Jonathan Jones getting some love from his teammates, and the ProJo...

[RobertWeathers]

I work very hard at teaching speed and quickness.

Cat-like?

 

[RobertWeathers]

Which makes him (the actor who played Enos) saying Grump "must be dumbest sob alive" pretty funny.

From all the characters on that show the collective iq was 65.

 

[Username]

Another excellent performance. He's developing into a fine player.

 

[ForThoseAboutToRock]

Another excellent performance. He's developing into a fine player.

I was glad to see that they stuck with him on Landry. It seemed like a tough match-up - Landry had 8 catches for 70 yards including a number 1st down conversions - but Jones limited him to a long play of 15 yards. So while it felt like Landry was cutting things up against us, they were kinda just paper cuts & not bleeding slash wounds.

I'd be interested to see some analysis of JJ versus Landry, including what people think of Landry (would BB target him as a free agent? Is he really talented or overrated, etc.)

 

[fan345]

Anybody else thinking Rowe could be a healthy scratch this weekend?

 

[Bobsyouruncle]

I like him play. He make good footballs.

 

[Love The Drake]

I was glad to see that they stuck with him on Landry. It seemed like a tough match-up - Landry had 8 catches for 70 yards including a number 1st down conversions - but Jones limited him to a long play of 15 yards. So while it felt like Landry was cutting things up against us, they were kinda just paper cuts & not bleeding slash wounds.

I'd be interested to see some analysis of JJ versus Landry, including what people think of Landry (would BB target him as a free agent? Is he really talented or overrated, etc.)

Talented and yes I think BB will see how much

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

I wonder if the team sees JJ as Butler's potential replacement in 2018. Jones is under contract for 2018 for almost the minimum and would be an RFA in 2019. While they don't have to or need to, they could try to extend him now with an incentive-laden contract ( playing time, All-Pro) to lock him up longer term....for lots less than it might cost in a few years.....

 

[ctpatsfan77]

I wonder if the team sees JJ as Butler's potential replacement in 2018. Jones is under contract for 2018 for almost the minimum and would be an RFA in 2019. While they don't have to or need to, they could try to extend him now with an incentive-laden contract ( playing time, All-Pro) to lock him up longer term....for lots less than it might cost in a few years.....

Depends on how much he wants to play ball. They extended both Ryan Allen and David Andrews after two seasons.

 

[SlowGettingUp]

I was glad to see that they stuck with him on Landry. It seemed like a tough match-up - Landry had 8 catches for 70 yards including a number 1st down conversions - but Jones limited him to a long play of 15 yards. So while it felt like Landry was cutting things up against us, they were kinda just paper cuts & not bleeding slash wounds.

I'd be interested to see some analysis of JJ versus Landry, including what people think of Landry (would BB target him as a free agent? Is he really talented or overrated, etc.)

Landry's performance against the Pats was statistically pretty close to his average for the year. For the year he has 75 catches for 637 yards averaging 8.5 YPC with 6 TDs.
Against the Pats he had 8 catches for 70 yards, with an 8.8 average.

 

[TheBostonStraggler]

One of the beat reporters did a piece about a month ago in which he asked the guys on the team who they thought was the fastest Pats player. Dorsett and one or two other guys were mentioned, but Jones, Cooks and Slater got virtually all of the top votes.

The Pats also have a couple of fairly fast guys on the PS, too. CB Ryan Lewis had a 4.37/40, and WR/KR Riley McCarron posted a 4.41/40 to go along with a 6.59 3-cone (just edging Edelman's mark of 6.61).

EDIT:

After further review ...

Gilmore .. 4.40/40 ... 3.94 ss ... 6.61 3-cone
Bademosi .. 4.39/40 .. 4.10 ss .. 6.96 3-cone
Rowe .. 4.45/40 .. 3.97 ss ... 6.70 3-cone

ONE MORE EDIT:
Enber .. 4.04 ss ... 6.59 3-cone

Rowe current listing(??) at 6'1" 205, Bademosi 6'+ 200, Gilmore listed at 6'+ 195. Wasn't there a time not so many years ago when BB wanted that 6'+/notably bigger than the common 5'10"(with thick socks on) corner but every 6'+ corner he tried never seemed to "catch" on?
Gilmore's numbers are solid and noteworthy given his size. But when it comes down to brass tacks it is: see/identify, process, make necessary change in direction, accelerate. And in the time to do that there is a very tiny difference between good CB and a CB who doesn't make it in the NFL.
Speaking of not making it, what ever happened to Dennard? From shades of promise, to off field trouble, to ???

