My Blueprint for the Defense

Gabriel_p94 said:

I understand what your saying but I really hope mccourty doesn't walk lol. He's so important to this team. And I'm not to familiar with the cap situation but do these moves make it unlikely to resign revis and others?

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I wasn't suggesting that McCourty would walk, or certainly not that he should. Simply that the Pats probably have a backup plan in mind.

I don't think these moves will have an effect on the McCourty and Revis situations. Chung's 2015 cap hit is likely a bit less than what I had projected (it's $2M + incentives, with $500K of incentives over all 3 years of his deal; I had projected around $2.5K), and Bolden's cap hit is only about $225-425K more than the previous 51st player.

http://www.patsfans.com/new-england...s-of-a-motley-masochistic-mastermind.1114686/

With Chung signed And as people hope (and almost demand) Revis and McCourty resigning, wouldnt it remove any need for a DB in 2015 draft?

Luxusdk said:

With Chung signed And as people hope (and almost demand) Revis and McCourty resigning, wouldnt it remove any need for a DB in 2015 draft?

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Maybe, a later pick. 6th or 7th. Same with rb now that Bolden is signed. Don't trust a rookie as our 3rd down back. Bring Vereen back. Or, I'd check on Spiller if he's reasonable.

Luxusdk said:

With Chung signed And as people hope (and almost demand) Revis and McCourty resigning, wouldnt it remove any need for a DB in 2015 draft?

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One would think so, but nobody knows who can end up falling to one of our picks.

Here's a hypothetical question. Say by some amazing turn of events Landon Collins falls to us( highly unlikely, near impossible, also assuming mccourty and revis are signed) should we draft him?

Luxusdk said:

With Chung signed And as people hope (and almost demand) Revis and McCourty resigning, wouldnt it remove any need for a DB in 2015 draft?

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I think that safety is not likely to be much of a need, though a lot depends on how BB views Tavon Wilson, who is in a contract year. But I think it's more likely that the Pats go into 2015 with McCourty, Chung, Wilson, Harmon and Ebner at safety.

At CB, assuming Revis is re-signed then the Pats have Revis, Browner, Arrington, Ryan, Butler and Dennard under contract. But Dennard has a $1.5M cap hit due to earning incentives based on his snap count in 2012 and 2013, which is a lot for a #6 CB; he is also in a contract year. It wouldn't surprise me to see Dennard traded to a team where he can get more playing time, and for the Pats to use a day 3 pick on a CB to keep a pipeline going. Someone like Josh Shaw of USC or Eric Rowe of Utah could be a good pick up. Both 6'1" 200#+ guys who could provide a 3rd big DB to match up outside with bigger WRs, and potentially develop into a successor to Browner.

mayoclinic said:

I think that safety is not likely to be much of a need, though a lot depends on how BB views Tavon Wilson, who is in a contract year. But I think it's more likely that the Pats go into 2015 with McCourty, Chung, Wilson, Harmon and Ebner at safety.

At CB, assuming Revis is re-signed then the Pats have Revis, Browner, Arrington, Ryan, Butler and Dennard under contract. But Dennard has a $1.5M cap hit due to earning incentives based on his snap count in 2012 and 2013, which is a lot for a #6 CB; he is also in a contract year. It wouldn't surprise me to see Dennard traded to a team where he can get more playing time, and for the Pats to use a day 3 pick on a CB to keep a pipeline going. Someone like Josh Shaw of USC or Eric Rowe of Utah could be a good pick up. Both 6'1" 200#+ guys who could provide a 3rd big DB to match up outside with bigger WRs, and potentially develop into a successor to Browner.

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Both Rowe and Shaw have played safety too so they have that versatility. Adrian Amos is another.

mayoclinic said:

I think that safety is not likely to be much of a need, though a lot depends on how BB views Tavon Wilson, who is in a contract year. But I think it's more likely that the Pats go into 2015 with McCourty, Chung, Wilson, Harmon and Ebner at safety.

At CB, assuming Revis is re-signed then the Pats have Revis, Browner, Arrington, Ryan, Butler and Dennard under contract. But Dennard has a $1.5M cap hit due to earning incentives based on his snap count in 2012 and 2013, which is a lot for a #6 CB; he is also in a contract year. It wouldn't surprise me to see Dennard traded to a team where he can get more playing time, and for the Pats to use a day 3 pick on a CB to keep a pipeline going. Someone like Josh Shaw of USC or Eric Rowe of Utah could be a good pick up. Both 6'1" 200#+ guys who could provide a 3rd big DB to match up outside with bigger WRs, and potentially develop into a successor to Browner.

