Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 23, 2016 - Offensive line's improvement overshadows one area of concern

Episode Date: August 22, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe breaks down the improved state of the offensive line, but there's still an issue or two that needs to be resolved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. What's up, everybody? This is Locked on Patriots, Tuesday, August 23rd. I am your host, Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald, coming at you every single day, Monday through Friday, with this new Locked on Patriots podcast. Hopefully, you have been a listener all along, but if you're new, welcome. And tell all your friends because this is the greatest show on the entire internet.

That's a fact. You cannot dispute that. So, big offensive line show today. Talking about the big sexies up front. These guys had a really good game against the Bears preseason week two. Much, much improved unit over their preseason opener against the Saints, which was, by and large, close to a debacle. But the improvement is what you like to see. And it started, in my opinion, with Nate Solder on the left side

because Solder is a guy that you're really going to watch. After missing 10 months, or basically not playing a full football game for 10 months, Solder came out, was rusty in that preseason opener, allowed a sack and a half against the Saints. And again, I didn't want to hold that against him just because of that long layoff. Coming off of the torn biceps, you didn't know how... I mean, he's a guy who relies heavily on his footwork if his speed is off if his timing's off his technique is off you're gonna get beat that's what happens so he played a clean game against the bears and then i'm gonna move over to the right side where hopefully you're sitting

down right now but if you're not you might want to find a seat maybe duct tape yourself to it because Marcus Cannon played almost close to a perfect game very close to a perfect game he had a false start to open up the second half and that was it he did not allow anybody to hit Jimmy Garoppolo he was strong in the run game on multiple occasions was the lead blocker for a run that got five six seven yards and in pass protection where he has struggled more than anything again he had a perfect game didn't allow a pressure didn't allow a sack didn't allow a hit didn't allow anything and he got a lot of one-on-one time on the right side with Floyd and Houston so it's not like Cannon was going against some cupcakes he He had a good

game out there. Now, I don't want to get too far ahead of myself here. Marcus Cannon's had some bad games in the past, and nobody's going to forget about that AFC championship performance in January against the Broncos. So this isn't to say that Marcus Cannon's all of a sudden found Dante Skarnecchi again, and it's going to be a fantastic right tackle but you gotta like where he played you gotta like where it started uh against the Bears because he is going to be the Patriots right tackle throughout the 2016 season uh if you missed it this weekend Sebastian Vollmer is dealing with a pretty severe hip injury after offseason surgery and there's very little optimism that he's going to be able to return and play in the 2016 season,

which is his final year under contract with the Patriots. He's 32 years old, turns 33 next July. You have to wonder if a guy who's only played 16 games once in his career and is now coming off hip surgery, you've got to wonder if that's it for him. It's a tough way for that guy to go out because he's played some really good football over the course of his career since being a second-round pick in 2009. Guy wasn't invited to the Combine and was a questionable pick at the time, but again, really came out strong, was a really good rookie,

and has been, when healthy, a really, really top-of-the-line right tackle for the Patriots. One of the best right tackles in the league during his peak years, especially, again, when he was healthy. But those injuries have been an issue pretty much every single year of his career. We knew he had bad ankles, and then the hip surgery's not what you're looking for, especially once you're talking about an NFL player player after the age of 30 so that's really tough news for the patriots to stomach this is probably something they've known about for quite some time though the news came out it hit the media over the weekend but the patriots were prepared for this so it's not like they were going through training camp you know like kind of everybody else analyzing this team saying all all right, it's just a matter of time before Vollmer gets back. It's just a matter. No, it, I have to believe the Patriots knew that Marcus

