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... Its late at night and something Rod Woodson said got me thinking. He made the comment that although Brady wasn't sacked much this year, he got hit more than had in recent years, so there may be a need to add OL help in the draft.
Somehow that didn't compute. While not a probowl LT, Light DID make it to Hawaii as an injury replacement, so he doesn't suck. Mankins should have made the Probowl, and you could make a case for Koppen as well, They just extended Neal, so we know they think highly of them, and we have THREE excellent RTs in waiting.(Britt, OCallahan, & Kaczur) One will win and the other 2 plus Russ Hockstein will back up, with Billy Yates doing post grad work at Scharnecchia U for no name Linemen. I don't think we need help there this year...at all. But still Woodson's words rang true. Brady DID seem to get hit more this year, and it got to making me think WHY, and here is what I came up with.
I have defended the WRs all season. Remember we had the 7th best scoring offense in the league, and they racked up a lot of yds during the playoffs. Pretty good for no name WRs, BUT they are what they are. As the season wore on, more and more teams came at Brady with complex Blitz packages than ever before. WHY?? It was a combination of things. Because the WRs weren't quick enough to get separation off the line in blitz control. Because of a lack of familiarity that extended all year (it got better, and I believe we still would have seen a big difference THIS year, even if nothing changed in the personel) AND because Troy Brown had lost too many steps and wasn't as effective in the slot.
Now, again, it wasn't that it was TERRIBLE, just not good enough to make teams pay a big enough price for blitzing, so that they'd stop or slow down. Hence, more blitzing, Brady takes more hits....again not many more sacks, just more hits.
NOW we can see WHY the Pats put such a premium on Welker. Here is guy who will EXCELL against blitzing teams that have to cover him one one one in the slot. Clearly the Pats feel he has the quickness to get off the LOS, he has the smarts to read the defenses, and the toughness to play in the middle. Evidently, they determined that he was the one guy in FA who could improve this critical part of the game and make teams PAY for blitzing.
If he does his job well, then teams will have to blitz less in order to get more men in coverage and Brady doesn't get hit as much as he did last season. It wasn't that the OL sucked, it was they were just facing many more blitzes...and when you blitz, you have less time, and when you have less time, your QB WILL get hit.
Add the RIGHT player, within the RIGHT system, and he not only affects the passing game, but aids in the pass blocking as well. If you think of it this way, getting Welker and paying the price we did to acquire him, makes more sense. We needed a certain kind of WR who could make teams pay for blitzing to much.
Now Im sure that Welker in the slot isn't the only way the Pats can make defenses not want to blitz. You could see it later in the year, when BOTH Gaffney and Caldwell beat their men deep on 9 routes only to have Brady miss them. With another year of preparation, I believe that they will make that connection more often.
You can say the same thing about AD on Defense. Its not just that he will bring his obvious physical skills to the game, by having HIM and a lot of our DB depth back, we will be able to show defensive packages that were thrown out the last 2 years because of all the injuries, The Defense finally has a big 3 in the DL, LBs, and Secondary (Seymour, AD, Samuel) that forces an offense to find each of these elite players on each level of the defense. Sort of like the same kind of problems a great offense who has a great QB, RB, & WR Big Three, would present to a defense. EVERYTHING SEEMS TO INTERCONNECT.
I also think its interesting how the game is evolving so that having a blazing fast safety can impact the game more than the traditional impact positions of CB, OLB, and DE. In other words the great athletes are now playing or being converted to S. Back when I was a SS, that was where you put the guys who were good but not great athletes. The "great" athletes you put a CB. Not any more. More and more you take your CBs and turn them into Safeties. But that's a topic for another thread.
Jeess its March and I'm already getting excited to see how this team will evolve. Good night
Somehow that didn't compute. While not a probowl LT, Light DID make it to Hawaii as an injury replacement, so he doesn't suck. Mankins should have made the Probowl, and you could make a case for Koppen as well, They just extended Neal, so we know they think highly of them, and we have THREE excellent RTs in waiting.(Britt, OCallahan, & Kaczur) One will win and the other 2 plus Russ Hockstein will back up, with Billy Yates doing post grad work at Scharnecchia U for no name Linemen. I don't think we need help there this year...at all. But still Woodson's words rang true. Brady DID seem to get hit more this year, and it got to making me think WHY, and here is what I came up with.
I have defended the WRs all season. Remember we had the 7th best scoring offense in the league, and they racked up a lot of yds during the playoffs. Pretty good for no name WRs, BUT they are what they are. As the season wore on, more and more teams came at Brady with complex Blitz packages than ever before. WHY?? It was a combination of things. Because the WRs weren't quick enough to get separation off the line in blitz control. Because of a lack of familiarity that extended all year (it got better, and I believe we still would have seen a big difference THIS year, even if nothing changed in the personel) AND because Troy Brown had lost too many steps and wasn't as effective in the slot.
Now, again, it wasn't that it was TERRIBLE, just not good enough to make teams pay a big enough price for blitzing, so that they'd stop or slow down. Hence, more blitzing, Brady takes more hits....again not many more sacks, just more hits.
NOW we can see WHY the Pats put such a premium on Welker. Here is guy who will EXCELL against blitzing teams that have to cover him one one one in the slot. Clearly the Pats feel he has the quickness to get off the LOS, he has the smarts to read the defenses, and the toughness to play in the middle. Evidently, they determined that he was the one guy in FA who could improve this critical part of the game and make teams PAY for blitzing.
If he does his job well, then teams will have to blitz less in order to get more men in coverage and Brady doesn't get hit as much as he did last season. It wasn't that the OL sucked, it was they were just facing many more blitzes...and when you blitz, you have less time, and when you have less time, your QB WILL get hit.
Add the RIGHT player, within the RIGHT system, and he not only affects the passing game, but aids in the pass blocking as well. If you think of it this way, getting Welker and paying the price we did to acquire him, makes more sense. We needed a certain kind of WR who could make teams pay for blitzing to much.
Now Im sure that Welker in the slot isn't the only way the Pats can make defenses not want to blitz. You could see it later in the year, when BOTH Gaffney and Caldwell beat their men deep on 9 routes only to have Brady miss them. With another year of preparation, I believe that they will make that connection more often.
You can say the same thing about AD on Defense. Its not just that he will bring his obvious physical skills to the game, by having HIM and a lot of our DB depth back, we will be able to show defensive packages that were thrown out the last 2 years because of all the injuries, The Defense finally has a big 3 in the DL, LBs, and Secondary (Seymour, AD, Samuel) that forces an offense to find each of these elite players on each level of the defense. Sort of like the same kind of problems a great offense who has a great QB, RB, & WR Big Three, would present to a defense. EVERYTHING SEEMS TO INTERCONNECT.
I also think its interesting how the game is evolving so that having a blazing fast safety can impact the game more than the traditional impact positions of CB, OLB, and DE. In other words the great athletes are now playing or being converted to S. Back when I was a SS, that was where you put the guys who were good but not great athletes. The "great" athletes you put a CB. Not any more. More and more you take your CBs and turn them into Safeties. But that's a topic for another thread.
Jeess its March and I'm already getting excited to see how this team will evolve. Good night