Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Aug. 25, 2016 - Twitter Q&A tackles 12 topics, including Stevan Ridley's chances to return to Pats

Episode Date: August 25, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe conducted a 48-minute Twitter Q&A to handle 12 different topics, and he started by explaining what he knows about Stevan Ridley's potential to return to the Pats. 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 Thursday, August 25th. It's the first travel day of the summer. I'll be heading off to Charlotte, North Carolina, along with the Patriots. Separate planes, same destination. Later in the day for the Patriots' third preseason game, Friday night against the Panthers and the NFC defending champions. Should be a fun one. Before we get to that, before I preview that on Friday's podcast, today is a fun

one. Today's a Twitter Q&A. I solicited questions throughout the day on Wednesday, trying to get as many topics as possible in one show. And I like the questions. You guys did good work. I am proud of you. You guys all pass on your assignment for this one. A lot of good questions. We're going to hit as many topics as possible. This might be a longer show, but I'm all for it. Number one, the question of the day really was submitted by just about everybody. This was a running back centric question. And with some breaking news on Thursday morning that the Lions have cut Steven Ridley, let's just start off with that. Now the question basically is, are the Patriots going to try to add another running back? So

here's just to start off, the Patriots running back situation, in my opinion, is LeGarrette Blount, James White, and Brandon Bolden. Three guys who seem like they are pretty much a certainty to make the 53-man roster out of training camp. Those cuts happen next week, Tuesday and then Saturday. I think all three of those guys are safe. Another name that everybody has watched because of his highlight reel run in the preseason opener is Tyler Gaffney. Now, I think right now, if the Patriots had to carve out their first 53-man roster,

Gaffney would Now I think right now if the Patriots had to carve out their first 53-man roster, Gaffney would probably be on it. But I'm not entirely sure that he's a lock for that 53 next week for a couple reasons. Number one, Gaffney hasn't been overly impressive. He's been good, he's been nice, he's a good story, he's a really nice guy. And I think ideally the Patriots would probably love to have him on the practice squad this season. So I wouldn't be surprised if Gaffney doesn't make the team. And then the Patriots try to fill that hole through the waiver wire, free agency, a trade, what have you. But right now I still think going into next week, I wouldn't be surprised if the Patriots only carried three true running backs. Not including James Devlin, going into week one and then try to figure it out from there.

Maybe add a fourth early in week one, maybe wait until week two. Who knows? As long as LeGarrette Blount, Brandon Bolden, and James White are all healthy, that's enough for the Patriots to get through that first regular season game. It's not ideal, but it's enough. And when you're going through those first couple weeks for roster management, that counts for a lot. Now another thing that could throw Gaffney's candidacy for a loop is DJ Foster. He began practicing this week after missing a few weeks with the lingering hamstring issue. If DJ Foster goes out, and I've said this time and again,

if he goes out and has some highlight reel plays in the passing or running game, then it's going to be really difficult for the Patriots to keep him on the practice squad. He's just so electric, has a unique sort of ability to cut and make guys miss. I don't want to compare him to Deion Lewis, but he's got that type of footwork. So who knows? Maybe he goes out there and makes some people say, wow. And the Patriots are like, oh, you know what? Now we're screwed.

We can't put this guy through waivers. Can't put on the practice squad what are you going to do well you're going to have to keep him now the other side of that is DJ Foster went undrafted this spring for a reason other teams have seen some of those highlight reel runs and there's a reason why everybody including the Patriots with their handful of picks didn't go after him in the actual draft so we'll see. It's a big week for DJ Foster. Quite frankly, we don't know anything about him because we haven't seen him practice in pads. We don't know what he looks like as a between-the-tackles runner against NFL linemen. So it's a big week in terms of that. So that leads to the popular question, what are the

Patriots going to do at the running back position and we'll start with Ridley so Ridley basically fell out of favor in Detroit not for anything negative that he did but he couldn't beat out their young guys and they've got a pretty good one-two punch and then they've got their third and fourth guys who are younger more unknown players who the Lions are comfortable with so what's going to make Ridley basically made it impossible for Ridley to crack the roster or to do anything worthwhile so Bob Quinn cut him go cut him loose and now Ridley's a free agent he is not subject to waivers because he's a vested veteran that also doesn't help him because if Ridley is on the roster, on any team's roster, in week one of the regular season,

his contract is then guaranteed for the duration of the year. So I wouldn't be surprised if Ridley doesn't get any bites until week two. Just so teams, and the Patriots have done this with a bunch of guys in the past, just so teams don't have to guarantee his contract for the entire season if they end up cutting him if they want to go in a different direction so while teams like the Patriots could call right away because he is technically a free agent right now it they might just want to schedule some workouts see how that knee is recovered a year removed now from his his NFL return But I wouldn't be surprised if he's a free agent for a couple weeks before he signs. The Lions liked him enough this offseason to give him $250,000