Cannon was going to be their right tackle. And he had a good game against the bears. He's going to have to put his, he has to string a lot more of those performances together before people are completely bought in on cannon. But what I can't, you can't kill the guy for for coming off of a really good game against the bears so something to build from for the off criticized right tackle uh swing it back to the left side again joe tooney the rookie third round pick has continued to play very good i mean the guy is i've said it again or i've said it before. I'll say it again. He's playing like a first round draft pick. He looks like a first round draft pick and the Patriots are set at left guard, which is good because, you know, Nate Solder gets

criticized from time to time. I'd have a hard time believing you, you couldn't watch or wander into any of the other 31 NFL markets. and even some of the best left tackles in the game you're probably not going to sit there and say you know not see a heavy amount of criticism for those guys too it's a tough job because you it's thankless if you are quiet you get no praise unless you're going against really like a Khalil Mack or you know not not like a J.J. Waugh but if you're going against an elite pass rusher as a left tackle and you hold the guy off the sack sheet, then, you know, that's when you get the praise. But otherwise, you know, if you get beat by one of those guys, if you get beat by

a quality pass rusher, you're going to look bad. That's what good pass rushers do, especially the fast ones, the guys who can get around that left edge and get to a quarterback. Plus, if you hit a quarterback on the blind side, it usually looks pretty ugly because he doesn't see it coming. So again, every mistake that Solder makes gets magnified. He's got a tough job. I'm not saying he's a perfect left tackle. I'm not saying he's the best left tackle in the league,

but the Patriots have a good left tackle, and now they have a lot of comfort in their guy who's going to be their left guard for the foreseeable future. So the left side of the line has come together pretty nicely. David Andrews and Brian Stork continuing to rotate somewhat. Andrews is still the starter in that preseason game. Played fairly well and did a nice job to open up some running lanes. Didn't allow any pressures so uh another good performance for him i thought brian stork was better in his second game as opposed to the first preseason game when he had some some up and down moments so the center battle

there which i declared to to really go in andrew's favor last week because stork got ejected from practice yet again for fighting you know i'm i think still it's probably david andrews job but again i also when i said that it was andrew's job to win last week i didn't rule out the chance that b Brian Stork could pick himself up and kind of get it back in gear a little bit here. So we'll see. You know, Bill Belichick is not writing off that competition. Clearly still wants to give Stork as much playing time as possible. The Patriots did have some issues at right guard against the Bears, and that is an area of concern, no doubt about it. Josh Klein was the starter now i've said it a million times

you're probably sick of hearing it from me at this point josh klein was the patriots best offensive lineman in 2015 until he hurt that shoulder that ultimately needed to be repaired through offseason surgery didn't play well after he hurt the shoulder i'm gonna give the guy credit for going out there and trying to gut it out but that's why Klein got off to a slow start he didn't play at all in the offseason workout program or didn't practice at all in the offseason workout program because of the rehab and then worked his way back into it slowly at the start of training camp and didn't really play all that great against the Bears now I did notice that he was sagging that shoulder after a couple of his worst plays he got blown up a couple times in the running game.

One was on third and goal before a field goal. And another time was on that failed two-point conversion when they ran through Klein and actually Brian Stork too. So he had a tough moment there. But not Klein's best performance. Klein was at practice on Monday. So whatever that shoulder situation was that he was dealing with against the Bears hasn't been a huge issue I guess now remember we're at

the point in training camp where the media is only watching a few minutes of practice so certainly possible that they hid Klein after or they put him out there and as soon as the media departed they sent Klein inside too we don't know uh there's no way to monitor the Patriots for that just because there's no injury report until week one so we're at a very gray area uh it's sort of no man's land I guess in training camp or in the preseason whatever you want to call it where the Patriots can basically do whatever they want in practice all they got to do is show us 10 to 15 minutes of the workout and then they can hide again whoever they want so we'll see what's going on there Shaq Mason has a broken right hand I saw him Monday in the locker room had a small plastic cast on that white right hand it was a white cast on that right hand and you, it's a small cast,

