Offensive Line

[cstjohn17]

Looking over the roster the offensive line has the most concerns. A couple of recent articles caught my eye.
1) From si.com about the Saints, this was a telling quote from Will Smith:
"The Giants may not have started this trend, but they kind of perfected it. They showed everybody last year in the Super Bowl that the defensive line can win the game itself. We watched that game several times, and we know how a defensive line can control the tempo of a game."
2) Article from Reiss on the cap hits of recent signings of Clement & Stokes who are both now on IR

No point playing should of, could of, would have... In the end it is what it is, John Hannah is not walking through that door. It would be nice if Larry Allen did though... honestly I don't expect any players of significance to be added to the roster so there is a strong possibility that Yates is the opening day RG.

I think this brings the Patriots back to the pack, all the leading contenders also have their warts. Indy, SD, Jacksonville, Dallas all have issues. It should be a great season, I don't expect the Patriots to dominate like in 08 but they should win the division and be in the hunt for home field advantage. Once the playoffs start it is a crap shoot.

Just interested in opinions on the O Line or the roster in general.

 

[Sicilian]

Going into training camp, I had three concerns:

1) Health of OL

2) The logjam of questions at CB

3) Effectiveness of young LB

So far, the LB look solid, CB looks to be sorting itself out for the most part, which really just leaves the OL health as my primary concern.

It's not so much that I think they wouldn't play well enough for our offense to be effective, it's that I don't want Brady to get hit as much as he did in the Super Bowl. I think he's the only single player we can't afford to lose on offense.

I think the Patriots are thinking the same way though, and if the OL isn't up to snuff, they've got four RB's who can run OR catch screens to relieve some of the pressure. That's going to be the key to our offense's success or failure I feel.

 

[Deus Irae]

1.) The Patriots lost Neal during the game in the Super Bowl. This season, the team will be starting the game without him and will be better prepared for dealing with his absence as a result.

2.) Moss was open in the Super Bowl, but a hampered Brady and an injured and horribly playing o-line couldn't buy the extra 1/2 second needed to make the throw. New England's offensive line is top 5 in the league with Neal. Without him, it should still be top 10. Couple that with a healthy Brady and a healthy stable of running backs, and teams won't be able to sell out to get to the QB if they want to keep scores under 100.

3.) The Giants were the #1 pass rushing team in the NFL last season, and New England still put up more than 30 points on them in their first meeting. People here like to focus on the Super Bowl and ignore that first game.

 

[BPF]

I am not worried about it, things have a way of working out. In 2003, the Pats used 42 different starters (20 on offense and 22 on defense) and in 2005 the Pats used 45 (22 on offense and 23 on defense) - both times we won the division, 2003 was a much better season obviously but BB and his staff along with Pioli believe in building depth to carry them through these type of situations. I don't think Light's injury is serious or a season ending type deal so he will be back, in the meantime Britt needs to keep Brady standing. Yates is a problem at this point but let's see what he does the rest of the pre-season. We also have the possibility of moving up Welbourn to the starting line at RG. Neal I believe will start the season on PUP list.

Also what Will Smith said is no revelation, most NFL games are won at the LOS. It's funny because before the SB people were talking about how our O-line demoralized the Jaguars and Chargers D-lines and physically beat them up, now we have a bunch of stiffs upfront?! Most NFL teams don't have 3 great pass rushers like the Giants did in XLII in Strahan, Umenyiora and Buck and we played right into their hands by insisting on throwing deep patterns and by obviously not running the ball very well. Also for some reason we didn't pick up their blitzes very well either, if we did we could have had a field day vs that secondary. We did a better job in the Meadowlands and without an effective blitz, our line contained the Giants' fearsome D-line long enough for our guys to get open. That's why in that game they only sacked Brady once and he threw for 356 yards and 2 TD's.

 

[JR4]

1.) The Patriots lost Neal during the game in the Super Bowl. This season, the team will be starting the game without him and will be better prepared for dealing with his absence as a result.

.......

Do you have a reference to Neal not being ready for opening day?
Do you have an update info on his injury status?

 

[Deus Irae]

Do you have a reference to Neal not being ready for opening day?
Do you have an update info on his injury status?

No, but that would be the case if he didn't play this time, as opposed to the Super Bowl.

 

[Sicilian]

No, but that would be the case if he didn't play this time, as opposed to the Super Bowl.

Haha, I feel like we're carrying on the same argument in two different threads

An interesting comparison to the Giants super bowl loss was our Super Bowl win against Carolina. I forget who the starter was, but we had an unproven Russ Hochstein filling in on the OL against what I would argue was a BETTER DL than the 2007 Giants. Offense was fine there.

I don't think it's necessarily about when the person goes down.

 

[fgssand]

we played right into their hands by insisting on throwing deep patterns and by obviously not running the ball very well. Also for some reason we didn't pick up their blitzes very well either, if we did we could have had a field day vs that secondary. We did a better job in the Meadowlands and without an effective blitz, our line contained the Giants' fearsome D-line long enough for our guys to get open. That's why in that game they only sacked Brady once and he threw for 356 yards and 2 TD's.

Sakes alive - you are right. When you go back and watch (even if only the first half), you will be stunned at how effective this team actually was on offense until they continually blew themselves up just as they crossed midfield or were about to make hay.

Numerous open receivers, weird reads, just a day when it well went wrong and they still damn near pulled it off. Arrrgghhh

Oh man, sorry, I went there again - START THE SEASON, please, start it up.

 

[Deus Irae]

Haha, I feel like we're carrying on the same argument in two different threads

An interesting comparison to the Giants super bowl loss was our Super Bowl win against Carolina. I forget who the starter was, but we had an unproven Russ Hochstein filling in on the OL against what I would argue was a BETTER DL than the 2007 Giants. Offense was fine there.

I don't think it's necessarily about when the person goes down.

When the person goes down can make a huge difference. Having a player known to be out all week gives the backup the entire time to integrate into the starting lineup. When you watch sports (and positions in sports) that are based upon timing, you can quickly see that even short layoffs often lead to bad results. That's why people talk about teams having to "shake off the rust" when coaches like Dungy sit out the starters at the end of the season.

And it does seem like a double sort of back and forth, doesn't it?