in guaranteed money. So there is something there. And as for a Patriots perspective, Ridley's better than Gaffney. And you know what? You could argue that Ridley's better than Blunt. I can't say for sure that he is because, again, the knee, we don't know what he really looks like because we haven't seen him. The Jets didn't use him all that great last season. And a year after a torn ACL, you know, it's hard to blame them, but still it's, he, it wasn't a good fit there. It didn't turn out to be a good fit with the Lions because of their youth situation. But the Patriots did reach out to Steven Ridley last year before he signed with the Jets just to kind of kick the tires, see how he was doing, see if there was any interest there. They couldn't make it work. Ridley went to the

Jets. Ridley also got a Jets tattoo that nobody's ever really going to forget. Now, this might sound stupid, or maybe it sounds completely logical, but with that Jets tattoo, it's kind of hard to imagine Bill Belichick saying, yeah, come on into my Patriots locker room right now. Oh, don't worry about that ink. We'll just look past that. So, you know Bill Belichick's history with the Jets. He ribs those guys, that organization, his experience there every chance he can. So, that might be too much for Bill Belichick to

to look past considering they didn't always see eye to eye when Ridley was with the Patriots for four years and you know there is something to that with the fact that the Patriots didn't reach out to Ridley in his camp before he signed with the Lions this offseason. So there's the interest that they had a year ago has clearly since waned. Now, the Patriots had basically the same exact running back situation this offseason as they have right now. Aside from, you know, they knew Deion Lewis was coming back from a torn ACL. They didn't know that he was going to have to go through a second surgery, but they had to know that there was a potential for a setback

because these things happen. They had to know that there was a strong likelihood that even if everything went well, Deion Lewis wasn't going to be a full participant at the start of the regular season or ready for a full workload is a better way to describe that. So they could have gone after Ridley, but instead the Patriots were silent.

They went after Donald Brown. That didn't work out. He's already gone. They went after DJ Foster as an undrafted free agent. He's been hurt. We don't know much about him, but they didn't go after a handful of talented running backs in the draft. And now here they are stuck in basically the same situation.

And we know how Belichick feels about the running back position but right now that's that philosophy hasn't done him any favors it could turn out to be just fine the Patriots could go again their quarterback situation is pretty darn good especially when their starters in there and it might turn out to be just fine when Garoppolo's in there for four games too but right now the Patriots have to be active in trying to find out who their fourth running back is going to be because they're not sold on what they have on the roster at the moment so if it doesn't turn out to be Steven Ridley who are you looking at let's start with the free agents right now I think Pierre Thomas is the best free agent out there

but it's weird because the Patriots haven't tried to bring him in and maybe they've reached out maybe there's been contact maybe there's even been a workout and we just haven't been able to uncover it but we don't know that and we're just sort of guessing you know maybe there hasn't been Pierre Thomas is a Patriots type of running back he can catch the ball really well he's capable enough between the tackles and he's up in age so he's not as good as the pierre thomas used to be and there's a reason why he's a free agent why the patriots aren't the only team that haven't tried to employ him at any point in this offseason so that's one option i think another as everybody has tried to bring up this week is carlos williams who was released by the bills

now my initial thought here was, if Rex Ryan couldn't stand him, how would Bill Belichick? And I tweeted that, and somebody, I wish I had their account in front of me, but I lost the tweet, tweeted actually, that's probably a great reason why Bill Belichick should want him, if Rex Ryan couldn't stand him. So a pretty good retort there. But here's what it comes down to Carlos Williams had a nice rookie season he had a touchdown I believe it was six consecutive games to start his rookie year and then he kind of fell down the depth chart and he came back to camp fat and he blamed it on his wife's pregnancy that's you know look I'm all for solidarity when your wife is pregnant and all that

stuff but if you're an NFL player and you can't avoid adding, I think it was like 40 pounds or something like that, then where are your priorities? You got to have, even at some point, your wife has to look at you and say, hey, you know, got a kid coming. You want to make sure that you're in shape so we can have the money to support this family

that we're raising together here. So again, there's, that's a strange excuse. And to have that excuse, to put that out there publicly, again, it's just not the type of thing that you would think Bill Belichick would be all about. You know, it's just the excuse making, the weight gain, where are your priorities, how important is football to you. So I don't think Carlos Williams isiams is a fit and to this point we haven't heard of anything other than a brief visit with the jets so other options from

there they're not great they're not let's not you know beat around the bush here uh you look at tennessee with their situation you could probably try to see if maybe they'd get rid of david cobb drafted last year had some injuries tumbled down the depth chart. And, you know, the Titans are pretty much locked in with their first two running backs right now. Bishop Sankey is another one, but he hasn't lived up to the hype. You look at Denver, this is a name I really like. And I saw some reports earlier in training camp that Ronnie Hillman was in danger of

