands for him. This move looks like they are preparing for life without him so i guess that is what they are doing.

Pat Kirwin lists a "3rd swing tackle" as one of the essential elements of depth on an NFL team. Cannon is a solid swing tackle. Half the teams in the NFL would kill for a solid swing tackle. Extending him makes perfect sense if you look at the big picture of the 53 man roster instead of through rose-colored glasses where even the backups should be Hall of Fame candidates.

hwc said:

Pat Kirwin lists a "3rd swing tackle" as one of the essential elements of depth on an NFL team. Cannon is a solid swing tackle. Half the teams in the NFL would kill for a solid swing tackle. Extending him makes perfect sense if you look at the big picture of the 53 man roster instead of through rose-colored glasses where even the backups should be Hall of Fame candidates.

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Certainly a fair point.

Like I said, I think it has the possibility to be a decent signing at a relatively reasonable price for either a swing tackle or maybe even a starter (not buying into the 2/9 reports at the moment).

The wildcard of course, is how well Cannon plays.

This also brings in the possibility of Vollmer switching to LT with Cannon starting at RT. Say what you will about Vollmer's injuries, when he's on the field he's been our best o-line player for a few years now.

Maybe BB has approached Solder about an extension to lower that 7.4m cap hit next year and he balked at the idea. If I remember correctly, he was the last one of that Pat's draft class to sign his rookie deal, so maybe his agent is a pain in the ass. Could also be he was waiting to see what everyone else was offered near his draft position. Who knows? Solder seems like a good guy, but his play has been too inconsistent to get top tier LT money. He's looked like an all-pro at times to straight up terrible at other times. I'd love to see him come back as I do believe he is a talented guy, but not at 7.4m.

hwc said:

Pat Kirwin lists a "3rd swing tackle" as one of the essential elements of depth on an NFL team. Cannon is a solid swing tackle. Half the teams in the NFL would kill for a solid swing tackle. Extending him makes perfect sense if you look at the big picture of the 53 man roster instead of through rose-colored glasses where even the backups should be Hall of Fame candidates.

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Exactly. Nobody talks about thw swing tackle until one of the starters has a (season ending) injury. Does anyone think you can find a solid replacement easily on the unsigned FA garbage heap?

How does a backup reach incentives?

Sure, Cannon hasn't been good this year. But he played well in 2013 as a starter. This gives us flexibility to not have to bend over for Solders 5th year option of $7M

mrbean said:

This also brings in the possibility of Vollmer switching to LT with Cannon starting at RT. Say what you will about Vollmer's injuries, when he's on the field he's been our best o-line player for a few years now.

Maybe BB has approached Solder about an extension to lower that 7.4m cap hit next year and he balked at the idea. If I remember correctly, he was the last one of that Pat's draft class to sign his rookie deal, so maybe his agent is a pain in the ass. Could also be he was waiting to see what everyone else was offered near his draft position. Who knows? Solder seems like a good guy, but his play has been too inconsistent to get top tier LT money. He's looked like an all-pro at times to straight up terrible at other times. I'd love to see him come back as I do believe he is a talented guy, but not at 7.4m.

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We can all agree that Solder has been inconsistent this year but you can argue that $7.4m for a starting left tackle is in-line with the upper-middle class of the LT market. If the Pats were to pick up the option, he would be in the top 1/3rd-ish in pay. Even with his play this year, I'd still consider him better than a majority of the players that start at LT in the NFL. Not sure if thats $7.4m but it's close.

Clearly the team thinks that Cannon is starting -caliber worth $4.5m/yr which would put him in the Top 10 of RTs and in a nice neighborhood of LTs.

http://www.spotrac.com/rankings/nfl/average/left-tackle/limit-25/

I like the signing I just question the money, Cannon was not in condition to demand anything, let's trust Bill on this one.

Anyway I woud like to see us drafting a lineman in the 1st or 2nd round of the next draft and kind of go Jerry Jones here and keep improving the line, as it seems that the talk about Brady going further in his career seems like a stronger possibility now than it was at the end of week 4.

The Pats have signed their own guys to contracts we felt were more valuable than they needed to, and generally it's worked out. When Arrington shuts a guy down in the slot, I don't see many of us complaining, but I think most of us at the time thought the deal seemed larger than necessary.

It sounds pricey for a guy who hasn't played well this year, but let's wait until the details are out.

Belichick has explained his philosophy several times. BB places a tremendous amount of value on positional flexibility as it saves the team roster spots, system fit and performance. For Arrington, hes primarily a slot DB but can play every position in the secondary and special teams.

For Cannon, he can play both T spots and sub in at guard (with mixed results of course).

I don't understand this at all.

Cannon has been mediocre at best and downright awful at worst.

I would have preferred we use this money towards re-working Revis and locking up McCourty.

I like it whenever the Pats extend a player. It means that they think he has value as a Patriot. I don't care how much he makes.

Not a fan.
Cannon has been awful this year.
There has been this odd rotation, which we have noted and discussed, and when Cannon comes in, bad things have happened. He's even been bad at 6th OL/eligible receiver with false starts.
He doesn't seem to be injured.

Connolly has played much better - why not extend him?

I know we have been admonished not to related this to other impending free agents, but I think that's pretty relevant. The team will need some serious money to re-sign (or replace) Revis, McCourty, Gostkowski, Ridley, Vereen, Connolly. This absorbs a notable amount of that funding.

Urgent said:

Connolly has played much better - why not extend him?

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Connolly is 32, Cannon is 26.

robertweathers said:

We can all agree that Solder has been inconsistent this year but you can argue that $7.4m for a starting left tackle is in-line with the upper-middle class of the LT market. If the Pats were to pick up the option, he would be in the top 1/3rd-ish in pay. Even with his play this year, I'd still consider him better than a majority of the players that start at LT in the NFL. Not sure if thats $7.4m but it's close.

Clearly the team thinks that Cannon is starting -caliber worth $4.5m/yr which would put him in the Top 10 of RTs and in a nice neighborhood of LTs.

http://www.spotrac.com/rankings/nfl/average/left-tackle/limit-25/

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It's probably an incentive-laden contract, which means he is in the $2.5mm range if he stays a backup and gets a bump if he starts. I'll agree with you that it demonstrates they feel he is starting caliber, but I don't think it says anything about their plans for Solder or Vollmer.