Jonathan Cooper before now

robertweathers said:

Cooper was drafted in Year 1 of the Arians regime. The scouting dept might not have been in alignment with the pro personnel and coaching staff just yet.

For those that say AZ does not have an OL coach, they have an assistant OL coach in Larry Zierlein so its not like the left Cooper alone and told him to figure it out. He did get some coaching there and with AZ being one of the better teams in the NFL these last 3 years I'm not sure I'd completely point the finger at them and say they they don't know what they are doing over there.

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I never tied in their lack of having an Oline coach to overall team success, I attempted to make a connection between that and Cooper's struggles. I don't think they sent the Oline out and said "hey guys figure it out today.." That's just silly.

I do however think , that the way they have it set up over there could cause issues.. Could cause certain things to fall between the cracks. That's all brother.

TheRazorsEdge said:

I never tied in their lack of having an Oline coach to overall team success, I attempted to make a connection between that and Cooper's struggles. I don't think they sent the Oline out and said "hey guys figure it out today.." That's just silly.

I do however think , that the way they have it set up over there could cause issues.. Could cause certain things to fall between the cracks. That's all brother.

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Not targeting you on the oline coach thing. Another poster implied it. Sorry.

We have seen first hand what bad o-line coaching does to a unit (and injuries) over the course of the eseason.

robertweathers said:

Not targeting you on the oline coach thing. Another poster implied it. Sorry.

We have seen first hand what bad o-line coaching does to a unit (and injuries) over the course of the eseason.

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Last year really was the perfect storm of awful for this offensive line:

1) You started the season without your three most senior interior linemen from 2014. Connolly retired, Stork was on PUP, and Wendell held his breath before the jaunt and came back from the infinite void a lunatic who ripped out his own eyes (not confirmed, but we know literally nothing about his illness so I'm just going with this theory). Not only did this force rookies in the roles, but it removed ANY chance of a stabilizing presence to bring it all together.

2) The coaching seemed to be ill-equipped to fill in the gaps where that veteran leadership used to be. Gugs might be one of those coaches who can get a good show out of guys who already know the ropes, but struggles bringing lower tier players up to acceptable levels.

3) They lost their LT, which is generally the most important position on the line. This forced several players out of position, including Vollmer and Stork (briefly).

4) All of this combined led to more starting line combinations over the course of the year than there are stars in the sky. For a group that relies so much on cohesion and quick communication, this prevented the OLine from ever gelling as a group. And it wasn't just the shear number of combinations, it was how consistently that lineup would have to change. Solder gets hurt, a few games later Vollmer goes down, a few games later Stork comes back, a few games later Jackson and Mason get hurt, etc. There was never more than a two game stretch where the same five guys were playing together.

KontradictioN said:

Hopefully. That would be nice.



Take it for what it's worth. Tucker isn't that bad on NFL radio unless he starts to get all preachy (which is what it sounds like he's doing here).

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Tucker's only good when his opinions are pro-Patriot

IllegalContact said:

Cooper sucked

that is until yesterday afternoon

He's awesome now

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LMAO! Maybe not quite that bad...


He is essentially an educated...



C'mon! Big bucks! No whammies!!!

The one thought that keeps popping up in my mind is: He's a guard, and he was the 7th pick. A guard at #7! I had to look up how rare that was....

In the 80 years of the draft, only 12 guards were picked in the top 5. I know 7 is more than 5, but it puts him in the same ballpark, if not the same infield.

Injuries can certainly derail careers, especially if the player isn't too mentally resilient. Here, Cooper has his best chance at succeeding - a position of need, the best HC and oline coach, and a positive and hardworking environment. We'll see if it's enough.

There's a reason why a guard would be drafted that high, and I'm curious to see the kind of skillset that lands a guy at #7.

condon84 said:

Tucker's only good when his opinions are pro-Patriot

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...and he was anti-Patriot during Deflategate.

Hes dead to me.

Without knowing anything about him, it seems likely that Cooper sucks, since a 2nd is the most we were likely to get for Jones. Cooper is just a throw-in.

Cooper is absolute garbage. Nothing to see here.

letekro said:

Without knowing anything about him, it seems likely that Cooper sucks, since a 2nd is the most we were likely to get for Jones. Cooper is just a throw-in.

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A throw in with really high upside.

condon84 said:

Tucker's only good when his opinions are pro-Patriot

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isn't that the case with everyone?

robertweathers said:

Not targeting you on the oline coach thing. Another poster implied it. Sorry.

We have seen first hand what bad o-line coaching does to a unit (and injuries) over the course of the eseason.

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No need to apologize brother! Rock on.