making the 53-man roster. So Ronnie Hillman's a good back, and he's not a three-down back, but he's fast. He burned the Patriots quite a bit last year, catch the ball a little bit, and he can get it done between the tackles. If Ronnie Hillman becomes available, I think that's a guy the Patriots have to go after. I really like him a lot. And then you look at kc with their running back situation it looks like jamal charles is going to be ready for the regular season opener and then they've got nile davis spencer where charcandrick west all three of those guys are proven uh contributors at some point or another and you know you gotta if you're kansas city if you're Kansas City, if you're Andy Reid, you have to make sure that you are well prepared in case Jamal Charles goes down again because he is injury prone.

So it doesn't hurt you to have a stable of backs like that, especially guys who you really are comfortable putting all four of them in there. But if you're Bill Belichick and you have a long trade history with Andy Reid, maybe you pick up the phone and say, hey, what are you looking for? The Patriots are deep all across the board on the depth chart, pretty much everywhere. They've got guys that they can ship out or they can send a conditional draft pick. They might have just stumbled into a conditional seventh rounder with the Brian Stork trade. Although if Stork retires, that thing can, you know, they can kiss that thing goodbye. But what a weird story that was yesterday. We'll get back to Stork in a minute. But again,

that's, I think those are probably your most obvious options. And out of the realistic choices, I, again, I keep going back to Ronnie Hillman. I like him a lot. And I don't think that Stephen Ridley is in line for a reunion. Crazier things have happened. I'm not shutting the door on it completely. I just see it as being unlikely. So get to Stork real quick. Chuck Otis asked on Twitter when I solicited these questions, how did Brian Stork fall so far so fast?

And I think this really all started back in the 2015 AFC Championship game, the game they lost to the Broncos in January when Stork had a stupid penalty for headbutting uh one of the Broncos it turned a uh a decent little first down game into putting the Patriots into a first and 25 situation I believe it was when they were down by a touchdown and struggling to move the ball they were struggling to do anything consistently on offense. And Stork goes out and has a boneheaded play. And that was the first moment when I thought, because of Stork's injury history, he had missed significant time in his first two seasons,

because of concussions and other issues. So the injuries were one issue in terms of unreliability. And then you go out and you commit a stupid penalty. Now, one stupid penalty, you can look past that. But as I've discussed earlier on Locked On Patriots, I think it was last week when I basically declared David Andrews as the starting center. Brian Stork also got into a fight with his teammate Woodrow Hamilton

in June, got kicked out of practice, and then he headbutted a member of the Chicago Bears last week during joint practices. So you've got a guy who has four concussions in four years and is now headbutting people on a regular basis. Where, again, I talked about where are your priorities at with Carlos Williams. It's the same thing with brian stork it's nice to have some nastiness and some attitude especially in the offensive line position and we saw how beneficial it was for a guy like logan mankins but stork's attitude was misplaced too often and you go back to unreliability with the way that david andrews has risen up the depth chart and Stork falling down. Really, it started in January.

I think they were, you know, they knew that Stork was an injured, an injury-plagued sort of guy at Florida State. But it was a situation that continued to rear its head in New England. And then with the undisciplined actions that Stork had you know that's that's how you fall far fast uh stick with an offensive line question if I can find it here oh okay LJ show one asked about some potential low line moves and then I want to include Liam Cunningham saying something about not drafting a tackle and do you think the Patriots regret that in the draft I'm glad you guys brought that up because it also came back to a situation that I discussed last night or

Wednesday night with Michael Felger on Comcast during my appearance there Felger asked why didn't the Patriots go out and pay for an offensive lineman this offseason? And I didn't really get a chance to address that question in the way that I wanted to because the show kind of moved on there. This was a bad offseason for a team to need a tackle. And sometimes these things just don't line up. You go into an offseason, you say, all right, this is my top need. And then you look at who's available and you're like oh geez what am i what am i supposed to do so i think that was the situation the patriots were in now one question i don't believe we have answered is did the patriots go into free agency looking at the tackle class or the crop of tackles and did they also know that seb Sebastian Vollmer was going to have this

hip injury that was going to potentially cost him the 2016 season if they didn't know that then it you kind of got to give him a pass because they've already given a bunch of money to Vollmer or he's in the final year of his contract so he can get out of it they've also given a bunch of money to Marcus Cannon who was in the final year of his contract. So what are you going to do? How are you going to set up the tackle competition? There really weren't any big name right tackles out there. Nobody who would come in and blow you away.