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Haha. Its funny, Im only starting to poke around and we all seem to have the same opinions on a lot of the same players. I think Shaw would be great to grab if we can't get Amos. But Im 100% on par with you about needing to keep the pipeline going. I like shaw because he has the speed to play FS if something were to happen to D.MAC, However Im much higher on Amos as a overall prospect

Delvin Breaux worked out for the Seahawks. That's not much of a shock is it?

manxman2601 said:

Delvin Breaux worked out for the Seahawks. That's not much of a shock is it?

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nooooo, damn seattle

I'm not usually one for the big hitting strong safety type, but watching the Seahawks yesterday, Kam Chancellor was outstanding. It did occur to me however that, and I thought this even before his Field goal shenanigans, we already have our Chancellor in Jamie Collins. Obviously Collins is the better all- rounder but I was struck by how similar the roles are for Collins and Chancellor.

manxman2601 said:

I'm not usually one for the big hitting strong safety type, but watching the Seahawks yesterday, Kam Chancellor was outstanding. It did occur to me however that, and I thought this even before his Field goal shenanigans, we already have our Chancellor in Jamie Collins. Obviously Collins is the better all- rounder but I was struck by how similar the roles are for Collins and Chancellor.

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Chancellor played an amazing game yesterday - far and away the best Seattle defender on the field. He moves so well for such a big guy.

I watched the replay of the game in its entirely on NFL Network from 1-4 am, and I have to say, Collins was all over the field. He seems to always be around the ball, and always in position - and he is so athletic that he seems to get into position effortlessly. He doesn't always seem to be moving very fast, but he keeps pace with a back or TE effortlessly. He also seems to have become a beast in terms of his physicality, swatting guys out of the way with ease. The strip sack of Flacco that was called back by the Revis defensive holding was one example; there was a tackle on Justin Forsett and a play on Owen Daniels that also came to mind. He's really developing into a beast.

I don't believe in knee-jerk reactions, but yesterday's game re-affirmed my feeling that the Pats need to invest more in the DL. The secondary and LBs are elite. The DL is not. The lack of rotation was a bit disappointment, but the Pats did fairly poorly generating pressure. They seemed to respect the Ravens' running game almost to the point of treating Flacco like a mobile QB. I thought they could have made things much harder for the Ravens' OL.

mayoclinic said:

Chancellor played an amazing game yesterday - far and away the best Seattle defender on the field. He moves so well for such a big guy.

I watched the replay of the game in its entirely on NFL Network from 1-4 am, and I have to say, Collins was all over the field. He seems to always be around the ball, and always in position - and he is so athletic that he seems to get into position effortlessly. He doesn't always seem to be moving very fast, but he keeps pace with a back or TE effortlessly. He also seems to have become a beast in terms of his physicality, swatting guys out of the way with ease. The strip sack of Flacco that was called back by the Revis defensive holding was one example; there was a tackle on Justin Forsett and a play on Owen Daniels that also came to mind. He's really developing into a beast.

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I really did become convinced by the similarities between Collins and Chancellor when Collins drops into coverage. Which had me thinking, when Mayo returns, why not use Collins in Patrick Chung's role? That way you can still play a sub formation and get Hightower, Mayo and Collins on the field together. Certainly there will be times where you'll want Chung over Collins; if teams play with WRs over TEs for example, but Collins at SS allows for a lot of versatility. You can use Collins as Adrian Wilson was used by the Cards for example, as the Seahawks use Chancellor, you can drop Mayo and Hightower into coverage and blitz Collins, move Collins up into the box and shift Hightower to the Edge and use him as a pass rusher and so on and so on. So many variations can come from that one single move of Collins to SS.

mayoclinic said:

I don't believe in knee-jerk reactions, but yesterday's game re-affirmed my feeling that the Pats need to invest more in the DL. The secondary and LBs are elite. The DL is not. The lack of rotation was a bit disappointment, but the Pats did fairly poorly generating pressure. They seemed to respect the Ravens' running game almost to the point of treating Flacco like a mobile QB. I thought they could have made things much harder for the Ravens' OL.

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They could have solved the DL problems to a degree by A gap blitzing Collins and Hightower more often. They did it more in the second half and we had a better defensive second half. Not a coincidence. I'm firmly of the opinion that Chris Jones serves little purpose on the team save depth. He's not good enough at generating interior pressure nor stout enough in the run game. Branch-Wilfork-Siliga had poor game yesterday but I think they, along with Easley are a decent enough rotation.

