Locked On Patriots - Daily Podcast On The New England Patriots - LOCKED ON PATRIOTS - Sept. 2, 2016 - Breakdown of the final 53-man roster projection

Episode Date: September 2, 2016

The Boston Herald's Jeff Howe runs through his 53-man roster projection. 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. I'm your host, Jeff Howe of the Boston Herald, and here's your podcast for Friday, September 2nd. Roster cuts are coming. There are going to be 22 guys, or as many as 22 guys, out of a job in the next handful of hours

as the Patriots work from 75 down to 53 in time for Saturday's 4 p.m. deadline. The Patriots wrapped up their preseason last night, Thursday night, against the Giants at MetLife Stadium. So with all of that in mind, today's episode is all about the 53-man roster and my projection and real quick this podcast is brought to you by mybookie.net we'll get to that in a minute but let's start off with my 53-man roster projection I'm going to take you through position by position where I'm thinking here some of them are easy like quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo and Jacoby Brissett are the only two on the active roster. Tom Brady, of course, does not count against the 53 until his suspension is over on week five. So then we get to

running back. That hasn't really changed too much, in my opinion, over the last couple weeks. DJ Foster is in. There's no way you can cut him, in my opinion. He's just too good. I think you run the risk, a strong risk, of losing him in the waiver wire if you try to cut him and sneak him onto the practice squad. The top three have stayed the same. LeGarrette Blount, Brandon Bolden, James White, I believe all of them are firmly safe. And James Devlin is going to be the Patriots' fullback. The first out there is Tyler Gaffney, of course.

And it might not help his cause from Thursday night that he went down with some sort of foot or toe injury. So who knows how serious that injury is. It'd be a real shame for a guy like that to end up on IR at this time of the year with another injury, third straight season. Maybe the Pats could reach an injury settlement. Who knows? There's a lot in play. There's a lot of options there.

Don't want to waste too much time on the running back position. But again, DJ Foster has been too good in the last two weeks to think that he should not be on year 53. He's a guy that I think his ceiling is higher than James White's and could be a real asset over the course of the season and maybe for a few years for the course of the season and maybe for a few years for the Patriots if he reaches that potential. Moving over to tight ends, real quick on the running back position, Joe Iosefa is a long shot. He's not going to make

the 53. And Deion Lewis, of course, is going to be on the pop list for the first six weeks of the season, maybe a little longer than that. We'll see how that plays out moving over to tight end Rob Gronkowski and AJ Derby are solid in my opinion Martellus Bennett had another bad night and they need more out of him I don't think that he's going to get cut this weekend but I don't like what I've seen out of him in the last couple weeks he was really inconsistent you've heard me say that've seen out of him in the last couple weeks. He was really inconsistent. You've heard me say that over the course of time. In the last month, five, six weeks during training camp, he'll have some great days. He'll have some days when you just don't hear from him.

I'm concerned about that because we've seen that act before from Tim White and Scott Chandler or just even carry it over to the wide receiver position with guys like Brandon LaFell or even Brandon Lloyd who would just go you know stretches at a time where Tom Brady just wasn't looking at them so Martellus Bennett had a key drop another one he caught a three-yard out route and immediately hit the deck even though he had a half step on the linebacker in coverage. I really didn't like that. You can't be seeing that out of a tight end. Sometimes it's excusable if you're a wide receiver or if you're cutting toward the middle of the field,

but I just didn't like seeing Bennett hit the ground there. And then he lost that fumble on the first play of the third series, and three ugly mistakes in three series. Bennett never saw the field after that fumble. So he is, again, I don't think he's in jeopardy of getting cut, but he's absolutely a name you've got to watch. And he's, they need, the bottom line is they just need more out of Martellus Bennett. He's got a good rapport with Jimmy Garoppolo, so he could have a nice opening month of the season. But when Garoppolo's out and Brady's in, I'm curious to see how their chemistry is after Brady's suspension, because again, it was just too streaky in practice, and this is a