So, and that was also why they kept Laidry and Waddle on a short money two year deal. So you look at, again, the resources resources it's not like you can just go out and say all right this this top 10 top 15 right tackle is available let's give him 30 million dollars no you're basically overpaying for a guy who more or less is a left tackle and then what do you do from there do you move nate sold at a right tackle do you see if this veteran can come in and play right tackle if he can't or if nate solder doesn't make the adjustment as well as he did as a rookie in 2011 then you're stuck with two highly priced left tackles you stuck with two highly priced right tackles and then you've got a backup in

in la adrian wattle that you just re-signed and did you use the money wisely there so it's just it was a tough situation where some there were only like two or three decent tackles on the free agent market so are you talking about spending five or thirty million dollars over five years thirty three million dollars over five years for a guy that you're not totally in love with you know if the guy can play a little bit but you know it's just it's a tough it was a tough free agency period to go out and address the tackle position and now we'll get to the draft question too so i wrote about this a bunch during the lead up to the draft and how difficult it is to get a quality tackle in the second or third round of the draft now you know every time that there is a no doubt about it tackle especially a left tackle available in the draft class the guy

more often than not is gone in the top five or top 10 picks now if you end up with just a superb class when there's like six or seven elite tackles then maybe you get one in like the top 12 or top 15 but those guys just don't fall for as imperfect of a science as the NFL draft is teams really know how to find quality left tackles so those guys just don't fall too frequently now Sebastian Vollmer is a guy who fell and was completely missed by the entire league. He wasn't invited to the Combine. And the Patriots got a steal in the second round with him. But those situations are few and far between. And I looked up a 10-year stretch from 2004 to 2013.

And you're talking about quality, Pro Bowl caliber tackles. All but one of them was drafted in the first 59 picks. Now the Patriots went into the draft with the 60th and 61st picks they ended up trading 61 then went down and got Joe Tooney with that pick and then turned the the other asset into Malcolm Mitchell so they did pretty well there and the question is when you're sitting there at 60 and 61, I'm not saying the Patriots need to get a Pro Bowl caliber tackle at 60 or 61 or anything like that, but it's hard to, you know, what do you really like? Or how do you quantify what you got out of a draft pick as an offensive lineman? You know, the most basic way to break it down, did the guy make a Pro Bowl?

Did the guy not make a Pro Bowl? Now, you could look at the Patriots situation and say Nate Solder and Sebastian Vollmer have never made a Pro Bowl, but they had a good tackle situation when both of those guys were healthy. So again, Pro Bowl is not the only way to define whether or not you hit a pick out of the park, but it's when you're trying to examine all 32 teams and certain draft picks that, quite frankly, look, I can't watch every tackle in the NFL. So I'm not going to sit here and say that, oh, you know what, the Rams had a great pick in 2006. You know, I'm not going to lie to you guys like that.

So that's why I broke it down in terms of pro bowlers and what you can get there. And I'm not going to bore you with the numbers because they just, it hard to to throw a bunch of numbers and stats and everything like that at you but the bottom line is it's almost impossible to find a pro bowl caliber tackle where the patriots were picking now you say all right well the patriots had some draft assets and few needs they could have traded up and that's fair but they ultimately wound up with 60 61 and then basically what they turned 61 into they got cyrus jones joe tooney and malcolm mitchell and uh you know you could sit here and say yeah but they needed to tackle more you know you could have turned those picks into something else but is anybody out there and if you are i'm not discrediting that. If you wanted to turn those picks and maybe something else into, you know,

maybe you can get yourself into the top 30 and you can get a pretty good tackle, then I understand that. But is anybody really complaining about what they got with Cyrus Jones, who is most likely going to be the team's third cornerback this year and will probably take over for Logan Ryan in 2017 as the second best corner on the roster and then Joe Tooney who is a week one starting left guard and looks like a first round pick and then Malcolm Mitchell who had a heck of a preseason debut and had a pretty good camp before that before dislocating his elbow. The Patriots did pretty

well in this year's draft so what are you looking at there? Do you take those guys or then do you look down and say, all right, you know who we talked up a lot in the pre-draft process? Sean Coleman. He went at 76 to Cleveland. LaRaven Clark went 82 to the Colts. So we'll see. Those are two guys that we can watch and see what type of careers that they wind up having. But those are also guys that going into the pre see what type of careers that they wind up having but those are also guys that you know going into the pre-draft stuff that's why a lot of this stuff is crap you know we sit here as analysts or you know i don't i don't proclaim myself as a draft nerd by any stretch of the imagination but there are some there are plenty of those guys out there who spend 12 months looking at the draft and that's how i get a lot of my information

