Vollmer's play vs. Miami
 

Well, Vollmer seemed to have had a very strong game against Miami.

He got away from his push type pass protection blocking from the first couple games and had almost all continuous contact blocks. He handled various Miami DEs without trouble and shut down Porter when he blocked him. In the categories below, most of the very good pass protections could probably be considered very very good. He really was solid.

TV commentators have said a couple times that he was getting help in the first couple games, but that simply isn't the case. He has had single protection assignments for virtually the entire games and that was again the case against Miami. In all three games there might have been about a total of 6 or so times where there was a double blocking assigment and ironically he seems to do less well when there is somebody else confusing the blocking.

It certainly is good fortune for the Patriots that he had a couple games experience before he has to go up against the Colts. At this point, it's hard to predict what will happen. He was certainly solid against Miami, but how that will apply to Freeney remains to be seen - there would seem to be some reason to have hope.

Vollmer seems to be a very good run blocker and also has good speed and range for screen pass blocking. It seems like experience will only make him better.

There were at least two times where there was an interesting offensive line set. They had Mankins, Vollmer, and then Kaczur on the left side. It seemed to work fairly well.

3 excellent pass protections
16 very good (to very very good) pass protections
10 good pass protections
3 OK pass protections
2 poor pass protections
1 terrible pass protections

6 excellent run blocks
3 very good run blocks
6 good run blocks
5 OK run blocks (1 towards poor)
1 poor run block
1 very poor run block