tough way for Bennett to go out during Brady's last performance of the summer. So I've got Gronk, Bennett, and Derby as the three tight ends. That means Harbor, Clay Harbor, is getting cut. Bryce Williams is a roster long shot, a guy I could see ending up on the practice squad. Move over to wide receiver, and this is a huge wild card area. Right now I've got six, including Matthew Slater. Really, it's a number, the five is the number that you want to look at. That's a pretty consistent number that Bill Belichick has kept. I've got Julian Edelman, Chris Hogan, Keyshawn Martin, Malcolm Mitchell, and Aaron Dobson, and I'm projecting, I don't know for sure, but right now I'm just projecting Danny Amendola to

start the season on the pup list. He's currently on the active pup list. He could get moved over to the reserve pup list in time for Saturday's deadline. I'm not sure. I don't know what to expect in that scenario right there, because right now he counts against the 75-man roster. The Patriots could have moved him over on Tuesday, and they did, so they have left that window open. But it's weird. They could have started practicing him this week and not been affected in terms of the 75-man roster.

Keeping Amendola active has not given them a 76th spot or anything like that. So I was thinking about this, and if the Patriots thought that Amendola was really close, why not put him out there on Tuesdays you know he's been out there running but why not put him out there on the field Tuesday let him run around do some plays and then you know Wednesday's a walkthrough Thursday they're going to New York or New Jersey for the game Friday's an off day it looks like Saturday is probably going to be an off day. And then they'll be back to work, I would think, on Sunday.

But either way, let's say they practice Saturday. You put them out there Tuesday. You essentially give them Wednesday, Thursday, Friday off. So we'd have three days off after that first practice. So what I'm getting at is sometimes when a player is injured, let's take a regular season type of example here. Player misses a couple weeks. Bill Belichick knows he's not going to play in that Sunday's game,

but he still brings the player out there Friday to let them run around, let their body recover, deal with the soreness for a handful of days because, again, he's not going to play Sunday. Then you bring him back out there Wednesday, the following week, and try to give him more of a workload and see if he's ready for the following week's game. So if they believe Danny Amendola was ready for week one, again, I would think they would put him out there Monday, Tuesday this week just to run around a little more, maybe deal with some sort of contact, do some blocking drills, whatever, some more one-on-one work.

Now, Danny Amendola's a guy who deserves the benefit of the doubt because of what he's accomplished with the Patriots, and particularly Tom Brady, not that that matters in Week 1. But if anybody can go out there on just one week of practice, Amendola's on the short list of guys who can do it. And I'm not saying I wouldn't trust him to be able to go out there on just one week of practice. Amendola's on the short list of guys who can do it. And I'm not saying I wouldn't trust him to be able to go out there and do it and maybe play, let's say, 30% of the snaps in a game. But I'm just trying to explain where my thought process is

in terms of just projecting Amendola to the pub list. Best case scenario, he's active in week one. And again, you're looking at 30% to maybe 40% of the snaps. Remember when Gronk had missed extended periods of time because of an injury or just took time off in the summer and then went out for a week one game like that return a couple years ago from the torn ACL he played like 50 percent of the snaps in the opener so that's the absolute ceiling for a guy like Amendola against Arizona if he's even active on that

53-man roster. Now, because I have Amendola on the pup list, I've got Aaron Dobson sticking around, and it doesn't make matters any easier that Keyshawn Martin went down with a foot injury on Thursday night against the Giants also. So basically, you're looking right now at Julian Edelman, who has been limited in his two preseason appearances, and Chris Hogan as your only two healthy wide receivers. Malcolm Mitchell was in a red non-contact jersey this week on Tuesday. His initial timeline from that dislocated elbow suggested he would be ready for the regular season opener, but how much can you expect a rookie after missing a month, basically, with an elbow injury to come in, and how effective do you really think he can be? So, you know, Jimmy Garoppolo's going into this game with Gronk, Bennett, Derby,

Edelman, Hogan as his healthy pass catchers. Maybe Martin's thing isn't that big of a deal. Maybe Danny Amendola can give you 30% of the snaps. Maybe Malcolm Mitchell's all right, or is going to be all right. But they're going to need to carry an extra wide receiver either way. Right now, I think it's Dobson. It could be Chris Harper, and then right after Harper, maybe DeAndre Carter, who was quieter than I thought he would be Thursday night.