and you look at those two guys coleman and clark clark especially was viewed as a first round pick he fell to 82 and if you guys have followed my work for any length of time i like to say the league has spoken if that guy went 82 and every team in the league bypassed him multiple times then that guy was a third round pick he was not a first round pick and the league has spoken so again you know Julian Edelman went in the seventh round Tom Brady went in the sixth round it's not to say that LaRaven Clark isn't going to go from being a third round pick to a pro bowl caliber tackle I'm not saying that at all. But when you go, you only have one chance to evaluate the draft as it's happening. And that's as the draft is happening. So at the time, the NFL viewed LaRaven Clark as the 82nd

best player or the 82nd pick in the draft. So again, when you sit there and you second guess some of these moves that happened in the draft, you just got to remember, you know, it's not like, let's see, you know, the Patriots traded in 2006 when the Patriots traded up for Chad Jackson at, I want to say the 35th pick. They traded with the Packers and the Packers who got theots pick, wound up with Greg Jennings. I mean, they missed. That's an easy one. You look at the draft in 2010. I think it was 2010.

Yeah, when the Patriots wound up with Jermaine Cunningham and the Bengals got Carlos Dunlap, his Florida teammate, one pick later. Yeah, they screwed that up. They missed that one. But when you're talking about, you know, 60 to 76 or 82, you know, it's just, there's a lot of factors in there. So I was okay with the Patriots not reaching for a tackle if it wasn't a guy that they were in love with. Now that could absolutely mean that they wind up with Marcus Cannon for 16 games this season and that's the bed they made for themselves. But again, when the guys aren't there, it's hard

to criticize them for not bending over backwards for a guy they might not totally be in love with. So yeah, it could ultimately be the biggest second guess of the season but at the time right now on august 25th i can't kill them for that because they wound up in pretty good shape in the draft and the guys just weren't there in free agency so we'll move on a little bit i actually got you know a couple questions on tight end sets from sergeant football and scott s one asked how many three tight end sets have i seen with gronk derby and bennett i can't say i've seen any aside from maybe goal line packages and then another scott asked how often do i expect to see gronk and bennett on the field together i actually i tried to look that up for you to see how much the patriots used two

tight end sets last year the website i ended up using for that stuff crashed my computer three times. So that was, look, I tried. I tried to figure out how often they used the two tight end sets last year and I couldn't do it. So if I figure it out, if the site starts working again, I'll tweet out that answer. But look, Gronk and Bennett, you know Gronk's not coming off the fields. And Bennett, to this point, looks like he's probably going to get a good chunk of playing time. So I'd expect to see them out there frequently together. Moving on. Does the release of Brian Stork, this question comes from...

His name's Connor. Connor, that's my bad. I scribbled your last name and, you know, here we are. I don't want to just butcher a name that I honestly can't read because my handwriting is chicken scratch so comes from our guy Connor here he asks because Brian Stork was cut does that mean Ted Karras has a good chance of making the team uh yeah I think he does have a pretty good chance of making the team not just because of Stork but for other reasons now the Patriots backup center I would

have to believe right now, is Josh Klein. Now, Klein has participated in practice this week. We don't know how much because we get kicked out after 15 minutes. We're going to learn a lot more about Klein and that shoulder Friday night against the Panthers. But Klein had a tough night when he was starting right guard against the Bears. Got blown off the ball a little bit. That's uncharacteristic of him when he's healthy. And I say that because he played very well last season before the shoulder injury,

played poorly after it. I give him credit for trying to gut it out when the Patriots had their O-line issues. And especially after he got that contract extension, the guy wanted to play. He wanted to reward them for having their faith in him. But Klein was sagging the shoulder a little bit last week against the Bears too so if he's not healthy that means with Shaq Mason out with the hands the broken hand and Jonathan Cooper out with the foot and Trey Jackson on pup Ted Karras very well could

be the Patriots starting center against the Panthers on Friday night now again maybe Klein's shoulder isn't too big of a deal maybe he wants to continue to gut through it but I think Ted Ted Karras is potentially with all these injuries the starting right guard at worst if Klein is playing we know that Shaq Mason and Jonathan Cooper aren't going to be playing against the Panthers so Ted Karras is the backup right guard and he's probably the second or third string center right now. So I think Ted Karras has a pretty decent shot to make the team. It's just, you know, I could go through all the linemen who could or could not make the roster and the amount of battles that they had on the interior. I think Ted Karras is either going to be the last guy to make it or he's going to be the first guy out. But with the amount of injuries that they have right now, along with having to carry spots for Rob Ninkovich for a few weeks,

potentially if Malcolm Mitchell isn't all the way back for September 11th in that Cardinals game, they have to carry two guys who are injured for a little bit of time. How many offensive linemen can you carry if they're not all healthy so there's a lot that kind of goes into that too many variables i don't want to just sit here and talk myself into circles about caris but like i said he's either the last guy in or the first guy out at this point in time james asks for my rising star this season i'm gonna put that in one of two ways i've already said my breakout candidate for the patriots team in 2016 is going to be malcolm brown

