Ryan Wendell is still a New England Patriot
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
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Field Yates @FieldYates now
On Wendell: it includes a $850,000 signing bonus, per game roster bonuses (46 man) of $12.5k for each season. Base salary of $1M each season
On Wendell: it includes a $850,000 signing bonus, per game roster bonuses (46 man) of $12.5k for each season. Base salary of $1M each season
Someone check on Phragle, stat. I think this deal is sucks by about 1-2mm and possibly 1 year (although I dislike Wendell as a starting C altogether for more than another year). Dislike. Too much money and I don't think Wendell is anything other than maybe a JAG+.
RedOctober3829 said:
Combined 7 million plus in cap hits for Wendell and Connolly seems absurd to me, especially if Cannon is sitting on the bench. I don't know about first round but it might be time to draft a couple offensive linemen high, yeah.
This is a shitty deal. You're paying this guy 3.5 million against the cap if he makes the team? He's still cuttable, and I hope that happens, but I don't understand why they had to offer him so much should they get stuck with him again.
Maybe they're convinced the problem is Connolly. They obviously know better, but Wendell hasn't looked strong in TV game footage.
Maybe they're convinced the problem is Connolly. They obviously know better, but Wendell hasn't looked strong in TV game footage.
phragle said:
Ouch. I thought Arrington's contract was atrocious. Looks worse in a chart (per Miguel @PatsCap)
phragle said:
Nah, Arrington's is significantly worse. There's no way out of that one. With this one, I still cling to the hope that they draft someone who outperforms him (like an autistic squirrel) and just take the 850k hit.
Ed Hillel said:
At least Arrington is good sometimes.
Let's just hope he's recovered from the beating Knighton put on him
and Damon Harrison, who ever the Colts NT is, and everyone else.
I thought the AAV would be less, but not surprised to see Wendell back. If he plays like 2012, it's fine. If he plays like in 2013, it's a problem. He's only 28; I think he's got a decent chance to bounce back.
The Pats can trot out the same OL as last year, but if they end up going OL early in the draft either Wendell or Connolly is cuttable.
The Pats can trot out the same OL as last year, but if they end up going OL early in the draft either Wendell or Connolly is cuttable.
You guys are really staggeringly confident than I am in your ability to judge NFL interior line play. I watch the team play every week, I watch some all-22, I listen to a lot of the film study guys, and I have absoloutely no idea where I would rank Wendell among NFL centers. He's smaller, he get beaten badly on occasion, he does some nice stuff in the second level from time to time : does that make him 7th or 27th? Does he get beaten more often than average, less, the same? Does he have more/less/the same help as other players? Where does he rank as a run blocker? Every now and then you notice a guy who's consisently a monster or notice a great play, but in general the differences between good, average, and crappy are so small (a couple of plays a game) that I don't see how you can pick them up without a ton of careful study.
Shelterdog said:
I don't know shit either, so only thing I can go by is my personal "review" (each game, mostly twice, some all-22, etc. same as many other posters I assume) and consult sources like PFF.
Speaking of, here's Wendell in 2013 among centers with 50% snaps & ordered by pass protection ratings. Even if we all question PFF's methologies, it matches up with my thoughts on him as a fairly terrible protector of Brady in 2013:
Yeah. I'm less than impressed. Wendell seemed like the weakest link on the oline all year. I hope we see another center in the mix.
In 2012, he also graded poorly in pass blocking, with a -6.1 ... but at +24.7, PFF graded him the #1 run-blocking C in the NFL. B/R's NFL 1000 agreed, giving him a perfect 50/50 in run blocking (even though he was only 28/50 in pass blocking). Ben Muth of FO also praised Wendell last year, calling him, "agile and effective," "solid in pass protection," and "everything you want from a modern center." This year, he faltered in both run- and pass- blocking per PFF and B/R. Did teams see something on film? Did he pick up some bad habits? It seems strange that a player would fall apart like that going from his age-27 to age-28 seasons.SeoulSoxFan said:
Shelterdog said:
As the leader of the Wendell Sucks Awareness Group I end watching him far more than I'd like to. He's probably physically the weakest O linemen I've ever seen. He gets manhandled regularly. There are too many blown assignments too. More than I ever saw with Koppen or Connolly.
SeoulSoxFan said:I don't know shit either, so only thing I can go by is my personal "review" (each game, mostly twice, some all-22, etc. same as many other posters I assume) and consult sources like PFF.