 

[maineman209]

Anybody else thinking Rowe could be a healthy scratch this weekend?

It seems to me that Reilly is likely to be out, since he was still wearing the red, no-contact jersey at practice yesterday.

M. Flowers, T. Flowers and Van Noy are dinged up.

All of these guy contribute quite a bit to edge-contain which seems likely to be key to defending against McCoy and Taylor.

I'm guessing that, if Rowe is healthy enough to play without re-injuring himself, he may be active just to help out with edge-contain and TE coverage (Clay and O'Leary are both receiving threats).

 

[maineman209]

I was glad to see that they stuck with him on Landry. It seemed like a tough match-up - Landry had 8 catches for 70 yards including a number 1st down conversions - but Jones limited him to a long play of 15 yards. So while it felt like Landry was cutting things up against us, they were kinda just paper cuts & not bleeding slash wounds.

I'd be interested to see some analysis of JJ versus Landry, including what people think of Landry (would BB target him as a free agent? Is he really talented or overrated, etc.)

FWIW, Jeff Howe tweets coverage & pressure stats for each game on Mondays. Not sure where he gets the stats, but this week he had JJ allowing 4/5 for 31 yards with a PBU in coverage on Sunday.

Landry's stat line on the day was 8/9 for 70 yds with a long of 15 yds, so he wasn't solely covered by JJ. I'm not sure who allowed Landry the 15-yarder, but JJ doesn't typically allow much YAC to whoever he's covering.

 

[maineman209]

I wonder if the team sees JJ as Butler's potential replacement in 2018. Jones is under contract for 2018 for almost the minimum and would be an RFA in 2019. While they don't have to or need to, they could try to extend him now with an incentive-laden contract ( playing time, All-Pro) to lock him up longer term....for lots less than it might cost in a few years.....

The Pats have less than $3.5M in cap space, which isn't really a lot if another roster emergency comes up.

Just ask the Seahawks. They're down to $93,000 in cap space, which isn't enough to pay the minimum salary for any player category for even five games.

Apparently, this is the reason that they haven't place Chancellor on IR yet. Chancellor's salary is guaranteed for injury, so they're paying him the same whether he's on IR or not. If they move him to IR, they'll be down to 52 players on the active roster, but they'll still need to de-activate 7 guys for a game, AFAIK, so they'd be down to 45 guys active with (likely) a healthy player sitting.

Anyway, I'm guessing that all potential contract extensions are likely to be delayed until after the season.

 

[maineman209]

Rowe current listing(??) at 6'1" 205, Bademosi 6'+ 200, Gilmore listed at 6'+ 195. Wasn't there a time not so many years ago when BB wanted that 6'+/notably bigger than the common 5'10"(with thick socks on) corner but every 6'+ corner he tried never seemed to "catch" on?
Gilmore's numbers are solid and noteworthy given his size. But when it comes down to brass tacks it is: see/identify, process, make necessary change in direction, accelerate. And in the time to do that there is a very tiny difference between good CB and a CB who doesn't make it in the NFL.
Speaking of not making it, what ever happened to Dennard? From shades of promise, to off field trouble, to ???

It seems to me that what BB values most in a CB is ...

1) technique/coachability + football IQ/awareness
2) effective athleticism + tackling willingness/ability (at least since Asante Samuel)

Height is a bonus.

For several years, BB caught a lot of flak on fan forums for not drafting taller CBs, and he acquired a totally undeserved reputation for "preferring midgets". That common wisdom, of course, ignored a couple of facts.

For a long time, taller CBs who could actually play well, were a relative rarity in the league. Those who could play (A) were usually long gone before the Pats' first pick in any given draft, and (B) received a lot of media coverage, which made it seem like every other team had one or two. But the fact was that the Pats' "midget" CB's actually matched the aggregate average hgt/wgt of the top-3 CBs for the 31 other teams.

I agree that there are more competent "tall" CBs (and safeties) available in the draft these days (and the average hgt/wgt of successful NFL DB's has risen a bit over the past few seasons), but they're still fairly difficult for BB to get his hands on during draft weekend, especially given that the team also typically has one or two holes to fill at other positions in each draft. Even, so, BB has now managed to acquire a couple of taller guys who've more or less demonstrated some competency at the NFL level.