problem is he plays defensive tackle and he's a run stuffing defensive tackle so how many run stuffing defensive tackles are stars in the nfl well very few how many run stuffing defensive tackles are stars when they've got guys like very few. How many run stuffing defensive tackles are stars when they've got guys like Jamie Collins and Dante Hightower and Malcolm Butler and Chris Long and Rob Nankovich and Jabal Sheard and Devin McCourty and Patrick Chung and so on and so forth playing alongside them? Yeah, even less. So I think that Malcolm Brown is going to take the next step. He's probably going to play about 70% of the Patriots defensive snaps this year if he stays healthy and I think in New England you're looking at that guy taking on more of again star is a relative term for that position but he's going to be real solid from a league-wide

perspective everybody knows Jamie Collins by now especially well anybody who's paying attention but I think the Jamie Collins will be my pick to win the Defensive Player of the Year award. I think he's going to be on the shortlist with Khalil Mack and J.J. Watt. But I'm going to go out there and I'm going to say it's going to be Jamie Collins because the Patriots defense is going to play really well

in Tom Brady's absence and then likely thereafter. And you're going to see people take notice of why that defense is playing well Jamie Collins is you know I've said it a million times Jamie Collins before these guys got hurt was the defensive player of the year on the Pats defense last year while Dante Hightower was the defensive MVP so those guys are going to get a lot more recognition. They should both be all pros. And Jamie Collins, because of his ability to come down with really athletic, fun, highlight reel defensive plays, those are the reasons why I think the guy can win the Defensive Player of the Year award in the NFL. I'm not just saying like from a Patriots perspective, we're just going to give them a little superlative in the paper at the end of the year.

Those guys probably don't hang those on their refrigerators after the season. So I got another question from Mike Lunt who submitted it late, but I accepted it. If a contract extension isn't given out to Dante Hightower or Jamie Collins in the next two weeks, do they play out the year and become free agents? It's going to be tough. You know, that's a good question. That's one we don't know the answer to. And I think that's a pretty soft deadline, week one right there, because the player is looking at this and saying, I want to get paid. And the team is looking at it and saying, I don't want to have to overpay in free agency so if they can come to a fair middle ground i've written about this a million times dante hightower a fair market value is five years 51 million dollars 15 guaranteed jamie collins four years 45 million about 21 22 guaranteed and those are comp based on comps with

other other contracts around the league along with their talent if the Patriots are coming to the plate with those types of contracts and Collins and Hightower turning them down Patriots hands might be a little tied here now if the Patriots are trying to lowball these guys and say all right right now it's August 25th got them under control until about March 7th to 10th whenever free agency happens to start then and plus the use of the franchise tag for one of them then you're you're giving yourself a chance to say, all right, we're going to continue these negotiations throughout the season. Now, you could always wind up talking to a player who decides,

I'm not talking contract during the season. Or you could look at, and this is, I think the Patriots should take this type of threat seriously. Collins and Hightower are both looking at what happened last year in free agency, or this spring in free agency, and say, holy crap, this player got that, this player got that, and I'm better than all of them. I could be looking at some serious bank. I'm just going to play it out. I'm going to risk it. I'm going to put my body on the line. I'm going to take the chance of a torn ACL. I'm going to play all 16 games in the playoffs, and then I am going to

go get so rich I can't even count the money because I can't fit it through my front door. So if those players are thinking that, then the Patriots are in a bit of trouble. So that's why the team in this case has to say, do you really want to get hurt again? Do you want to tear your ACL in November or December and then get a one-year prove it deal in 2017 and then maybe still not even be all the way back in 2017 because you started late and then maybe in 2018 teams are going to look at you and they're going to say well you know I liked what you did and I see that you're close to getting back, but you're not all the way back yet. Maybe you're going to give it another one year deal.

So then, you know, if, if a guy goes out and tears his ACL in November or December, and you're a guy who could potentially get 20 something million dollars guaranteed, or let's just talk about 50 to $ million dollars in total money over the life of the deal call it funny money if you want but whatever if Dante Hightower doesn't you know worst case scenario Dante Hightower gets hurt in December and basically washes out a good chunk of 2017 and then kind of sabotages his chance to get a big money deal in 2018 then he's 29 years old in 2019 and he's having a hard time cashing in on that four-year deal that he probably thought he could get and then you look at Jamie Collins same type of situation if he has a worst case scenario type of deal he turns 30 in 2019 now that's midway through the season, but how many teams are going to say,

oh yeah, I want to give you a boatload of money. So again, that's why the Patriots have to come at them with serious offers. They have to guarantee money and say, look, if you get hurt, this is no longer a concern of yours because you're going to get, you know, 15 million guaranteed, 18 million guaranteed 25 million whatever it happens to be however these negotiations play out you can blow out your knee you're going to be set for life your kids and your grandkids are going to be set for life let's not push this out there over a few a few million dollars on the back end of a deal i'm not saying you shake your head at a few million dollars, but you hear these guys say all the time,