which, you know, maybe you sit there and you say, all right, it's not a huge thing. Smaller cast, you know, you can usually come back if it's not, I don't know the severity of the broken hand. You know, you can get back from these things sometimes in three weeks. Some of these guys can play with a broken hand. Some of these guys can play all right with a broken hand. Some of them play very poorly with a broken hand. Handwork for an offensive lineman is pivotal. So if they have a hard time with their technique at the line of scrimmage when they're engaged with a defensive tackle

and Mason isn't able to do what he's normally able to do, you know, that's an issue. The good side is, you know that's that's that's an issue the good side is you know if it's one of the shorter injuries the shorter side of that recovery time maybe he's able to get back out there for week one against the cardinals on september 11th but again it's too early in the process i don't know enough about the severity of the broken hand and the other thing is remember the last year when justin coleman had a broken hand he the other thing is remember the last year when Justin Coleman had a broken hand he had a small removable cast through much of that period that he missed and then you saw him out there for a couple games when he tried to play through it with basically a club on his hand

and he's a guy who struggled with that club because of his handwork at the line of scrimmage he likes to bump and run a little bit and he wasn't able to do that because receivers were able to just get right off of his jam at the line of scrimmage. So there's a lot that goes into a broken hand, but I think at the point now, maybe you can hold out hope that Shaq Mason is the Patriots' starting right guard in the regular season opener, or you can just hold out hope if you're a Patriots fan that Josh Klein is going to turn it around because you know he's a guy who got a contract extension last year has a two million dollar cap hit right now which is the second highest only to Jonathan Cooper for interior offensive lineman on the Patriots they got that they gave him that contract

extension he deserved it because he was playing well. So I still think because of the amount of bodies that they've lost so far at right guard, that's a tough, that's a tough position to project. You pretty much, you know, who's starting at left tackle, left guard and right tackle. I think I know who's starting at center with David Andrews, but the right guard position has just been very, very spotty, I guess. They started with Jonathan Cooper. Then when Cooper got hurt third day of camp, Ted Karras got a lot of work. The rookie sixth rounder, not entirely sure he's ready for it yet for that type of role. Then they went to Shaq Mason.

Now with his broken hand, they go to Josh Klein. We've got to monitor what his shoulder situation is. And I don't know when Cooper's coming back. So you've also got Trey Jackson on the pop list. And I wouldn't be surprised. Now, I don't know for sure. I don't know if the Patriots have decided, but it doesn't sound like Trey Jackson is coming back in the immediate future. So I don't think you can count on him at any point right now. Plus he's a guy who has to get his conditioning right. So even if he does practice, let's just say it happens is, you know, much quicker than we expect. And he practices this week. That doesn't mean that he's going to be ready for September 11th, because again, he's got to get his legs under under him so we'll see what happens with Jackson after the offseason

knee surgery and it's just let's go through some numbers too just to highlight how much better the Patriots were as an offensive line in game two in comparison to game one now there was one miscue but it was negated when Cameron Fleming was in as the sixth offensive lineman the eligible tackle he allowed Garoppolo to get sacked but that play was negated due to a defensive hold so I'm not counting that one because you know the play technically didn't count but you look at what happens in the Saints game when Garoppolo was sacked twice, hit twice more, and pressured once in 20 first-half dropbacks. So you're talking five plays right there, a quarter of his 20 dropbacks.

Garoppolo was either hit or moved from the pocket and put under duress. So hit four times technically if you include those two sacks, and then one other time when again he was hurried out of the pocket so not a good start for them and then in the passing game against the saints he was pressured twice in 21 drop backs so you know again that's it's a big improvement from the entire line trending in the right direction so you know Klein allowed one of those pressures it's just not not his best night then you look at the running game and Bill Belichick hinted at this last week the Patriots had decent numbers on the ground against the Saints but if you look a little

closer at what happened in that Saints game, the ground game really wasn't all that impressive. You take out four runs. Now they gained 90 yards on four runs, including Tyler Gaffney's 44-yard touchdown run in the second half of that game. So you got four runs for 90 yards there. You take out those four runs, the Patriots other 23 carries just from their running backs now not including the quarterback scrambles they had 23 runs they gained 38 yards so you're talking less than two yards a carry through the vast majority of those runs and 13 of the running backs 27 carries in that preseason opener against the Saints went for two or fewer yards,

