Nate Solder vs Carlos Dunlap this weekend

[NG Pats Fan]

What should our game plan be to contain Dunlap? Double team? Going to be quite the challenge for our O line. Solder needs to step up. Did anyone expect Dunlap to have this good of a career? He is a stud. After his 14 sack season last year, he has continued to establish himself as one of the best defensive players in the NFL. The frustrating part is, he could and should have been a patriot. In a draft where we had already gotten mccourty and Gronk( can you imagine Dunlap too?). I say this because we drafted a Florida Gator defensive end in the second round. The very next pick, Dunlap was selected.

Dunlap stats in 2016 through week 5


First in passes defended (tipped).....5
Second in forced fumbles................2 (1 behind leader)
Second in total tackles..................22 (2 behind leader
Third in QB hurries.........................9 (2 behind leader)
Third in solo tackles......................15 (3 behind leader)
Fourth in sacks..............................4 (1 behind leader)

And he has accomplished all of this despite ranking 24th in defensive snaps played by a DE (230) a full 121 snaps fewer than the league leader (Jason Pierre-Paul 351)


Still bummed BB chose his far worse college teammate over Dunlap, despite urban Meyer being best friends with BB. BB outsmarted himself on that one.

This might explain it


"The release of Cunningham brings his journey with Bill Belichick to an apparent end. In a conversation with WEEI in 2011, former Florida coach Urban Meyer recounted the tale of Belichick and Cunningham — it appears that the New England coach fell for Cunningham as a collegian.

“That started his sophomore year,” Meyer said of Belichick’s interest in Cunningham. “Coach Belichick would always come down and watch film and I’d sometimes sit in there and he would keep asking about [Jermaine]: ‘Who’s this guy? Who’s this guy? Who’s this guy?’ And you had Derrick Harvey, you had Jarvis Moss, Carlos Dunlap, and then Jermaine was kind of the next guy, but he would always say ‘Who is that guy? I love that guy.’

“Bill Belichick’s the one who saw a lot in him.” - 2013

 

[JMC00]

This team has schemed JJ Watt out of the game every time they've played against him and have contained Von Miller in every game they've played against him except for 1 game when the Center decided to tip the snap count

 

[patfanken]

What should our game plan be to contain Dunlap? Double team? Going to be quite the challenge for our O line. Solder needs to step up. Did anyone expect Dunlap to have this good of a career? He is a stud. After his 14 sack season last year, he has continued to establish himself as one of the best defensive players in the NFL. The frustrating part is, he could and should have been a patriot. In a draft where we had already gotten mccourty and Gronk( can you imagine Dunlap too?). I say this because we drafted a Florida Gator defensive end in the second round. The very next pick, Dunlap was selected.

Dunlap stats in 2016 through week 5


First in passes defended (tipped).....5
Second in forced fumbles................2 (1 behind leader)
Second in total tackles..................22 (2 behind leader
Third in QB hurries.........................9 (2 behind leader)
Third in solo tackles......................15 (3 behind leader)
Fourth in sacks..............................4 (1 behind leader)

And he has accomplished all of this despite ranking 24th in defensive snaps played by a DE (230) a full 121 snaps fewer than the league leader (Jason Pierre-Paul 351)


Still bummed BB chose his far worse college teammate over Dunlap, despite urban Meyer being best friends with BB. BB outsmarted himself on that one.

This might explain it


"The release of Cunningham brings his journey with Bill Belichick to an apparent end. In a conversation with WEEI in 2011, former Florida coach Urban Meyer recounted the tale of Belichick and Cunningham — it appears that the New England coach fell for Cunningham as a collegian.

“That started his sophomore year,” Meyer said of Belichick’s interest in Cunningham. “Coach Belichick would always come down and watch film and I’d sometimes sit in there and he would keep asking about [Jermaine]: ‘Who’s this guy? Who’s this guy? Who’s this guy?’ And you had Derrick Harvey, you had Jarvis Moss, Carlos Dunlap, and then Jermaine was kind of the next guy, but he would always say ‘Who is that guy? I love that guy.’

“Bill Belichick’s the one who saw a lot in him.” - 2013

I hear this Dunlap/Cunningham comparison a lot from those us who think they are better at the draft than BB. What they fail to mention is that Dunlap is a strict 4-3 DE, and AT THE TIME, we were running a 3-4. Dunlap was totally inappropriate at a 3-4 DE, while Cunningham was potentially an archetype 3-4 strong side LB convert.

So if BB had known that he was going to go to the 4-3 just a few years later, he too might have pick Dunlap, but AT THE TIME he really didn't fit the scheme.

 

[patfanken]

BTW- one of the better ways to defeat speed DE's is to run 2 TE's. You gain a full second of time merely by forcing him to align wider because of the TE because if he doesn't he gives the TE the angle on him on all wide plays. In other words he won't be able to set the edge. If he widens to protect that, he opens up the inside running lanes and gives the OT more time to get set. And then it allows the TE to chip block him as well.

 

[Fencer]

BTW- one of the better ways to defeat speed DE's is to run 2 TE's. You gain a full second of time merely by forcing him to align wider because of the TE because if he doesn't he gives the TE the angle on him on all wide plays. In other words he won't be able to set the edge. If he widens to protect that, he opens up the inside running lanes and gives the OT more time to get set. And then it allows the TE to chip block him as well.

Why does that amount to a full second?

 

[pdangle]

Why does that amount to a full second?

Just some rounding precision. Nothing to see here. Time lost is definitely greater than in a typical formation. It could be second, it could be less. It sometimes could even be longer. Assuming avg Sack time takes 3.0-40 secs (ref: from graphic on nfln tv last night), seems reasonable to me.

In any case, it doesn't help their cause, starting further away, a OL less worried about an inside move and more time to react, and the possibly of the TE to help 'chip' in.

 

[E1Downey]

I always hate pointing out the would've, could've, should've's of past drafts once we have the benefit of hindsight. I mean, i get it and we all do it but its kind of silly. There are very very few "sure things" and every team has misses every year.

 

[luuked]

Did anyone expect Dunlap to have this good of a career?

Still bummed BB chose his far worse college teammate over Dunlap, despite urban Meyer being best friends with BB. BB outsmarted himself on that one.

So first you wonder if anyone expected Dunlap to become such a good player and then a few sentences later you say that BB outsmarted himself for selecting a better scheme fit (at that time) over that player ?

How does this make sense ? The draft is a crapshoot and how college players develop, function and grasp NFL-level play simply can't be predicted consistently... and even if they do excel at it they might murder someone and end up in jail sometimes..

It's one thing if you wanna try to learn from past mistakes and analyse it to understand them but sitting there and regretting draft picks is a fools errand..

 

[JMC00]

Was actually Dunlap vs Cannon and Cannon absolutely won that match allowing only 2 pressures

 

[FourierSeries]

NG Pats Fan taking another embarrassing L? Say it ain't so.