So I still think Harper is probably the next guy up if the Patriots move on from Dobson, whether they cut him or trade him or whatever. But it's a tough area to project right there, and there's just so many moving parts. The Patriots are going to have to play the long-range forecast on Friday and Saturday as they make these cuts just thinking all right is this receiver going to be ready eight nine days from now and if he is well then you can buy a spot somewhere as opposed to burning one elsewhere that made no sense but you know what I'm talking about at center you got David Andrews guard, you've got Joe Tooney, Shaq Mason, Josh Klein, and Jonathan Cooper. I'm keeping

Cooper for now. We haven't seen him do a damn thing since July 30th. He's been out there on a very limited basis this week. It doesn't look like he's ready to play, although who knows, maybe they ramp up his workload next week as the Pats prepare for Arizona, at least to get him some backup reps. And then I've got Ted Karras for now. Ted Karras is my last guy making the roster, the 53rd guy. And I've got him right now because Shaq Mason has the broken hand. Who knows, maybe he can play against Arizona. Jonathan Cooper has the foot, who knows? Maybe he can play against Arizona. And then Josh Klein would be the starting right guard in week one right now. But with Tooney and Klein as your two guards, you don't have a 100%

healthy backup. So that's why you keep a guy like Karras. Now, if the Patriots believe that Shaq Mason is ready and Josh Klein can be your backup, then you're in better shape. But then you're still stretched a little thin if Cooper isn't ready for one right there. Because if you basically would go into that week one game, again, let's say Shaq Mason's healthy healthy you go into that week one game with Tooney as your left guard Andrews is your center and Mason as your starting right guard with Josh Klein as your backup for all three of those interior positions which is okay if one of those guys goes down but with them already banged up and you just might have to keep Ted Karras. And Karras has been humbled a few times this preseason.

More of a practice squad guy than anything. So that's another area with wide receiver. If the Patriots think that they're healthier, or they're going to be healthier, nine days from now than they are at this point, then you don't have to keep Karras. You can try to slide him onto the practice squad. If you lose him, you've got Chris Barker. So be it. That can be your emergency guard.

And then maybe you can keep another wide receiver if you want to keep Chris Harper around for that opener. Remember, some of these spots, some of these last few roster spots, aren't just about the long-term stuff. It's about, do you need this player for week one? And that's why there's so much roster movement in the first week or two of the season, especially for a Bill Belichick team, because he cycles through those last few roster spots frequently throughout the course of the year. Then I tackle Nate Solder and Marcus Cannon. Cannon, I haven't studied the film yet, but didn't have an issue as far as I could see. So that would be three straight good games for him, including that Giants game.

And again, I didn't see any mistakes. So he's playing well right now. Nate Solder appeared to tweak a hamstring against the Giants. It didn't look serious just by the way they looked at him on the sideline. So that's how I'm looking at that for now. Adrian Waddell is still the third tackle in my opinion, although it was very strange to see Cameron Fleming enter the game before Waddell against the Giants when Solder went down.

Eventually Waddell went over to left tackle. I'm not sure what that's all about. But Waddell's a guy you paid this offseason. Fleming is a guy that you can cut. And I really don't believe you have to worry about another team taking him. So I've got Waddle in and I've got Fleming out. So that gets through the offensive portion of this roster breakdown. Now, I said this podcast is sponsored by MyBookie.

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you can just call 844-722-2387. That's 844-722-2387. Join the thousands of online players already playing. It's only the biggest, only the best, only at MyBookie. Sign up today. Get over to the defensive side of my 53-man roster projection. At defensive end, I think you're going to have to carry an injured Rob Nikovich for a few weeks. That's just fine. No big deal there.

