Real-ish football is finally back tonight with the Patriots taking on the Redskins at 7:30pm. No, the game doesn’t really count and all that truly matters tonight is avoiding injuries, but it will be fun to finally see the new and young guys have to deal with tackling. We’ll finally get a sense of who might be the guys who just rise to another level in game action.
I had a chance to catch five training camp practices so far, each time scribbling down furious notes on the roster and often forgetting to mention bits and pieces that I might’ve caught but didn’t warrant a full article.
To help get through today, here are a bunch of rapid-fire notes and things I left out of my last couple weeks of writing.
— Tonight you’re going to see vanilla gameplans and I hesitate to even call them vanilla because that might imply too much gameplanning is going into them. The defense will be near-entirely a 4-2-5 and they’ll have two play calls: man or zone. The advantage of this is that a) you don’t give away any schematic plans and b) you can see players play straight-up, without the aid of disguise or even being put into a specific position to succeed or fail. They’ll line up across from a guy and see who wins the 1-on-1 battle.
— On offense they’ll have a small package of plays and basically just rotate the personnel through them to give them a different look. What is Jacob Hollister on one snap might be
— Some guys just shine under the game lights and that’s the true x-factor tonight. The resulting problem is that everyone gets attached to players that make big preseason plays, no matter how long the odds for that player to make the roster, much less the practice squad. Braxton Berrios is DEFINITELY my favorite tonight to ignite some crushes in Patriots nation.
— One thing I was cloudy about all offseason was if there was really even a single back up to Dont’a Hightower as a strongside linebacker. The answer, for better or worse, is Marquis Flowers at 6’3″, 250 pounds. Flowers is one of those guys who hasn’t had a single mention in the camp analysis but is pretty close to a roster lock due to special teams and the lack of linebacker depth.
— Bad time for a Harvey Langi injury, he’s missed the last two practices and figures to probably miss tonight. Langi was active as a standing edge player last preseason, and he played just about every snap. I wished for him to move to inside linebacker, where the depth chart is thin and where he played in college but apparently Belichick either doesn’t read this blog or simply doesn’t see it. Thinking that his problem might be he’s just too much of a tweener to have a true fit on defense. He’s just way down the depth chart.
— Eric Lee is behind Derek Rivers and is another guy who hasn’t really stood out. He’s at best the 5th defensive end right now and I’m curious to compare him to Rivers, who he’ll likely be playing with a bunch tonight. Lee has a year of NFL game experience, but Rivers is the more heralded player, though coming off an injury. There could be more competition between the two than people realize and that’s something to watch tonight and going forward.
— I’m amazed how a lot of the beat writers who are at practice every day are able to compile training camp statistics. It all happens so fast, at different areas of the field, all at the same time. But personally, I just don’t put much, if any, stock into practice stats. Reading into things when guys are pushing themselves to get better, perhaps by attacking their weaknesses, isn’t that insightful to me, but kudos to all who are able to process it all.
— Danny Etling prediction: one long bomb, one long run, one terrible short throw miss.
— Is it just me or are people just totally sleeping on the fact that Stephon Gilmore is playing like one of the best shutdown corners the Patriots have ever had?
— I didn’t get a chance to write anything about the unfortunate release of Malcolm Mitchell. As Mitchell said, he’ll always have the second half of SB51 and his ring from the game, knowing he was a big part of the historic win. Just so disappointing to see one of the few rookie receivers that Brady has shown chemistry with, have his career with the team cut short to just one single Super Bowl-winning season.
— Malcom Brown‘s fall from the first team defense is another notable that’s fallen below the radar. I didn’t even think Lawerence Guy was anything special last year. He certainly was 2016 Alan Branch. I thought the loss of Branch was a big part of the defensive cliff dive against the run, but apparently, the coaches didn’t love what Brown did either. Brown’s had his moments of dominance. He’s really athletic down the line, but I think he just might not be quite big and stout enough for the “double nose” front the Pats like to play now. But this fall from grace is sure to cost Brown some money and makes it seem very possible this is his last year with the team.
— Eddie Pleasant is a guy to keep an eye on tonight. He’s another one playing on top special teams and has even seen some time with the top defense in a limited “getting reps” capacity.
— The young corners, especially Ryan Lewis, JC Jackson and Jomal Wiltz, will be on full display tonight. It’s a good bet one of those trio ends up on a non-Patriots gameday roster this season.
Enjoy the game tonight! Here’s to #NOINJURIES!
