Summertime storylines

mwonow

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"This town...ain't nothing but a ghost town..."

Slow days on BBtL, with nothing happening in football. But I need something to read here! So...question for any of you who are reading this. What story line are you a) hoping to see in training camp, that b) has an actual impact on the team during the season?

I'm going to start with the X: I want to see a training camp debate sparked by how great Dobson and Mitchell look followed by a season in which one of them contributes meaningfully to the offense.

Anyone else?
 

tims4wins

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Who wins the starting center job? Reports have Andrews and Stork mostly splitting reps this spring.

Similarly, who emerges at guard? Between Jackson, Mason, Kline, Cooper, and Thuney I have no idea what is going to happen.

Who wins the 3rd TE job - Clay Harbor?

Which UDFA(s) make the team? Reiss is currently projecting Jonathan Jones at CB.
 

bernardsamuel

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Thanks, mwonow, for awakening the sleeping tiger that has been BBtL in recent days! I'll play in this sandbox, as there's nothing to lose here. My hoped-for story line is that the football writers will be treating us all during training camp to a continuing chorus of stories about Dante Scarnecchia's vigor and rigor, such that even the guys who are not going to make the roster become useful trade-chips. ...and of course there's hardly anything else that could have as much of a positive impact on this team during the season as sound offensive line play. In a related comment, I'm also looking forward to something like the "I am an idiot" replacement-in-text that was done for Buchholz-misspellings (I've forgotten - did/do we do the same for Belichick?) whenever Coach D.S.'s name will inevitably be misspelled.
 

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

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The competition for the three interior lineman spots. They have a lot of young players vying for roles at Guard and Center. I brought this up in another thread an SuperNomario agreed, but also asked if any of them were any good. Which is actually a pretty fair question in its own right. But even if there is not a stud among all those guys, it will still make for fierce camp competition, which I believe can only be a benefit to the team.
 

RedOctober3829

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I'm interested to see how the running back position plays itself out as. Can Dion Lewis replicate the early season success he had before the ACL? Does Blount have much left to offer? Who wins the camp battle between Donald Brown and James White? What do we have in DJ Foster? Will there be an outside acquisition of someone like Arian Foster in FA or Bishop Sankey in a trade? It's an important position to watch in training camp as they need more production out of the backfield than they got at the end of last season.
 

EL Jeffe

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I'm particularly interested in whether Chris Long can get back to being CHRIS LONG or if he's finished at this point. If he can't cut it, will Flowers or Grissom (or even Rufus Johnson) be able to make a big leap and provide an edge rush.
 

Carmine Hose

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Moreso than the interior OL battle, I am interested in what there plan is at offensive tackle behind Vollmer and Solder. Scary thin there with two injury-riddled guys.
 

Mooch

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Very interest in Nink's potential move to inside linebacker and what that means for the Pats front 7 scheme in 2016.
 

Pandemonium67

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We won't really know until the regular season, but I want to see what BB and JM cook up for Gronk and Bennett. That is a MONSTER tight end duo the likes of which the league has never seen. Assuming reasonable health all around, I think the Pats will use them to bludgeon teams into submission all season long.
 

chief1

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I'm really intrigued by Jimmy G. If he fails when he gets his opportunity, it hurts both on the field and would mean a wasted second round draft pick.
If he succeeds, it would create all sorts of possibilities and story lines.
 

TheoShmeo

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Will they sign any of the "big 4" of Collins, Hightower, Sheard and Butler to new deals? And if not, how will that play with those players and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the team?

Will Marcus Cannon remain on the team or will they, as I hope, add by subtracting him? And what compromising pictures of BB does he actually have? Are small farm animals involved?

Does Nate Washington make the team? My assumption is that Edelman, Amendola, Mitchell and Hogan are locks or close to locks. And so is Slater, who is nominally a WR. That seems to leave one sport for Washington, Dobson, Martin, Harper and Lucien. The PUP list could factor in. And maybe Mitchell really isn't a lock.

Speaking of injuries, which guys will remain out throughout the summer and end up on the PUP list or cut since they can't get out of the tub?

When will we hear from the Second Circuit and what will we hear? And how will all of that impact timing and whether Tom is indeed out for the first four?