-----

WRT Dennard ... According to WIKI, he was claimed by ARZ when the Pats waived him in May of 2015, but only lasted with them until the start of Camp that year. He was apparently out of football until signing (in January 2016) with a new Baltimore franchise of the re-organizing Arena League (which fell apart again before it got off the ground).

Dennard was out of football again until he was signed by Saskatchewan of the CFL this past April, but they cut him in mid-June, just before the start of their 2017 season.

 

[Patsfanin Philly]

The Pats have less than $3.5M in cap space, which isn't really a lot if another roster emergency comes up.

Just ask the Seahawks. They're down to $93,000 in cap space, which isn't enough to pay the minimum salary for any player category for even five games.

Apparently, this is the reason that they haven't place Chancellor on IR yet. Chancellor's salary is guaranteed for injury, so they're paying him the same whether he's on IR or not. If they move him to IR, they'll be down to 52 players on the active roster, but they'll still need to de-activate 7 guys for a game, AFAIK, so they'd be down to 45 guys active with (likely) a healthy player sitting.

Anyway, I'm guessing that all potential contract extensions are likely to be delayed until after the season.

Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant extend him but not necessarily now where as you pointed out, they are relatively tight to the cap..

 

[DarrylS]

UDFA's who the Pats find and develop into starting players, warm the ****les of my heart...

A huge FU to all of the draft prognosticators..

 

[RobertWeathers]

The Pats have less than $3.5M in cap space, which isn't really a lot if another roster emergency comes up.

Just ask the Seahawks. They're down to $93,000 in cap space, which isn't enough to pay the minimum salary for any player category for even five games.

Apparently, this is the reason that they haven't place Chancellor on IR yet. Chancellor's salary is guaranteed for injury, so they're paying him the same whether he's on IR or not. If they move him to IR, they'll be down to 52 players on the active roster, but they'll still need to de-activate 7 guys for a game, AFAIK, so they'd be down to 45 guys active with (likely) a healthy player sitting.

Anyway, I'm guessing that all potential contract extensions are likely to be delayed until after the season.

Seattle has some major decisions to make in the offseason on some key people.

Via being cut or through a renegotiation, big savings can be realized on...

-Sherm
-Wagner
-Thomas
-Wright
-Avril
-Lane

Seattle Seahawks Salary Cap | Over the Cap

 

[RobertWeathers]

Anybody else thinking Rowe could be a healthy scratch this weekend?

Maybe but I think they need to see if he can stay healthy as they'll need him vs Pitt.

Bryant is 6-4 and Ju Ju is 6-1 and both play on the outside

 

[maineman209]

Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant extend him but not necessarily now where as you pointed out, they are relatively tight to the cap..

I agree about JJ probably getting an extension, even though he's an RFA at the end of 2018. It'll be interesting if they can do that with him when they couldn't get it done with Butler.

Trey Flowers is another whose contract expires at the end of 2018. Shaq Mason and Cooks, as well.

Eric Rowe, also 2018, is a "maybe".

Cardona and Ryan Allen, probably. Maybe Gostkowski, even though he turns 34 this coming January.

Hogan's contract expires at the end of 2018, but he turns 30 next October, so that might end up being a new 2-yr contract in the spring of 2019.

I'd guess they let Gillislee play out his contract in 2018, too, unless he blows the doors off between now and the end of the playoffs this season.

But even these extensions are subject to cap space constraints next spring/summer/fall - with 13 in-house UFAs to think about re-signing in the spring, PLUS Ted Karras (ERFA), PLUS the 10 guys on the PS, PLUS (maybe) DE Caleb Kidder and OG Chase Farris on IR.

Branch, Harris and McClellin could be released, and Dwayne Allen and Brady could be re-worked to free up some more space, but it's still likely to be somewhat tight ...

They'll have about $13M-$14M to start with, another $6M-$7M added from the three cuts, maybe another $2M from renegotiating Allen's deal, maybe another $10M from extending Brady through age 43 at his current rate (converting $13M of his current $14M 2018 salary to signing bonus).

That all maxxes out at around $33M, but probably a bit less.

Seems like a lot, but you start paying out $750k here and $1.5M (or more there) on extensions/re-signings, PLUS maybe $1.5M on draftees and there's suddenly not a lot left for signing outside FAs while keeping $5M-$6M for an emergency fund heading into Camp.