LA Waddle

[SacPete1]

Nice to see no mention of him on the participation/injury report. Although Fleming has held his own, I prefer Waddle at RT.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Nice to see no mention of him on the participation/injury report. Although Fleming has held his own, I prefer Waddle at RT.

Waddle has played well. Seems like hes good to go.

 

[TBR]

I prefer him at RT too. He did a great job against Von Miller and Khalil Mack this year.

 

[maust]

A healthy Waddle could make a bigger difference than you might think. Fleming has done a serviceable fill in job particularly pass blocking but his run blocking is not up to par. The Pats didn't attempt to run off him at all against Jax and only ran off Mason 3 times. If you throw in the one time they ran off the right end that's a total of only 4 run attempts to the right side with Fleming at RT, that total certainly couldn't have been lost on the Eagles.

 

[Kargetina]

The way this season started and the way it was going up to the mid-point, we've been very fortunate with injuries since then.

Since the bye which was after our 8-th game we've only lost Ebner and Jonathan Jones. Everyone else is ready.

We lost more players in the pre-season than we did in the regular+playoffs, especially considering Hightower already had a partial tear before the season began so it was a matter of when not if he gets sidelined.

Pre-season: Edelman, Mitchell, Rivers, Valentine, McLellin, Cyrus Jones, Antonio Garcia, unhealthy Hightower

Regular season+Playoffs: Cannon, Ebner, Jonathan Jones+ Harvey Langi who had a non-football injury.

 

[Chris Stevenson]

Nice to see no mention of him on the participation/injury report. Although Fleming has held his own, I prefer Waddle at RT.

Agree and agree. I am still laughing at some fans magically claim our O Line is not good or our Tackles are not good. How do bad OL players get to Super Bowls?

Waddle was solid in Detroit, but he's been better here and BB didn't trade for him or give him an extension by accident.

He's very athletic, which is what they want. He's also strong, so he has a good combo of footwork and strength, so he's not easily beaten.

He needs a big game vs Graham, and Graham has some power, but he also does that same damn move that Long and Barnett do, which is that swing wide move. There's no creativity with their edge guys, but I do expect that to be different here.

I really do.

Expect combos of stunts and delayed blitzes from the LB level.

With Fleming, that's our 4th Tackle and more than played well. With him, he's better knowing he's starting as opposed to coming off the bench.

 

[Chris Stevenson]

The way this season started and the way it was going up to the mid-point, we've been very fortunate with injuries since then.

Since the bye which was after our 8-th game we've only lost Ebner and Jonathan Jones. Everyone else is ready.

We lost more players in the pre-season than we did in the regular+playoffs, especially considering Hightower already had a partial tear before the season began so it was a matter of when not if he gets sidelined.

Pre-season: Edelman, Mitchell, Rivers, Valentine, McLellin, Cyrus Jones, Antonio Garcia, unhealthy Hightower

Regular season+Playoffs: Cannon, Ebner, Jonathan Jones+ Harvey Langi who had a non-football injury.

BB's management of the injuries is masterful. IN 2015, he was tryin g to do it, and i agree with his approach, it just was too much. 2013 was WORSE.

He knew that it didn't matter if we played Gomer in Foxborough in Denver, we'd win, but only if healthier than down the stretch in December. It almost worked!

 

[BobDigital]

Wow I didn't see this thread and I made one on the same topic. And here I thought I was being all original. :/

This is twice it has happened to me this week.

 

[Deus Irae]

Wow I didn't see this thread and I made one on the same topic. And here I thought I was being all original. :/

This is twice it has happened to me this week.

 

[maineman209]

A healthy Waddle could make a bigger difference than you might think. Fleming has done a serviceable fill in job particularly pass blocking but his run blocking is not up to par. The Pats didn't attempt to run off him at all against Jax and only ran off Mason 3 times. If you throw in the one time they ran off the right end that's a total of only 4 run attempts to the right side with Fleming at RT, that total certainly couldn't have been lost on the Eagles.

IDK.

Fleming has played 430 out of the last 500 OL snaps since the wk-12 home game against the Fins, when Waddle first injured his ankle. Meanwhile Waddle has played only 70 of those snaps. In the five regular season games that Fleming started at RT, the Pats put up four of their five largest rushing totals of the season.

FO has the Pats OL ranked #1 in run-blocking for the 2017 regular season. Percentage-wise the Pat ran a bit more to the left than to the right - 24% left-end/left-tackle v. 17% right-end/right-tackle. But then, the left-right percentages for 2016 were 23%-17%. That's been a Pats tendency for awhile.

OTOH, for the season, the Pats yards per rush were significantly better to the right than to the left - again, the same as in 2016. With Fleming playing nearly 100% of the RT snaps for nearly a third of the season (more total snaps than Waddle), if he was really poor compared to Waddle and Cannon, one would think that would've effected the Pats numbers for the season.

Also, the AFCCG may not be the best example to use in attempting to demonstrate any tendency for the Pats to NOT run behind Fleming/Mason. They only had 19 rush attempts total, few of which were successful in any direction (46 yards total, including Lewis' 18-yard run to seal the deal). That may be attributable to the fact that the Pats had two TEs on the field for only one snap out of 64 (Allen played only ONE snap until Gronk got hurt). Even Develin played only 15 snaps total.

In any case, 3 runs out of 19 works out to about 16% - basically the Pats normal percentage of runs to the right. If you include the one attempt around right end, that works out to 21%. With the bulk of the rush attempts going to the left (perhaps attempting to exploit a tendency for the Jags to overload defensive personnel to the offensive right), where the Pats didn't run was up the middle (A-gaps) - which usually accounts for 55% to 60% of their rushing attempts.

 

[meatface]

I would like as many available options on the line for this game.