Jabal Sheard, sprained MCL. Initial timeline suggested he would be ready for the regular season opener. Has done more each week at practice, so he's on the right track. Trey Flowers looks like a damn stud and is going to be your starting defensive end if Sheard is limited or whatever. Chris Long, ditto for him. So I've got four defensive ends right now. I think you're going to start the season with one inactive in Ninkovich,

one limited in Jabal Sheard, but that's fine. They've got enough depth there. You can include Barkevious Mingo as a defensive end if you'd like. What a performance he had with the backups against the Giants really good start for him but I've got four defensive ends right now I've got Gino Grissom out and I'll get back to Grissom in a second when I get to the linebackers go to defensive tackle got Malcolm Brown Vincent Valentine those guys are locks Alan Branch is close to a lock, in my opinion, and Anthony Johnson has been fantastic over the last three weeks. There is no way you can cut Anthony Johnson. He's been too good.

Carved out a nice role for himself as a pass rushing defensive tackle in passing situations. And what a good story that guy's been this summer. That means the odd man out, actually another odd man out at defensive end is rufus johnson uh defensive tackle first guy out is marcus coon i again uh nothing has changed my opinion here coon hasn't really done anything to jump off the page at me and i know belichick likes him i know they'd have to eat about 146 000 and bonus money from this offseason, but I just don't see it right now. If they want to keep five defensive tackles, okay, I get it. You can keep Marcus Kuhn, but he's not one of the four best, and I wouldn't keep him. I certainly

would not keep him over Anthony Johnson. Joe Volato and Woodrow Hamilton are also on the outside. Those guys are extreme long shots inside linebacker you've got dante hightower and jamie collins it's no brainer right there jonathan freeney and camu grugier hill right now i've got a landon roberts on the outside looking in i think there are so many linebackers who get cut this time of year i think you can slide a landon roberts onto the practice squad another thing you got to watch for him, though, he suffered some sort of potential ankle injury. It didn't look overly serious.

By the way, he bounced back up on the sideline last night after a few minutes, was running around, scratching, jumping around a bit on it. But right now I've got to keep Landon Roberts out because I think you can get him onto the practice squad where I believe Kamu Gurugia Hill is a little more athletic has more special teams value and is more suited for sub packages which would make him I think more enticing for teams sifting through the waiver wire in the coming couple days and And then Kevin Snyder is a long shot. The kid from Rutgers who wound up playing last year made his NFL debut in the AFC Championship game against the Broncos.

Also, Parkevius Mingo was playing inside linebacker at times against the Giants. So because of his ability to play that position, I think that makes a guy like a Landon Roberts a bit more expendable because that adds to the depth. Freeney right now is their top backup, but I think eventually Mingo can jump into that role just because his athleticism is too enticing, especially since you're going to want that guy on the field. Shea McClellan is also included with the linebackers. Still don't know what his role is, i i would think you know if you watch that

game against the giants similar to what they've done with mingo on the edge add inside linebacker just sort of going between positions a bit mingo looks like a souped up version of mcclellan so we'll see if that is consistent you know mingo flashed at times early in his browns career and then tapered off but is that because you know mingo has deficiencies in his game well yeah partly because of that you don't end up as a first round bust if you don't but how much of it is because cleveland is where good players sort of go to die so we'll see if bill belichick has another big time reclamation project on the sands with Mingo, but what a terrific start, and they love the way that he's worked behind the scenes at the facility since the trade. Bill Belichick said he lived at Gillette

over the last week, so again, just you gotta like everything you've heard about Mingo and everything you've seen with Mingo so far in his first week in camp. So I mentioned Grugier Hill. He's one of my last guys in, not because I don't like him, just because of the amount of depth the Patriots have. And Gino Grissom earlier is one of the first guys out, maybe the first guy out. He's not going to give you a lot, Grissom, as a pass rusher. But if the Patriots need a little more depth, let's say Jabal Sheard isn't ready or they're not willing to trust Mingo entirely to go out there with the first team defense for whatever reason, then you keep Grissom, I guess. But he's more of a special teams guy, and it's hard to give up on a third-round pick

in his second year. But it's just all of Grissom's pass rushing production has come with backups late in games. Again, he's a special teamer at this point, but if you want to get rid of Grugier Hill, if you want to go to the offensive side of the ball and get rid of Karras to keep Grissom, I understand it. But that's kind of where I'm thinking in terms of those last guys in and the first guys out. At cornerback, I've got Malcolm Butler,