I don't know anything about Cooper and perhaps a new team is what he needed. He will get opportunity here, so hopefully he takes advantage of it

Sicilian said:

Last year really was the perfect storm of awful for this offensive line:

1) You started the season without your three most senior interior linemen from 2014. Connolly retired, Stork was on PUP, and Wendell held his breath before the jaunt and came back from the infinite void a lunatic who ripped out his own eyes (not confirmed, but we know literally nothing about his illness so I'm just going with this theory). Not only did this force rookies in the roles, but it removed ANY chance of a stabilizing presence to bring it all together.

2) The coaching seemed to be ill-equipped to fill in the gaps where that veteran leadership used to be. Gugs might be one of those coaches who can get a good show out of guys who already know the ropes, but struggles bringing lower tier players up to acceptable levels.

3) They lost their LT, which is generally the most important position on the line. This forced several players out of position, including Vollmer and Stork (briefly).

4) All of this combined led to more starting line combinations over the course of the year than there are stars in the sky. For a group that relies so much on cohesion and quick communication, this prevented the OLine from ever gelling as a group. And it wasn't just the shear number of combinations, it was how consistently that lineup would have to change. Solder gets hurt, a few games later Vollmer goes down, a few games later Stork comes back, a few games later Jackson and Mason get hurt, etc. There was never more than a two game stretch where the same five guys were playing together.

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You can make as many injury excuses as you want but the bottom line is that the players we have in the OL have not shown any proof they are good.
What do you disagree with below.

Solder is above average but the nature of his injury is worrisome

Volmer is injury prone and it appears the plethora of injuries he has sustained has left him as average at best.

Stork was an avg center in 14 and below bag in 15.

Every G who played last season was below average and as a group probably the worst in the NFL.

Cannon stinks.
Waddle was cast off by the Lions and resigned with us for cheap meaning no one out there considers him starter caliber.

If the 1976 Tampa bay bucs had more injuries than any team ever you could try to use that as an excuse but the talent they had wasn't any good healthy or not.

We have to be carful blaming injuries when the majority of the injured players played like crap when they were healthy.

AndyJohnson said:

We have to be carful blaming injuries when the majority of the injured players played like crap when they were healthy.

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Oh so the Pats weren't putting up 30+ every week before injuries?

JMC00 said:

Oh so the Pats weren't putting up 30+ every week before injuries?

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Solder went down, then Lewis went down.........then the offense began committing turnovers

you are correct......for the first half of the year, the OL played........OK.........once Solder went down, the injuries of other offensive linemen as well as a need to change things a bit with Lewis out, then Gronk getting hurt, then Edelman getting hurt, then Amendola getting hurt created problems for the offense which from week 9 had zero week to week continuity.

it's a 'what have you done for me lately world'.......some people like to latch on to whats on the surface

50-yard-line said:

I expect that Long, who has never had anything but praise for the Patriots, will more likely resign here than Jones would.

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And he won't necessarily demand full market value.

JMC00 said:

Oh so the Pats weren't putting up 30+ every week before injuries?

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Injuries to Lewis, Edelman and Gronk.
You do see that they were doing it despite a poor OL, don't you?

JMC00 said:

Oh so the Pats weren't putting up 30+ every week before injuries?

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Which injured OL, aside from Solder played well when they were healthy?
I gave you my ratings on each and every one. Which do you disagree with?

AndyJohnson said:

You can make as many injury excuses as you want but the bottom line is that the players we have in the OL have not shown any proof they are good.
What do you disagree with below.

Solder is above average but the nature of his injury is worrisome

Volmer is injury prone and it appears the plethora of injuries he has sustained has left him as average at best.

Stork was an avg center in 14 and below bag in 15.

Every G who played last season was below average and as a group probably the worst in the NFL.

Cannon stinks.
Waddle was cast off by the Lions and resigned with us for cheap meaning no one out there considers him starter caliber.

If the 1976 Tampa bay bucs had more injuries than any team ever you could try to use that as an excuse but the talent they had wasn't any good healthy or not.

We have to be carful blaming injuries when the majority of the injured players played like crap when they were healthy.

Click to expand...

You seem to be looking at the worst in everyone on the roster. If things were as bad as you are claiming, AND we got hit with the injuries and circumstances that we did, this should have been the worst offense in the league, especially since the offensive injuries were NOT limited to the O-Line. Edelman missed several games, Amendola missed games, Gronk missed a game and a half, Lewis got hurt. Basically every level of the offense was broken by injuries. It may not have been all sugar plums and rainbows if everyone was healthy, but to act like the talent is fundamentally broken and injuries didn't play a role is just being overly pessimistic.

You can act like everyone on the line stinks, that's fine. All I'm saying is when you're trying to evaluate these players under the absolute WORST conditions possible, guys are going to tend to grade lower than they should.