there's 100% injury rate in football, so you don't want to screw this up. So if the Patriots are actually coming to the table with legitimate contract offers, then I think it's going to be tough for those guys to turn them down unless they sit there and say, look, I'm going to gamble on myself. And these guys only have really one or two really good chances to make a good amount of money like set for life set your family for life sorts of money and if they want to gamble

on themselves I get it all the power to them Matt asked does Craven LeBlanc or Jonathan Jones have a better chance to make the roster after week one it was jones of the preseason after week two of the preseason probably leblanc or actually you know what i should say going into week one it was jones last two weeks craven leblanc has played really well so i would say him the thing that jones has is more special teams value but the patriots have so many good special teamers matthew slater brandon king uh my goodness you know jordan richards is really solid you look at uh brandon bolden nate ebner i mean they they have so many good special teamers that you can sit there and you

can say you know what crave out leblanc looks like a really solid cornerback you got the special teamers you should probably give the nod to LeBlanc at this point now remember LeBlanc came from a small school but he had an offer from LSU so this is a kid who's been a high level player since he was in high school and the talent isn't a mistake this isn't a guy who kind of just came out of nowhere by accident this summer. The kid can play. So I think right now LeBlanc has the nod over Jonathan Jones. Dan Moran asks if I like fish sticks. I don't. I hate all seafood because seafood is disgusting,

and I don't understand why people like it. So we'll move on from there. Paul Murphy wants to know if there's a status update on Jonathan Cooper and his foot. Right now there's not. I haven't seen him in a while. I could have sworn I saw him out one day at practice during the warm-up portion and then disappeared to the side you know maybe my eyes were deceiving me because I haven't seen him since but either way we haven't even seen him on the field so in a conditioning capacity or anything

so that leads me to believe the guy's still a ways away from coming out there and coming back we don't know anything about jonathan cooper because he got hurt the first day they put on pads uh he started as the right guard in training camp and throughout otas and minicamp that counts for something of course but when everybody's healthy shaq mason's probably better than jonathan cooper uh josh klein might be better than Jonathan Cooper. But what it comes down to, until we see the guy actually hit somebody, I have no idea if Jonathan Cooper's any good or not. Yeah, he was a high draft pick a couple years ago. But that doesn't mean anything right now because he was traded and we haven't been able to see him hit anybody in pads. So

that's my status update on Cooper. There isn't one. The second part of that, what's Malcolm Mitchell's impact going to be as a rookie? When you're talking about a rookie receiver, not just in New England, you're looking at a good year being 30 to 40 catches. Now, that's not to say that you don't get a Calvin Johnson type who comes out and catches 7,000 balls as a rookie. Those guys are few and far between. You're talking about a Hall of Fame talent here. We're talking about a fourth-round draft pick. So when you're talking about Mitchell's impact, if he catches 30 to 32 balls,

I'll have said that was a really big success. He got more separation in that preseason opener, catching four balls from Jimmy Garoppolo. I think they were all from Garoppolo. Brissette might have, yeah, it was all Garoppolo because he played the duration of the first half. So he got more separation than DeAndre Carter, Chris Harper, and Aaron Dobson combined. He had a really, really good preseason opener before dislocating that elbow.

So the question is is how much of an impact can he really have and again you know I put that number there but you look at last season or let's compare let's look at the death chart real quick if everybody's healthy and that's a big if right now for Danny Amendola because he still hasn't practiced still on the Pup List and the Patriots still haven't decided if he's going to start the season on Pup List but let's just play ball here let's pretend that Danny Amendola is healthy you start at Julian Edelman you go to Danny Amendola you got Chris Hogan three receivers right off the bat that are better than than Malcolm Mitchell at least in 2016 maybe Mitchell becomes the number one at some point in his career but right now he is not better than any of those three. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe

Keyshawn Martin contributes more than Malcolm Mitchell because he's a special teamer. Maybe they don't want to dress five wide receivers on game day and that makes Mitchell a healthy scratch or whatever, just because he's not going to be out there returning kicks so you know if that's the case then he's the fifth receiver on the depth chart and that could sabotage any chance for him to go out there and make an immediate impact you also talk about Rob Gronkowski and Martellus Bennett as being guys who right now are better than Malcolm Mitchell there's five guys right there so that would make Mitchell their sixth receiving option. Now, a couple of weeks ago, I would have included Dion Lewis there and put