Are we going to say goodbye to another veteran who we did not expect to see cut or traded? If so, who?
 

mwonow

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Will they sign any of the "big 4" of Collins, Hightower, Sheard and Butler to new deals? And if not, how will that play with those players and, to a lesser extent, the rest of the team?

Will Marcus Cannon remain on the team or will they, as I hope, add by subtracting him? And what compromising pictures of BB does he actually have? Are small farm animals involved?

Does Nate Washington make the team? My assumption is that Edelman, Amendola, Mitchell and Hogan are locks or close to locks. And so is Slater, who is nominally a WR. That seems to leave one sport for Washington, Dobson, Martin, Harper and Lucien. The PUP list could factor in. And maybe Mitchell really isn't a lock.

Speaking of injuries, which guys will remain out throughout the summer and end up on the PUP list or cut since they can't get out of the tub?

When will we hear from the Second Circuit and what will we hear? And how will all of that impact timing and whether Tom is indeed out for the first four?

Are we going to say goodbye to another veteran who we did not expect to see cut or traded? If so, who?
I'd say the italicized question is the one I'm likely to think about most during the summer. Certainly, when I tune into BBtL, I prioritize the Ted Olsen thread above all others.

The bolded is an interesting question, probably worthy of its own thread...
 

dbn

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Very interest in Nink's potential move to inside linebacker and what that means for the Pats front 7 scheme in 2016.
I don't think I've heard about that. Has it been discussed and I just missed (or forgot) about it?
 

bradmahn

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I don't think I've heard about that. Has it been discussed and I just missed (or forgot) about it?
He was taking reps at ILB during the most recent practices but it was the first I had heard of it and I'm not sure it's anything more than contingency planning.
 

nothumb

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We won't really know until the regular season, but I want to see what BB and JM cook up for Gronk and Bennett. That is a MONSTER tight end duo the likes of which the league has never seen. Assuming reasonable health all around, I think the Pats will use them to bludgeon teams into submission all season long.
Yeah, this. If it's Jimmy Time for the first four games, I could see them using a lot of runs and play action out of the 2TE set to simplify things for him and create matchup issues.
 

Super Nomario

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Yeah, this. If it's Jimmy Time for the first four games, I could see them using a lot of runs and play action out of the 2TE set to simplify things for him and create matchup issues.
This sounds good on paper, but the OL is going to have to play a lot better to use a run-heavy approach. They came out last year in Week Two - before injuries to Lewis, Blount, Solder, and the Gs - and threw 59 times because they knew they couldn't run on Buffalo.
 

nothumb

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This sounds good on paper, but the OL is going to have to play a lot better to use a run-heavy approach. They came out last year in Week Two - before injuries to Lewis, Blount, Solder, and the Gs - and threw 59 times because they knew they couldn't run on Buffalo.
Totally true, I think the question of how well DS can coach up the line is a huge one in this.

I would also flip that on its head and say they have to be able to run block at least a little bit if Jimmy is playing - totally unreasonable to think he (or virtually anyone other than Brady) could execute such a one dimensional game plan.
 

tims4wins

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I think the talk about Scar's return is overblown. The OL had huge failings in the 07 SB, 11 SB, 13 AFCCG... not much different than the 15 AFCCG. And yet people seem to want to blame Goog for 15, but not Scar for 07, 11, or 13.
 

Super Nomario

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Totally true, I think the question of how well DS can coach up the line is a huge one in this.
I'd feel better about this if Brady's suspension wasn't coming at the beginning of the year. Some of the young guys could need more time and BB/McDaniels/Scarneccia might need a few weeks to figure out the best combination of their interior options. That cost them games even with Brady in early 2014.

I would also flip that on its head and say they have to be able to run block at least a little bit if Jimmy is playing - totally unreasonable to think he (or virtually anyone other than Brady) could execute such a one dimensional game plan.
Maybe. However, the shotgun spread is what Garoppolo ran in college, it makes good use of the rest of the Pats' personnel, and the spread makes it hard for the defense to disguise what they're doing. They might run more in the first few weeks, but I'd expect a fair amount of spreading the field. I wouldn't be shocked if they use Garoppolo's mobility to do a little read option stuff, too.
 

mwonow

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Maybe. However, the shotgun spread is what Garoppolo ran in college, it makes good use of the rest of the Pats' personnel, and the spread makes it hard for the defense to disguise what they're doing. They might run more in the first few weeks, but I'd expect a fair amount of spreading the field. I wouldn't be shocked if they use Garoppolo's mobility to do a little read option stuff, too.
That makes sense. And wouldn't having two big TEs help in this formation, by increasing flexibility to run or pass out of a spread formation?
 