Logan Ryan, Cyrus Jones, Justin Coleman as an easy four, and then Craven LeBlanc is my fifth still. LeBlanc didn't play, didn't even travel to New Jersey this week because of a hip injury that kept him out of Tuesday's practice. Been over this a couple times already on Locked On Patriots. You can find all those shows on Audioboom and iTunes, my Twitter feed, link to him a million times. But I still think LeBlanc is the fifth best corner on the team, but what are they going to do with that hip injury? Is this going to be an excuse to shut him down and put him on IR, to redshirt him for a year because you like Daryl Roberts better

or you like Jonathan Jones better? Maybe you just don't want to lose Jones through waivers because of his speed and his special teams ability. Jones is not really a guy that you want out there as a cornerback right now, but maybe he's somebody who can grow into that role, out there as a cornerback right now, but maybe he's somebody who can grow into that role, made some plays on the ball in camp, but is a good gunner, offers you depth on special teams.

And again, he's got like 4'3 speed. So it's a guy you don't want to just give away on waivers if you can avoid it. But when you're stacked at almost every single position on the depth chart like the Patriots are, you're going to lose some good players, or you're going to risk losing some good players. So right now I've got Roberts and Jones out and LeBlanc in, but I could see that changing based on a couple of the factors that I just mentioned. And it's safety. Include Brandon King there. Safety linebacker really doesn't matter.

He's a special teamer. Dev McCourty, Patrick Chung, Duran Harmon, easy. Nate Ebner, easy. Jordan Richards, not having a good summer, but I don't think you're giving up on him at this point. So you've got six safeties if you want to include Brandon King, Vinny Sonseri, not making the team, not a surprise there. He's a long shot. And then you've got special teamers, Steven Kostowski, Ryan Allen, and Joe Cardona. So that's my 53.

Again, I think the biggest debates the Patriots are going to have are totally health-related. It's not really a tight end anymore, in my opinion. A.J. Derby is just better than Clay Harbor. So you're going to keep Derby. You're going to eat that $400,000 that you gave to Harbor this offseason. And, you know, I would have entertained the thought of keeping Harbor just as an extra pass catcher because they're dealing with the injury issues

at wide receiver right now. But he didn't do anything. You know, they put in Derby with Brady on Thursday night after they pulled Bennett. It wasn't really like they just decided to give Harper or Harbor a chance to go out there and light it up in that fourth preseason game. That's never a good sign for a guy like that. So it's really, it's all about the injuries. Most notably at wide receiver, then at guard, and then sort of at defensive end.

And I think that's where all the debates are going to come in. But if this is the 53, I'm pretty comfortable with it. I always feel good with that last 53-man roster projection, and then you end up only getting like 49, 50 of these guys right. But there's going to be a lot of roster movement. If there are any huge moves, I will jump back on board on Saturday, give you guys a bonus podcast. But again, that's what I'm looking at. The Patriots have a deep roster. They're in great shape. And we'll see. There's going to be a lot of fun stuff for the outsiders. It's not fun if

you're inside the roster bubble right now at this point. But it's a busy, busy weekend. So hopefully you guys enjoy your Labor Day weekend. I will be back with you guys next week, unless, again, there's a bonus podcast Saturday. You're just going to have to follow me on Twitter. At Jeff P. Hopp. There's only one way to find out if there's going to be a bonus podcast. So, you know, forget your family.

Forget your friends. Don't worry about them this holiday weekend. Just scroll through my Twitter. And if there's a bonus podcast, then be a recluse. You know, go bury yourself in a room and listen to Locked On Patriots. Allow me to be your friend this Labor Day weekend. You guys enjoy it. We'll see you later.

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