Patriots 'part ways' with OL coach Dave DeGuglielmo

patsderoer said:

What the heck is Mason doing? Letting Jackson completely free while he turns to block air. Too bad Wendell was injured and Connolly retired.

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I'm guessing that Mason just blew his assignment and that there was a communications issue, although he's still very raw and needs to improve in his pass protection for sure.

I'd tend to blame Cannon more than Mason on this particular play, since Cannon at least saw him coming right at him and gave such a half-assed attempt at preventing the pressure. That's just my take on it, right or wrong.

The fact that Fleming didn't see many snaps and still got beaten so badly when he was in there is disturbing, for sure.

Vollmer seems to have chronic back problems, Solder is a cancer survivor, so is Cannon, and none of them happens to be a stalwart of durability even leaving those issues aside.

Also, Cannon has played terribly recently, while Fleming is barely allowed on the field.

Yeah, I think they're not just going to stand pat on those four tackles.

Wow. Yes it was an appalling performance by the OL, however, it isn't common to see a BB staff coach lose his job so immediately. Is this something where it was already destined he would be leaving? A better opp came up for him? Or is this BB, seemingly out of character, saying 'you failed, you're fired' right after a big loss??

Just a liiiiiiitle bit late there

Quite honestly I don't think this is as much about the AFCCG, but more about colliding philosophies and a resulting lack of development. If what we are hearing through the grapevines is true that Googe had less input on last year's draft than a post-retirement Scar then something was definitely going wrong.

I honestly think that Googe just didn't know how to properly maximize players that fit the Dante Scarnecchia mold. It would also explain the devastatingly bad performances of players like Devey and Cannon over the last two years and the lack of development of Mason and Jackson this year. All of them were Scarnecchia type players and could not perform up to a reasonable level.

This season was sabotaged without us all knowing shortly after training camp when Connolly retired and Wendell was lost to IR because a lot of the fundamental issues were covered up by a fast moving offense with Dion Lewis. After we lost Solder and Lewis tore his ACL the cracks started to show and our offense was never the same. I really think BB, McD, Caserio and DeGuglielmo comprehensively underestimated the loss of the two veteran guards and overestimated how much they could coach up the rookies.

luuked said:

This season was sabotaged without us all knowing shortly after training camp when Connolly retired and Wendell was lost to IR because a lot of the fundamental issues were covered up by a fast moving offense with Dion Lewis. After we lost Solder and Lewis tore his ACL the cracks started to show and our offense was never the same. I really think BB, McD, Caserio and DeGuglielmo comprehensively underestimated the loss of the two veteran guards and overestimated how much they could coach up the rookies.

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I agree, but there is the underlying belief that they have done this before and no reason not to believe that they cannot do it again....

Also wonder if there were some basic disagreements with how business should be taken care of or philosophical differences between Goog and his boss.. I do not remember this ever happening before, the season ending and heads rolling.

PatsFanSince74 said:

After all the injuries, I'd imagine that they'll also be reviewing the entire "Strength and Conditioning" regime and coaches.

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I was thinking of posting a thread advocating that the Pats hire a consultant to study why they had so many injuries and how to limt them. Why does Denver have so few and NE so many, for example?

juny said:

Another example of the OL acting like bull fighters, Cannon and Mason blow assignments and lets loose Jackson.

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This is called No Zone blocking.

Wrath Mania said:

Just from the outside looking in, but if I was Joe Judge I would have been more nervous than Googe. Patriots special teams were god awful this year.

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Maybe, but Googs was first to go. That suggests there were other problems and not just a few bad games.

The Patriots often develop from within, and so long as they continue to improve and develop, they're often given a long leash. Boyer is a good example of someone everyone wanted fired a few years ago, and he's done a heck of a job, especially this past season with losing Revis.

My guess is Judge needs a lot of help, but he's willing to put in the time, hard work, and perseverance to fix things. Googs wasn't. Maybe he didn't want to adapt, maybe he wanted to do things his own way, but there's clearly something more here than just performance.

DarrylS said:

I do not remember this ever happening before, the season ending and heads rolling.

