The Eagles' offensive game plan was to attack the flats with their backs to take advantage of the Patriots' season-long issue of missing rangy linebackers to set the edge and cover the flats. On the night, the Eagles ran the ball to the edges eighteen times for 100 yards and the ball was thrown into the flat an astounding 21 times for 221 of Philadelphia's 374 passing yards and two of their five scores.
 |
| Leighton Vander Esch |
And once the Eagles had the Patriots frustrated to the point that they brought their safeties a little closer to the line to stop that bleeding, they went over the top and gained chunk yards against single coverages.
Indeed, the Patriots were just plain bad defending the flats all season, ranked 27th in the National Football League, according to our friends at Football Outsiders, which can be taken a number of different ways - but most prominently, this can be attributed to inexperience among the depth linebackers, but one has to wonder if it would have been so had the Patriots not had so many injuries on the second level.
In a prefect world, New England had an intriguing lineup in the linebacking corps, featuring two-time Super Bowl hero Dont'a Hightower on the weak side and fellow first-round draft pick Shea McClellin on the strong side - athletic bookends for rangy and tough middle linebacker Kyle Van Noy who has the requisite instincts, feel for angles, speed and size to cover backs in the flat, but, hey, the guy can't be everywhere all at once...
...and while we know that Hightower will return after taking most of 2017 of with a torn pectoral muscle (shades of Jerod Mayo, anyone), the same cannot be said with much confidence about McClellin, who missed the entire year with post-concussion syndrome, which could signal the end of his short career.
Another player that missed the entire season was defensive end / strong side linebacker hybrid Derek Rivers, who should return full strength but still offers some ambiguity in regard to his fit in the defense as he didn't play a down for the Patriots after being their top draft pick in last April's draft, but his measurables (6' 4", 250 pounds) suggest a fit at the 3+1 "Joker" position that former-Patriot Jamie Collins nearly had down to a science.
So, realistically, Van Noy and decent potential is all New England has on the second level. If they all stay healthy and play up to their enormous potential, the Patriots are set except for accounting for natural attrition - but either way, picking up a linebacker or two in the offseason is going to be paramount to Belichick being able to field a decent defense.
The other levels are in good shape for the moment, other than maybe wanting to look into a corner to pair with Stephon Gilmore, so linebacker is the biggest need on the defense, and probably the biggest need on the entire team.
And there is no better place to start than to draft a young firepisser to jump start defense.
Boise State's Leighton Vander Esch could be to the Patriots' defense what Collins was, only even more athletic and instinctive.
At 6' 4" and 240 pounds, Vander Esch is a strong side dream: easy lateral movements to cut down running lanes for runners cutting back against the grain, elite range, knows how to use blocker's leverage to disengage on the edge and is perhaps the best coverage linebacker to come out of college since Ryan Shazier, only longer with the ability to make a play on any ball he can get a finger on.
He may be available towards the end of the first round due to having only one season of full-time starting experience and then declaring for the draft as a Junior, but his stock will climb when he owns the Combine in Indianapolis and it might take some wheeling and dealing to trade up a few spots - and Belichick should because Vander Esch is everything he values in a linebacker.
That said, the drop off after Vander Esch is pretty significant, but the players are excellent prospects in their own right.
South Carolina State's Darius Leonard is a rangy, if smallish (6' 2", 213), weak side linebacker who plays more like a strong safety than a linebacker. Is excellent in coverage and in pursuit with blazing closing speed, which gives him the ability to process and mirror running backs, then plug the gap before the back can reach it.
Leonard is best suited for an interior spot, however, as he doesn't possess the play strength desired to hold the edge, though he has shown the ability in flashes. Edge setting ability is the specialty of Georgia's Lorenzo Carter, as his 6' 6" frame and plus-lateral quickness makes him an ideal butterfly net on either edge, as well as a decent prospect in the pass rushing department.
Both Leonard and Carter should be available for New England in the second round, but barring being able to snag Vander Esch and the end of the first round, the best value linebacker in the entire draft may be Rutgers' Kemoko Turay.
The most explosive edge defender in the draft, Turay has a Chandler Jones-like spider build and perhaps the best pass rushing outside linebacker in the class. Sometimes it seems that Turay can unravel his long arms and reach the sidelines from the tackle box, which makes him a devastating back-side gap filler. The knock on him is his durability, as injury robbed him of most of his sophomore and Junior seasons - a knock that sees him fall into the third round.
Also in the third round Belichick should be able to find Auburn's Jeff Holland, a marshmallow looking fellow that is a pass rushing demon slated for success in the pros as a situational rusher, Ohio State's Jerome Baker who plays the run like a marshmallow but is hell on wheels in coverage on the weak side with tremendous speed, and Indiana's Tegray Scales is a pure middle linebacker who doesn't have great size, but plays with elite instincts, including on hug blitzes where he has registered 13 sacks in two seasons.
Baker will likely be a reach if Belichick were to tab him for the third round, but he won't be around in the sixth round, which is where his next selection is scheduled - but given the slim pickings in free agency, Patriots' fans should expect to see one of Belichick's four draft picks go toward an impact linebacker...
...because when four of the top-12 rated outside linebackers in free agency are players cut by New England in past couple of years, the prospects for finding an impact player for the second level are not that good.
No comments:
Post a Comment