Speaking of, here's Wendell in 2013 among centers with 50% snaps & ordered by pass protection ratings. Even if we all question PFF's methologies, it matches up with my thoughts on him as a fairly terrible protector of Brady in 2013:
One can question their methodologies on their ratings, but not on their pass blocking efficiency stat. I believe his given up more sacks than any center in '12 and '13. The pressures are probably just as alarming. I'd total it up, but my account just expired.
Field Yates thinks we're getting all worked up over a typo. http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=new-england-patriots&id=4760901&city=boston
What a waste of cap space on a JAG of a player. They badly need to address the line in the draft.
The initial info on contacts has been super shaky this year (see Browner) so I'd even wait and see on that. But didn't Dietrich smith get like 4/17? Veteran starting linemen do pretty well.Stitch01 said:
Shelterdog said:
This could be a really cool chat topic if we found the right guy. Like, is there anyone we could bring in that could answer our questions about line play, how you can tell if it's a player that sucks or if he's not getting enough from the guy next to him, how many times getting beat is too much, and so forth?
I feel like, in general, we can tell if someone is a beast, but after that it starts getting kind of hazy and, as SN points out, the numbers seem sorta volatile.
Ben Muth is a good example from football outsiders, Rev. Want me to see if he's game? I'll wait for better ideas but as a former Stanford olineman and as an offensive line columnist for football outsiders he'd be hard to beat.
Shelterdog said:
Agreed. As with DB play, I think sometimes we forget how much scheme and playcall impacts what is seen on video....the closest guy may or may not be the problem.
Just to pick an example, on phragle's video of Knighton blowing up a run play, a lot of reason to think from the blocking scheme that the back cut back inside on a play designed to go outside. If that's the case, the block was perfect (sealed Knighton inside) and the back screwed up. Do I know that's what happened? Nope...but it's clear watching the replay there is more going on there. Certainly, Knighton made so many big plays that one can definitely conclude that was a crappy game for the Pats line. But in any specific case, I think there's a tendency here to believe we know more about the situation than we really do.
Muth followed the Patriots as one of his teams for the Word of Muth column in 2012. That was obviously Wendell's better of his two years, but overall he was very complimentary of him by the end of the year in the "Exit Interview"...
Wendell did have some egregiously bad moments that you see in some of the animated GIFs in this thread, and regressed significantly from 2012 when he looked very serviceable and like one of the better run-blocking centers around. I'm not quite sure what I expect from him next year, but I disagree with the JAG assessment. He's played well in the past, and could play well again.
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/word-muth/2013/word-muth-patriots-exit-exam
Wendell did have some egregiously bad moments that you see in some of the animated GIFs in this thread, and regressed significantly from 2012 when he looked very serviceable and like one of the better run-blocking centers around. I'm not quite sure what I expect from him next year, but I disagree with the JAG assessment. He's played well in the past, and could play well again.
Yes, you never know with the ESPNBoston guys if they're reporting something they've heard as "I'm speculating here..." Basically, the opposite of every other sports news outlet. At this point, I am fully expecting that he's right and that the contract isn't this big.4 6 3 DP said:
Yeah Reiss refers to Wendell's deal as something of a prove it type deal that will pay him decently if
he starts...seems like they might know something.
he starts...seems like they might know something.
No? A lot of people are wondering why they re-signed him, others are pointing out that the contract makes him pretty cuttable if they can find an upgrade, and others are trying to figure out why he was good in 2012 and poor last year and if he can rebound or if that is even a correct reading of his play the two years. Do you have anything to add?Zincman said:
One possibility no one has mentioned is if he was fighting injury last year that could obviously have negatively impacted his play. Haven't heard anything but the team would obviously have more info on that.
Toe Nash said:
That's the only conclusion I can reach and, yet, can't find anything that supports that idea. If he makes the team, I suppose we hope for 2012 Wendell.
Mooch said:
Coupled with the Field Yates note (that the roster bonus is a typo/inflated) and the low cap hit if he's cut, I think you have bingo. Draft a couple guys who the new coach has a chance to work out, keep the band together into OTAs and hope everyone is healthy and you have to make a decision in camp on who the primary backup and/or cut is (Connolly or Wendell).
soxfan121 said:
I don't think it's just because there's a new line coach--BB always tries to keep his lines together as long as possible even when it means keeping a fairly expensive not terribly talented veteran around. Koppen, Kaczur, Neal, Light--all those guys were on the roster at points where they could have easily gone younger and cheaper.
phragle said:
At least Arrington is good sometimes.
Let's just hope he's recovered from the beating Knighton put on him
Dunno if this play was drawn up as a counter run but if the RB doesn't cut back to the left he would have gotten a bunch of yards. The whole left side of the Pats O-Line blocked that just fine.