Excellent Analysis of Patriots D by Bedard

[Mack Herron]

That the OL needs help is supported by the drafting of 3 OLs. Unfortunately, one is gone and the others are not quite ready. At least we are done with Wake.

 

[pencilneckgeek]

I'm not jealous of the Ravens, but I do think they give us a bit of cause for optimism, if only because they show how quickly an OL can be turned around once it's acknowledged as a problem. What did it take them to go from horrible last year to looking pretty damn good so far? They traded for Eugene Monroe and signed Jeremy Zuttah. That just about covered it.

Bottom line: the Pats need their own Zuttah. Maybe Stork's the guy, or maybe a FA will have to be. But this OL is about 1-2 players away from potentially being really good again. I have more faith in the team's ability to fix it once they decide to than I have in its ability to recognize the problem in the first place.

One worthwhile observation that the announcers made last night regarding the Ravens' line is that not one of them missed a day of practice during the pre-season and how all that practice time helped the new pieces gel. Contrast that to the Pats' revolving door process this year, with Stork's injury and Mankins' late departure, and you can see how quickly things can go wrong with so little margin for error there is in the current CBA's practice rules. I wouldn't be so quick to trash the talent (aside from Wendell's obvious limitations and an admittedly short leash on Devey now).

 

[PatFanCraig]

I'm not jealous of the Ravens, but I do think they give us a bit of cause for optimism, if only because they show how quickly an OL can be turned around once it's acknowledged as a problem. What did it take them to go from horrible last year to looking pretty damn good so far? They traded for Eugene Monroe and signed Jeremy Zuttah. That just about covered it.

Bottom line: the Pats need their own Zuttah. Maybe Stork's the guy, or maybe a FA will have to be. But this OL is about 1-2 players away from potentially being really good again. I have more faith in the team's ability to fix it once they decide to than I have in its ability to recognize the problem in the first place.

To a lot of us, it's been clear that the interior of the line needs a talent infusion ever since Ryan Wendell stepped foot on the field. And while I couldn't really blame them in 2012, since they expected Waters back and seemed to have been kinda blindsided by that, they've now had two full offseasons where they've chosen to run the same old guys back out there.

Eventually, Belichick will realize that he's trying to get water out of a stone with some of these guys, and when he does I expect to see a pretty quick turnaround. At this point, I would be both not shocked and very happy if we made an in-season trade for an impact guard, kinda like what Belichick did with Talib a couple of years ago.

That's just it bill has a budget with what he pays and draft picks he will trade. He got lucky with Talib that Schiano was sympathetic. Its how we ended up with Lafell, Bill tries getting bargains hoping Loser Lafell will outplay his contract but ends up wasting $3 mil a year on a total scrub. I envy the Ravens for stealing players I wanted bill to draft like Mosley, Osemele and Arthur Brown all of whom are looking like impact players. They likely have the best OLine in the NFL. Can't help but think Brady passing for 6000 yards behind that OLine. Like you said dude let's hope bill changes from worrying more bout the system a player played in college than the overall talent of the player