Blount named AFC Offensive Player of the Month

FL4WL3SS

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simplyeric

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So you're saying we won't be seeing much of Blount this weekend?

They are middle of the pack in total yards allowed this season, but top third in (fewer) yards/carry.
And their passing D is bottom third in (more) total and per-attempt yards.

I don't mean to imply we won't see him because the Bills are too stout to run against. Only that BB will not be stubborn, and will switch up the playbook as much as he feels the need to.
Can Rex resist keying in on the Patriots's Offensive Played ot the Month, to the detriment of play-action to the passing game?
(and can JG/JB/other capitalize on this?)

Or, does BB just keep running Blount unless/until it's not effective (3.4 yds per carry isn't that great, but it's only been 3 games so who knows what that means really)
 

KiltedFool

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Meh. Good for him. Still look at him as an asshole.
 

DJnVa

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I think my favorite part of that is that he leads NFL in yards after contact. Whoever posted last week that he goes down as soon as someone breathes on him would do well to note that.
 

Byrdbrain

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So he leads the NFL in yards after contact even though he goes down immediately when tackled low. I don't see how such a thing could possibly be true.
It takes Blount a while to get going but once he gets going he will run you over high or low, or he may just hurdle you(as shown above).
 

( . ) ( . ) and (_!_)

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The "Does Blount Suck or Not?" argue is not about Blount at all.

It's about what are and are not reasonable expectations of what a NFL running back should and should not be capable of doing on any given play. I'm convinced that you could swap Blount with 80% of the other starting RBs in the NFL and that the game thread would still hate that RB for not being good enough. There are just a lot of overblown and unreasonable definitions of what Success looks like for a running back.
 

rodderick

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So he leads the NFL in yards after contact even though he goes down immediately when tackled low. I don't see how such a thing could possibly be true.
It takes Blount a while to get going but once he gets going he will run you over high or low, or he may just hurdle you(as shown above).
He leads the NFL in yards after contact through 3 Weeks, not 3 seasons. I feel like that's being a little overlooked. But I won't keep fighting this point and further derail the thread.
 

riboflav

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So he leads the NFL in yards after contact even though he goes down immediately when tackled low. I don't see how such a thing could possibly be true.
It takes Blount a while to get going but once he gets going he will run you over high or low, or he may just hurdle you(as shown above).
I think someone mentioned that if he gets to the line (or is it through the LOS) clean, watch out! But, if he's hit at or before the line, he tends to go down more easily. It sounds like he needs to have a head of steam to be most effective. More like an old school running back.
 

Super Nomario

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I think someone mentioned that if he gets to the line (or is it through the LOS) clean, watch out! But, if he's hit at or before the line, he tends to go down more easily. It sounds like he needs to have a head of steam to be most effective. More like an old school running back.
And to (symbols)'s point, this may be a matter of unrealistic expectations and lack of context. Would you believe the Patriots, for all their OL struggles, were #1 in 2015 in FO's Stuff Rate ("percentage of runs where the running back is tackled at or behind the line of scrimmage")? Obviously he's not going to dance around backfield penetration a la Barry Sanders, but every team has negative carries.
 

DJnVa

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He leads the NFL in yards after contact through 3 Weeks, not 3 seasons. I feel like that's being a little overlooked. But I won't keep fighting this point and further derail the thread.
It's not the first time. I know in 2014 he was top 5 in the league. For entire season.
 

rodderick

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It's not the first time. I know in 2014 he was top 5 in the league. For entire season.
Can you share where you got that information from? I'm legitimately asking, because I've been looking all over and can't find it. All I've seen is a Reddit post from December, 2014, which lists the top RBs in yards after contact per PFF, and Blount is not among the top 10.
 

ShaneTrot

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I wonder how much of Blount's success this year is tied to Develin. Also, when they run to the left, I see Solder getting to the next level or really crushing the edge defender. For a big guy, he shows great athleticism in the run game.
I don't have the PFF subscription but I heard or read somewhere they have not rated the Pats o-line highly this year which seems strange because they look like they are much better than what they were at the end of last year.
 

mauf

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It's a credit to the Pats' O-Line that a below-average RB like Blount could win this award.

I would've cast my vote for Jarvis Landry, who put up some terrific numbers on a team with no other weapons (though, like LGBT, he padded those numbers with garbage-time yards), but LGBT was a perfectly good choice also.
 

Toe Nash

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I guess Thursday's game doesn't count (even though it was in the same month), because if so AJ Green is hands-down the player of the month. Good for Blount I guess.
 

riboflav

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It's a credit to the Pats' O-Line that a below-average RB like Blount could win this award.

I would've cast my vote for Jarvis Landry, who put up some terrific numbers on a team with no other weapons (though, like LGBT, he padded those numbers with garbage-time yards), but LGBT was a perfectly good choice also.
Can you define garbage time? Because his most memorable and important runs thus far have been against the Cardinals and Dolphins in one-possession games late.
 

mauf

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Can you define garbage time? Because his most memorable and important runs thus far have been against the Cardinals and Dolphins in one-possession games late.
He probably doesn't get the award without that long TD run late in the Texans game. And he tallied a fair number of yards when the Pats had a big lead in the second half of the Dolphins game. By the same token, though, Landry isn't in the discussion without his second-half yards in that game. And I suspect you could make similar arguments for other guys who belong in the discussion.

In sum, LGBT was a deserving recipient of the award, but that says more about the competition than it does about his own performance. I still think RB is a relative weak spot on an incredibly strong Pats team.

But damn, the coaching change on the O-line has been nothing short of transformative.
 

Silverdude2167

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He probably doesn't get the award without that long TD run late in the Texans game. And he tallied a fair number of yards when the Pats had a big lead in the second half of the Dolphins game. By the same token, though, Landry isn't in the discussion without his second-half yards in that game. And I suspect you could make similar arguments for other guys who belong in the discussion.
So you are knocking him for gaining yards in a half when everyone in the world knew he was getting the ball on first and second down?