including five runs for negative yards. So Bill Belichick was on to something when he was saying, look, yeah, the numbers looked fine, about four and a half yards a carry, but that was only because they had four huge chunk plays that made everything look a whole lot better. That wasn't really an issue against the Bears because they were gaining four, five, six, seven yards a lot more frequently than they had against the Saints. And they only had two runs against the Bears that were more than 10 yards. So they were right around four and a half yards a carry again, but it was a legitimate four and a half yards a carry.

And it was just a collective effort much more improved you know they only had eight runs against the bears which was just 32 percent of their carries the running backs carries they only had eight runs of two or fewer yards and now i'm taking out lagarup blunt's one yard touchdown run because he can't go much much farther than one yard when you're at the one yard line, and I'm not going to penalize a guy for scoring a touchdown. So eight runs for two or fewer yards, and that's one-third as opposed to 48% of their carries went for two or fewer yards against the Saints. Now, I'm throwing a lot of numbers at you.

Hopefully I'm not confusing you too much here. But the bottom line was they got more consistent run production against the Bears. It's not just about the pass protection, obviously. But, you know, it's a lot easier to track pressures and hits and sacks than it is to go out there and say, all right, well, how do you negatively grade a uh offensive lineman if a play blows up in terms of a you know josh klein yeah he had a bad josh klein and brian stork uh basically olaid their assignments and allowed brandon bolden to get taken down for a loss of four yards on the two

point conversion you can ding them for that you can take but how do you quantify that uh similarly even more complex how do you give those guys where's the stat to say all right well aj derby had a great black backside block that allowed lagar blunt to change direction and gain 15 yards you know there's just no stats for offensive linemen especially in the running game the only stat you can really ping for an offensive lineman is when they do something wrong which hey it sucks but that's that's the nature of the business if you're an offensive lineman there's not very much glory that's why you always see you know running backs and quarterbacks give these guys some pretty cool gifts at some point over the course of the season because they understand the plight of the offensive linemen so you've seen the team move in the right direction and that's that's all you can ask for

this time of year gonna be a big test against carolina one of the best pass rushes in the nfl last season is that team got to the Super Bowl and really got after the quarterback well their front seven they've got two outstanding linebackers including Luke Keekly might be the best linebacker in the NFL it's going to get chart a good push from Jamie Collins and Dante Hightower this season that's for sure but again they've got good guys on the edge they're strong in the middle they've got a lot of defensive tackle depth so the panthers are going to throw wave after wave after wave at the patriots offensive line we're gonna see just how good joe tooney really is or you know maybe he has a rookie moment and

he throws a little water on this joe tooney party but it's we're going to learn a lot about the Patriots this week. I've said that a lot over the last handful of podcasts because of this Carolina game and how important it is. If you want to check out those older shows and some early thoughts that I've had on that Carolina game, our podcast, Locked on Patriots, is archived on iTunes. You can also find it on Audioboom. I tweet the link a handful of times every day on my Twitter account,

at Jeff P. Howe. So again, go back and check them out. And if you've got friends who aren't listening to this thing, look, it's nice to be smarter than your friends, but let's share the wealth here. Come on, let's have a big old internet party. Let's get everybody listening to this podcast. And if you are interested in

sponsoring locked on patriots and you're interested in reaching a target audience of men between the ages of 18 and 44 that's 98 of our our listeners so we've got a huge reach there we're growing uh by the day but i mean the the numbers have really taken off since the first handful of shows. So again, if you want to sponsor this podcast, Locked on Patriots, hit me up. My email address is jeff.howe at bostonherald.com. And hey, good offensive line talk. We'll see you guys on Wednesday. Thank you. Others contend America has faced far more challenging periods and emerged strong.

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