Mitchell as their seventh receiving option, but we know Lewis isn't playing for at least two months. So you go down to last season stats, you know, take these for what they're worth because you had guys like Gronk and Amendola and Edelman and LaFell and Lewis all missed a considerable amount of time you know those guys are all ranked in the top six right there so the sixth best pass catcher was Deion Lewis in terms of receptions he caught 36 balls for 388 yards Keyshawn Martin was seventh he caught 24 balls for 269 yards. So again, if everybody's healthy, then 24 to 32 catches for Malcolm Mitchell as a rookie, I think that's a fair estimation as to what he could contribute. Now, if Danny Amendola starts on pop, then,

and let's say Martellus Bennett is streaky with tom brady like he has been in practice you know maybe malcolm mitchell catches 35 to 38 but even still that's a lot for a rookie especially in a patriot system so i'd expect malcolm mitchell to have a good season but good is relative when you're talking about a rookie receiver in the Patriots offense and then finally Cassini asks is Terrence Knighton in danger of not making the roster uh I I think look I'm not going to call him a lock but I don't think right now he's outside the bubble Malcolm Brown brown is your top defensive tackle minson valentine is somewhere down the depth chart but as a third round pick he's a lock then you've got terrence knighton you've got marcus coon and naturally i'm just going to start forgetting people because

that's what happens uh but oh anthony johnson had an outstanding game last year uh last year last week and his performance against the panthers is absolutely going to be something to watch so you've got five guys right there and i swear i'm probably forgetting somebody else too because i'm a dimwit but it's uh a situation where he got 250 000 to sign he got 106 000 as a workout bonus so the patriots are already into it for 356 000 with terrence knighton now you point to the week two game against the bears terrence knighton was out there late and that's not always a good sign oh alan branch is the other guy I'm forgetting of course and I think Alan Branch is going to make the roster because if they were going to cut him

they would have done it when they suspended him so Terrence Knighton was out there late in the fourth quarter not what you're looking for especially as a veteran but it struck me my first thought was it's probably conditioning Terrence Knighton you look at Terrence Knighton you're not going to say the guy's in great shape now I wouldn't be's probably conditioning. Terrence Knighton, you look at Terrence Knighton, you're not going to say the guy's in great shape. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if me and Terrence Knighton lined up for a 40-yard dash and blew the doors off me or whatever. But I think Terrence Knighton is a guy similar to Alan Branch, where you're probably not going to see his best football

until you get into the midway point in the season because they get into better football shape. guys just they come in they're round they need to it takes a little longer for them to get their legs under so i still think knighton's better than coon although you know coon's gotten a lot of quality reps and the one wild card right now that we have to watch for is Anthony Johnson who off of one game was absolutely outstanding but is that gonna is he gonna be a flash guy is he gonna show up one week and not show up the next week that was the first game he he has ever played with that type of frame so he's this is still all new territory for him too so we can't just sit here and say all right

well he played great it's definitely gonna carry over him too. So we can't just sit here and say, all right, well, he played great. It's definitely going to carry over to the next game. We can't say that he played great and now he's all of a sudden going to fall up. We have no idea. And quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if Anthony Johnson doesn't know what's going to happen either. So you've got a few guys there. I think because the Patriots want to play with three, four elements, they want to, they

want, they will carry five defensive tackles so i think there is absolutely room so let's go through it one more time you got brown and valentine as locks i think you got branch and knighton as three and four and then you've got coon and anthony johnson as five and six at least the way I'm looking at it. And that means one of those guys is getting cut. Maybe two of them get cut, but I think probably just one because you want to rotate as many big bodies with your three big linemen as you possibly can. Now, Chris Long is going to play inside a little bit.

And you talk about a 3-4 base, I mean, they're probably only going to be in a 3-4 like 20% of the time but when I say 3-4 elements I say that you could have three big down linemen and then have a Dante Hightower as a defensive end type in the nickel so there are just different ways to kind of characterize a 3-4 in today's pass-heavy NFL. So I think, again, I think there's absolutely room for Knighton. I'm not totally alarmed by the fact that he was out there late against the Bears, but if this becomes a pattern, you know, it's something that we continue to monitor. So that's it for the Twitter Q&A. This was a fun, fun podcast. I want to do, this is the

second time I've done a Twitter Q&A. My goodness, we went, we're at 47 minutes at this point. Easily the longest podcast we've ever done. I'll probably do one of these, I don't want to say once a week, but I'm going to do them as regularly as possible. So, make sure you follow me on Twitter, at JeffPHao, and when

I ask for questions, just use the LockedOnPatriots hashtag, just so I can filter through everything. And hey, that was fun. We'll see you guys on Friday for a preview of ideas from the Bush Institute. Surveys show Americans place less trust in institutions like the media and business. Others contend America has faced far more challenging periods and emerged strong. Leading policymakers, Bush Institute experts, and respected journalists take on this debate. Read about it at bushcenter.org slash catalyst.