Super Nomario

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That makes sense. And wouldn't having two big TEs help in this formation, by increasing flexibility to run or pass out of a spread formation?
That's what they did in 2010-12 with Gronk and Hernandez. If defenses played nickel, the Pats would run out of a heavy look, and if defenses played base, the Pats would spread the field and throw. I don't have hard figures / charting on this, but anecdotally it seemed like teams were putting DBs on Gronk a lot more in 2015 than they did in the past (I can think of Byron Jones and Bradley Roby as two examples). In the past, that would have been an invitation to run the ball, but they just couldn't last year. Hopefully the run blocking is improved in 2016, but we'll see.
 

TheoShmeo

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I think the talk about Scar's return is overblown. The OL had huge failings in the 07 SB, 11 SB, 13 AFCCG... not much different than the 15 AFCCG. And yet people seem to want to blame Goog for 15, but not Scar for 07, 11, or 13.
Violent agreement. Dante's presence should help and Matt Light's criticism of the offensive line coaching/scheme in the wake of the AFC Championship Game was noteworthy. But you are right; it's not as if Scar was on vacation when the Giants made mincemeat of the O-Line in SB 42 and many other teams put massive pressure on Tom prior to Guges' arrival. The health of Vollmer and Solder will be critical, I suspect.
 

dbn

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I don't know enough about coaching offensive linemen to enter into a meaningful debate about Dante Scarnecchia's positive or negative impact on the Patriots' successes and defeats, but I know enough about numbers to wonder why this forum continually uses one of the nearly 300 games during which he has been O-line coach to make an argument that he's overrated.
 

TheoShmeo

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I don't know enough about coaching offensive linemen to enter into a meaningful debate about Dante Scarnecchia's positive or negative impact on the Patriots' successes and defeats, but I know enough about numbers to wonder why this forum continually uses one of the nearly 300 games during which he has been O-line coach to make an argument that he's overrated.
You are selectively reading, I think. First, I think most people are hopeful that Dante will help, and help a lot, but caution that the return of a coach will not be a cure all. If the likes of Marcus Cannon is in at T, there are going to be problems, regardless of who is coaching him up. Maybe less problems with Dante, but players gotta play, and some really are not good at playing. Two, the point in the post directly above yours, and in many others, is that the line had issues in many games under Scar, with the Giants SBs being two very prominent examples, especially the first one. It's not that there is a one-game referendum. It just happens to be that one game in particular puts a very fine point on the fact that even with the best of line coaches, a line can look like dog shit. And the larger point is that we should not delude ourselves into thinking it was all wine and roses under Scar and all crap under Guges. Three, whatever the problems the Pats had on the offensive line last year -- and I am very conscious of Matt Light's stinging criticism of the coaching in the AFC Championship Game -- the same offensive line coach was in place the year before when his players were much healthier and the team won the Super Bowl.

Bottom line, I think the point is much more that they need good linemen and for most of their better lineman to remain healthy. Dante's return should help, and I don't think anyone is saying that he will not improve things, but without better players and health, there is only so much difference a better line coach can make.
 

Toe Nash

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Scar didn't get blame because there were pretty reasonable reasons for the breakdowns -- facing incredible defensive lines and having guys playing injured -- and he had plenty of success in between the failings. Maybe he had good health luck, but I'm not sure. Most of the time, you didn't have to worry about the offensive line and that's the bottom line.

The OL the last couple years has struggled more often than it hasn't, against plenty of different teams. Anecdotally, it seems like even when they were successful it was because they adjusted the offense to tons of quick passes and Edelman had an off-the-charts year. They never ran the ball well under Gugs when they weren't playing the Colts.

I'm pretty hopeful the offensive line will be a lot better. Personnel is a valid question, but they certainly have enough to choose from. Or maybe it's all about Vollmer, Solder and Edelman / Lewis being healthy, in which case, I think we all hope for that too.