Tight Ends

[RayClay]

4.) Daniel Graham was a pass catching tight end.

In theory....

 

[mmasterkillah]

Pass-happy offenses aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Some teams will certainly decide to make a commitment to the run game when personnel desires, but every team wants a great QB so they can throw the ball and make big plays. I do think that some of the immediate success of the spread due to surprise has and will be neutralized as time goes on, but the whole concept of the spread will certainly not abandoned, especially with all the variations coming about at the college level.

With the way the NFL has protected QB's and WR's teams would have to be foolish to abandon something that has been so successful. Pass ratings have been on the rise and we've even see young QB's do pretty well, the game has been evolving more and more towards passing success.

 

[Nathan]

The problem with the spread is the red zone. I think we all saw that last year. You run out of real estate, your advantages are no longer advantages, and you don't have the personel to muscle it in. I think Belichick and McDaniels realize it too but they're trying to address it in different ways. McD went out and got the only QB that can muscle it in from spread out formations, Belichick got a lot of TEs. I loved the spread in 2007, started noticing it's weakness in 08 and had it confirmed last year. Bring on the TEs. Also with Moss's injury healed up and Brady getting some touch back we should see the return of the fade, which we didn't see at all last year.

 

[Brady2Welker]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if we went to a run, PA style offense this year. I just don't think we have the receivers to run a spread, even if we wanted to.

I expect a lot of 1TE/3WR/1RB or 2TE/2WR/1RB formations.

 

[kkpat]

Case of Jet lag? - BostonHerald.com

Fauria, who couples his NFL commentary with a job as a studio analyst for college football on Versus, gushed over the the Patriots [team stats]’ selections of Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez in the draft.

“Both those guys are great picks. They’re both studs,” Fauria said of the players who follow him in the ranks of Patriots tight ends. “Both of them, in their own right, could be starting tight ends in the NFL, in my opinion.”


Fauria pictures Gronkowski as potentially having the same blocking impact as 6-foot-6, 280-pound Kyle Brady did in 2007.

“Gronkowski is like Kyle Brady. If you remember in ’07, when they went (16-0), Brady was a ginormous reason why they went (16-0) because he was killing people,” Fauria said. “Every time they ran, he had the edge set. If you can’t set the edge in the running game, you’ve got problems. So that’s a big part of it.”

How about having a ginormous target for Tom Brady [stats] in the red zone? The Pats really haven’t utilized their tight ends much inside the 20-yard line. Former Pats linebacker Vrabel was at one time the team’s best red-zone weapon. Maybe the 6-6, 265-pound Gronkowski will be the next in line.

“I hope so,” Fauria said. “There’s nothing like having some tight end love in the end zone.