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Dean Pees

Pepper Johnson

Corwin Brown

juny said:

Another example of the OL acting like bull fighters, Cannon and Mason blow assignments and lets loose Jackson.

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That would be good blocking . . . if the play call was a screen pass.

Googs had the tough assignment of developing a new line including vet tackles. His big improvement last year was when he replaced players with Dante UDFAs Wendell and Connolly.

Tough assignment, but he had some draft picks to work with and the OLine, relatively healthy, has zero cohesion and communication.

Where's the line he developed? Hardly the first team to have injuries.

Maybe another coach would have the same problem, but that's what they need to find out.

You simply can't depend on 30 plus year old players forever.

From everything I've been reading in this thread (Googs not having much of a say in personnel decisions) I get the feeling that it was more Bill holding the line together last year and Googs is getting undue credit for it. If this is true, with a season here under his belt and a SB win, perhaps Bill thought he could give Googs a little more autonomy so he wouldn't have to devote so much time addressing OL issues. This year distrust started to creep in again and Bill thought he had to take more control and devote more time to the OL than he would have liked.

I think parting ways with Googs immediately after Sunday's game is great. Right away, addressing issues for next season without wasting a second.

TomPatriot said:

I was thinking of posting a thread advocating that the Pats hire a consultant to study why they had so many injuries and how to limt them. Why does Denver have so few and NE so many, for example?

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One very popular theory is that constantly playing deep into the postseason every year robs our players of a well deserved month of rest, and shortens their recovery time.

I think there are some years where you just get lucky, and that's how 2014 was for the most part. We had the bulk group of key players pretty healthy all of last year.

TomPatriot said:

I was thinking of posting a thread advocating that the Pats hire a consultant to study why they had so many injuries and how to limt them. Why does Denver have so few and NE so many, for example?

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that's a very good idea. someone independent, with no financial or career stake in the outcome of the report (other than getting paid for doing it). I don't claim to know anything about this, but there must be people out there who do.

SVN said:

Well..one yr doesnt need an overreaction. We won it all last with relatively few injuries. This is a very non patriot like move. Not saying good or bad. Iam sure there is more to it than we know. BB doesnt fire coaches day after the game or do any knee jerk reactions.

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that's my point. was there something different this year? another poster had the idea of hiring an outside expert to look into possible reasons. maybe it was just "bad luck," but IMO that's the "last resort" explanation until all rational explanations are explored.

The OL last year had some issues and although never great did jell and you never saw the breakdowns we did the end of this year. How much of that was coaching and how much was young players getting exposed by other team's film study as the year went on and those players hitting the rookie wall we really cannot say with any certainty. I still blame McDaniels either way for not recognizing these shortcomings and giving the OL help vs the Broncos so I'm not going to bury Googs and I wish him well.

TomPatriot said:

I was thinking of posting a thread advocating that the Pats hire a consultant to study why they had so many injuries and how to limt them. Why does Denver have so few and NE so many, for example?

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The amount of injuries we suffered this year was not that much different than other teams had to deal with since 2009.

The Most Injured NFL Teams Since the 2009 Season - Man-Games Lost

Just look at the cumulative number of games lost to injury for each year and you will see that while we have lost the most this year (245) there are teams that have considerably more in the past (49ers 286 2014, Panthers 279 2013, Packers 268 2012).

However, what the page also shows is that if you add up everything since 2009 we are among the top 3 teams overall only behind the Colts and almost on the same level as the Giants. The two years where we had only an average amount of injuries ? 2011 and 2014

Figures that those years where we are hit not too hard are the years we end up in the SB.

Given the kind of injuries we had this year I don't really see anything that could imply a problem with strength and conditioning. That being said it is never wrong to get some consultants in to evaluate the in house staff. I have been saying for a long time that BB should hire some recently fired coaches at the end of the season to evaluate all games and look for patterns that the inhouse staff is blind towards.

Just got up to see this thread. Oh, great day in the morning!! Where's that Opra GIF?

Cunk said:

I get the feeling that it was more Bill holding the line together last year and Googs is getting undue credit for it.

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That always felt like a BB intervension to me. Like the drivers' ed guy taking the wheel from the student before he plows thru some gas pumps.