Player Signing Patriots sign S Marcus Epps

[BUSTAMOVE]

Patriots sign safety who was captain in Vegas under Josh McDaniels

Seems to be the theme with Vrabel’s picks
Team Captains to create a new Culture

 

[Hugepatsfan]

You know Vrabel's scheme? Really?

Well if his scheme calls for the FS to cover anyone then they're gonna struggle with that part of it, at least who they have as of right now.

 

[Hyped]

 

[Wozzy]

The Raiders sucked… can we stop trying to become the Raiders East?

Also they have like ten SS’s on the roster right now, how many can they field per game?

 

[PatsFan2]

Our Offense says hello share the wealth.

 

[PatsFan2]

Seem like Vrabel is getting ready for some 6-3 Games. Somebody remind Vrabel it's Football not Baseball.

 

[Ring 6]

True, but the last 2 years they've made the (questionable) decision schematically not to play with any actual FS's on the roster and instead just play guys better served as SS's in that spot. Now they've retained all 5 SS types from last year and added one more, still without any actual FS added. It's a concerning trend that, IMO, points to the possibility they might still do that again.

I don't have any issue with them brining in a bunch of JAGS like this to compete at safety as part of the 90 man camp roster. I'm just concerned of the lack of any coverage ability whatsoever from any of them because each of the last 2 years they ignored that and they still have a lot of the same personnel people.

An issue that happened last year was Covington like to play 3 safeties in nickel. That means against the 3 wide you see from most teams you need a safety to cover a WR. Out safeties are fine, but nothing you expose them mtm on a WR.
My expectation is that Vrabel will use a 3 corner nickel much more regularly that 3 S. That changes one of the safeties responsibilities dramatically

 

[Ring 6]

Is this the 2nd wave of signings? Average/mid level players looking for an opportunity to prove themselves?

Remember, the roster last season had more or less 10-20 NFL level players, so I expected this, a lot of signings of mid to back end of the roster, can't just sign starters. Vrabel is cooking a better roster overall. I just created a chant, let Vrabs cook.

We need at least a dozen of those kind of guys.

 

[TomPatriot]

True, but the last 2 years they've made the (questionable) decision schematically not to play with any actual FS's on the roster and instead just play guys better served as SS's in that spot. Now they've retained all 5 SS types from last year and added one more, still without any actual FS added. It's a concerning trend that, IMO, points to the possibility they might still do that again.

I don't have any issue with them brining in a bunch of JAGS like this to compete at safety as part of the 90 man camp roster. I'm just concerned of the lack of any coverage ability whatsoever from any of them because each of the last 2 years they ignored that and they still have a lot of the same personnel people.

He ran a lot of big nickel and dime at Tennessee, so I’m not sure having a trad FS is necessary. But we’ll see.

 

[Steve102]

Seem like Vrabel is getting ready for some 6-3 Games. Somebody remind Vrabel it's Football not Baseball.

If they win 10 games like that, you're gonna *****?

 

[Joey007]

Patriots sign safety who was captain in Vegas under Josh McDaniels

I don’t know how I feel about signing defensive guys that were under the watch of our offensive coordinator.

I don’t want McDaniels to have any personnel control.

 

[Grogan14]

Epps and Schweitzer and Tonga and Chiasson will really excite the fan base.
Get ready for greatest show on turf part 2

Elliott is nailing it

 

[Hugepatsfan]

He ran a lot of big nickel and dime at Tennessee, so I’m not sure having a trad FS is necessary. But we’ll see.

Not sure I follow, at least on the nickel part. "Big nickel" or "big dime" as I understand it typically describes when instead of adding extra CBs to the field you add more Safeties instead. A traditional nickel would be 2 safeties and 3 CBs, a traditional dime 2 safeties and 4 CBs. Bigger variations would mean safeties in place of the extra CBs. The safeties in place of the CBs will, on average, have less deep speed than CBs do so it actually increases the need for deep coverage at the FS spot.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

 

[PaulThePat]

Epps and Schweitzer and Tonga and Chiasson will really excite the fan base.
Get ready for greatest show on turf part 2

Elliott is nailing it

I'm encouraged by the fact that Sam hates this move.

 

[Hugepatsfan]

An issue that happened last year was Covington like to play 3 safeties in nickel. That means against the 3 wide you see from most teams you need a safety to cover a WR. Out safeties are fine, but nothing you expose them mtm on a WR.
My expectation is that Vrabel will use a 3 corner nickel much more regularly that 3 S. That changes one of the safeties responsibilities dramatically

Fair point. Our 2 best safeties are still Dugger and Peppers though and both of them are fish out of water lined up deep. I don't think either of them are great fits for cover 1, which IMO is the best way to take advantage of the great man coverage CB duo we have.

To be fair though, that duo looked fine with BB in 2023. If I recall, they played mostly those two guys together as the lone safeties. Peppers played 97.98% of the snaps, 83.92% for Peppers (missed 2 games, otherwise would have been higher). Jalen Mills played 40.3% of the snaps and he's kind of a safety, but that totaled to 459 snaps on the year and a disproportionate amount of them (130 out of 459, 28.3% of his total snaps) came in the 2 games Peppers missed. Mapu played 17.9% of the snaps. Phillips played 12.1%. But overall, yeah it was a lot less 3 safety snaps and while I think the Peppers/Dugger duo faltered at times with deep coverage, it wasn't crippling.

 

[BUSTAMOVE]

Seem like Vrabel is getting ready for some 6-3 Games. Somebody remind Vrabel it's Football not Baseball.

Don’t care if we win 2-0
As long as we win

 

[bakes781]

Enjoy

 

[bakes781]

No idea about this guy. Looks like he started all games for philly in 2022 and every game for vegas till the injury

Watch the video I just posted. He's not quick enough to recover from speedy WRs but he's solid as a tackler.

 

[Triumph]

You wanted the Pats to spend money on mediocre players. You're getting your wish.

Epps is a headscratcher because the guy has had issues tackling and it's been getting worse each year over the last 3 years.

But Vrabels teams are known for sound tackling.

Let's see what the coaches can do with him?