The one thing yesterday's game proved is just how desperately we need to upgrade the interior O-Line. In my opinion, no other need comes close to that one. Solder and Vollmer had excellent games yesterday in shutting down Suggs and Dumervil but we had no answer for Brandon Williams and Timmy Jernigan. Yesterday was a stark reminder in how we missed by not drafting Urschel last year.

manxman2601 said:

They could have solved the DL problems to a degree by A gap blitzing Collins and Hightower more often. They did it more in the second half and we had a better defensive second half. Not a coincidence. I'm firmly of the opinion that Chris Jones serves little purpose on the team save depth. He's not good enough at generating interior pressure nor stout enough in the run game. Branch-Wilfork-Siliga had poor game yesterday but I think they, along with Easley are a decent enough rotation.

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Agreed. Hightower and Collins are a matchup nightmare for any opposing team, and I think right now they are our two best defensive playmakers on the front 7 by far. That needs to be exploited more regularly. As for Jones, I agree. He's low cost depth and I'd keep him on the roster, but if it comes down to a numbers crunch next September he's expendable.

manxman2601 said:

The one thing yesterday's game proved is just how desperately we need to upgrade the interior O-Line. In my opinion, no other need comes close to that one. Solder and Vollmer had excellent games yesterday in shutting down Suggs and Dumervil but we had no answer for Brandon Williams and Timmy Jernigan. Yesterday was a stark reminder in how we missed by not drafting Urschel last year.

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Fleming was out, and Stork missed most of the game. No draft pick helps when they're not playing. I wanted Urschel badly, and thought he played extremely well - looks like a future starting RG, and I still think he has great center capability. But I take the converse view: the Ravens invested in the interior DL in the past 2 drafts, and it showed. Brandon Williams was a binky in 2013, and he looks like a force. Duran Harmon played well yesterday and certainly wasn't a wasted pick, but we could have had Williams with that pick, and probably gotten Harmon with the Boyce pick. Timmy Jernigan is a solid all-around player, and was a good value in the 2nd round. Adding those 2 guys to Haloti Ngata gives the Ravens a very strong interior rotation.

The interior OL needs to be upgraded, but it doesn't have to be done with 1st round picks. None of the Ravens' players were 1st round linemen (Osemele - 2nd; Yanda - 3rd; Urschel 5th; Hurst - UDFA), and their previous two 1st round linemen aren't with the team anymore (Benn Grubbs and Michael Oher). I want a couple of interior offensive linemen, but a couple of day 2/early day 3 picks would be fine with me.

mayoclinic said:

Agreed. Hightower and Collins are a matchup nightmare for any opposing team, and I think right now they are our two best defensive playmakers on the front 7 by far. That needs to be exploited more regularly. As for Jones, I agree. He's low cost depth and I'd keep him on the roster, but if it comes down to a numbers crunch next September he's expendable.



Fleming was out, and Stork missed most of the game. No draft pick helps when they're not playing. I wanted Urschel badly, and thought he played extremely well - looks like a future starting RG, and I still think he has great center capability. But I take the converse view: the Ravens invested in the interior DL in the past 2 drafts, and it showed. Brandon Williams was a binky in 2013, and he looks like a force. Duran Harmon played well yesterday and certainly wasn't a wasted pick, but we could have had Williams with that pick, and probably gotten Harmon with the Boyce pick. Timmy Jernigan is a solid all-around player, and was a good value in the 2nd round. Adding those 2 guys to Haloti Ngata gives the Ravens a very strong interior rotation.

The interior OL needs to be upgraded, but it doesn't have to be done with 1st round picks. None of the Ravens' players were 1st round linemen (Osemele - 2nd; Yanda - 3rd; Urschel 5th; Hurst - UDFA), and their previous two 1st round linemen aren't with the team anymore (Benn Grubbs and Michael Oher). I want a couple of interior offensive linemen, but a couple of day 2/early day 3 picks would be fine with me.

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Jernigan and Williams weren't first round picks either. Personally, as we've used a heavy DL rotation this year (only Wilfork is above 50% of total defensive snaps) and the OL tend to be used near to 100% of snaps, I take the opposite view. I'm still open to using a high pick on a first round DT, although I'm not as high on the available talent as you are but only if Branch and/or Wilfork aren't part of next years team.

mayoclinic said:

I don't believe in knee-jerk reactions, but yesterday's game re-affirmed my feeling that the Pats need to invest more in the DL. The secondary and LBs are elite. The DL is not. The lack of rotation was a bit disappointment, but the Pats did fairly poorly generating pressure. They seemed to respect the Ravens' running game almost to the point of treating Flacco like a mobile QB. I thought they could have made things much harder for the Ravens' OL.

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Collinsworth kept harping on Chandler Jones not getting pressure. He kinda overlooked our DT's getting man-handled and Ninkovich not doing anything either. Re-affirms my thoughts that VW will be playing for the Dolphins next year.

Also, can we stop the non-sense about our receivers not being good enough. Not you. Pats fans in general. They torched us with a bunch of JAGS, and the Smiths. Because their OL mauled us.

I want two players on each LOS. Hope one of La'El Collins, Clemmings or Erving is there at 32. Then, I want a LDE. Willing to move up from 64. D. Hunter, T. Flowers, M. Golden or Odighizuwa. Double dip a guard with supplemental pick. Jarvis Harrison or Laken Tomlinson. He's a wild-card. But, Terry Williams is the type of DT who can help our rotation. Can prob get him with own 4th. BPA at top 4th with TB pick.

patsfaninpa said:

I want two players on each LOS. Hope one of La'El Collins, Clemmings or Erving is there at 32. Then, I want a LDE. Willing to move up from 64. D. Hunter, T. Flowers, M. Golden or Odighizuwa. Double dip a guard with supplemental pick. Jarvis Harrison or Laken Tomlinson. He's a wild-card. But, Terry Williams is the type of DT who can help our rotation. Can prob get him with own 4th. BPA at top 4th with TB pick.

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I'm 100% with two players on each LOS in the first 4 rounds. I could certainly live with your approach. But my current plan (which of course won't happen):

- Take Eddie Goldman, Jordan Phillips of Malcolm Brown in the 1st. Slight trade up if necessary
- Take Max Valles, Danielle Hunter, Owamagbe Odighizuwa or Marcus Golden in the 2nd (or DeForest Buckner if he comes out, though I doubt he will; possibly Mario Edwards, though I have questions about his effort and consistency). Marcus Hardison also gets consideration. Valles is my favorite for what I'd like to do with the defense closely followed by Buckner and Hunter, but I'd be very happy with any of them. Again, I'd consider a slight trade up depending on who is available, and whether we had already traded up in the 1st.
- Trade up into the late 2nd/early 3rd and get either Jeremiah Poutasi or Jake Fisher. 96+100 gets us to around 74. If AJ Cann slips (doubt it), he would also be a good pick.
- Get another OL with either our 3rd round comp or our own 4th round pick. Jarvis Harrison, Donovan Smith, Laken Tomlinson and Robert Myles are the ones I like.

If Wilfork leaves then I'm also ok with taking a DT in the 1st and Terry Williams late day 3 if he is still on the board.

DT needs to be addressed early. I believe Easley is going to be the answer but Vince's replacement has got to addressed because if they don't they are setting themselves up for a ****storm.

Patriot Missile said:

DT needs to be addressed early. I believe Easley is going to be the answer but Vince's replacement has got to addressed because if they don't they are setting themselves up for a ****storm.

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Unoriginal had an insightful (dare I say "original") comment on a thread on the main board today:

unoriginal said:

The DT play inside was miserable, pretty much all night long. Chris Jones is the one player I noticed doing good things, slipping in edgewise to move Flacco off his spot. But everybody else was routinely getting stonewalled on pass rushes, and everyone including Chris Jones was getting blown out on runs. To beat Baltimore's OL you need to penetrate and only Hightower, Collins, and Chris Jones did it enough.

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http://www.patsfans.com/new-england...ds/some-praise-for-the-defense.1114935/page-2 (post #21)

Simplistically, I think there's 2 ways to stop running plays: (1) be a "wall" and stand up the opposing OL and prevent them from creating running lanes, and (2) penetrate and disrupt the timing of the RB to hit the hole and fine a running lane. The Pats generally have done more of the former than the latter.

Dominique Easley will never be more than an adequate "wall", but he has the potential to be a paramount disruptor. One of the things that I like about Eddie Goldman, Jordan Phillips and Malcolm Brown is that they all bring a degree of penetration and disruption as well as being "walls". They can penetrate and blow up plays, or 2 gap and tie up opposing linemen to prevent holes from being created. I think that's a very valuable combination.