Eight different members of the New England Patriots
have opted out of the 2020 NFL season for reasons related to the ongoing
pandemic, and while three of them were counted on to be integral components,
their loss opens the door for some talented players waiting in the wings…
…but now, thanks to those players opting out, the
Patriots also have almost $35 million in cap space that they could potentially
use to bring in a seasoned veteran or two to stem the tide of departures from
the depth chart.
Under normal Belichickian standards, those aforementioned
young and talented players would essentially go through a “Redshirt” season,
seeing minimal action while they watch and learn from the veterans ahead of
them on the depth chart, but head coach Bill Belichick appears to have lost the
luxury of bringing his newbies along slowly.
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| Both Chung (23) and Hightower (54) have opted-out of 2020 season |
Fortunately, of the players on the list of opt-outs,
only the loss of linebacker Dont’a Hightower and right tackle Marcus Cannon are
considered problematic, as there is no proven talent behind them on the depth
chart – but especially Hightower, as his decision robs the Patriots of not only
their play-calling defensive captain, it also leaves the linebacking corps
looking more like a Senior Bowl lineup…
…going from a “Who’s who” pack of speedy sack masters
to a “Who’s that?” group of rookies and journeyman part-timers that, from the
outside, looks like a serious degradation of the talent level.
But these are the New England Patriots, and Belichick
is the quintessential boy scout who is always prepared – and while some (most)
believe that he was unprepared last season to deal with all of the injuries
that crippled his team, the simple fact of the matter is that he was preparing
his team for life beyond the dynasty in hopes of creating a new one.
Replacing Hightower And Chung
This is likely to be a game-to-game scenario, which is
how Belichick operates anyway.
Belichick is the master game-planner who builds his
teams with the Patriots’ schedule in mind. It is said that coaches build their
teams to match up with teams in their division, which makes sense on the
surface, given that they play each team twice – but in reality, that means that
each team plays only six of their sixteen regular season games in-division,
leaving ten games against non-division foes…
…so their success or failure in making the post-season
lies mainly on how they fare against the ten other teams on their schedule, and
somehow, someway, Belichick seems to be able to game plan for every single
team, every single week – and he uses his entire roster, even if it’s just in
one or two plays throughout the season.
Situational football is what Belichick lives for, and
the options that he has for covering the “Will” linebacker spot that Hightower
has vacated are actually quite plentiful, if not traditional.
For the past two seasons, Belichick has employed
strong safety Patrick Chung in the position at times, and though Chung has
also opted out, some the players that they have brought in through free agency
and the draft to eventually replace the aging box safety are looking more and
more fortuitous as time goes on…
…and the draft also produced a couple of off-the-ball
linebackers who possesses the skill set to contribute in the multiple-layer infusion
to replace the volume of talent the Patriots lost not only when Hightower opted
out, but also the loss of Jamie Collins, Kyle Van Noy and Elandon Roberts in
free agency.
It makes sense for Belichick to look at veteran
journeyman Brandon Copeland to provide some snaps in Hightower’s stead, but there’s
a reason why the Penn product has bounced around the league since entering the
NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2014.
He is a man without a true position, initially
entering the league as a 265 pound defensive end with impressive speed for the
position, but with suspect lateral agility in the pass rush and found himself
out of the league for a couple of seasons – then reinvented himself as an
outside linebacker for the 2015 veteran combine, shedding twenty pounds and, as
a result, trimming two-tenths of a second off of his forty…
…and while that improved his straight-line speed, it
did little to improve his agility. At his best, Copeland, who’s weight now stands
at 255, is a strong-side, edge-setting linebacker who willingly takes on tight
ends on the edge, but also gets regularly swallowed up in the maw, leaving an
inside track for runners.
As a result, he found himself as a rotational player
for both the Lions and Jets, his greatest contribution being on special teams.
With his lack of lateral agility, I can’t see him as a regular part of the
lineup, especially if the rookies on the roster can make an immediate impact in
camp.
Michigan’s Josh Uche is the favorite to take on the
“Will” role vacated by Hightower due to his “tweener” skill set. Though he won
many battles as an edge rusher in college, his size could work against him
against offensive tackles and tight ends in the pros unless he is schemed as an
interior linebacker in a 3-4 defensive alignment, where he could roll to the
edge in run defense and attack interior gaps as a blitzer in pass defense.
He possess more speed than Hightower and is fluid in
underneath coverages, and the fact that he models his game after the late Sean
Taylor, those box safety-like instincts and versatility has to have Belichick
salivating at the possibilities of deploying Uche in the middle of his “Amoeba”
defense.
As anyone who knows football is familiar with, the
difference between the aforementioned box safety and a coverage linebacker is
in name only, and since Belichick likes to employ his strong safeties as
coverage linebackers, Uche fits that bill – but he’s not the only player on the
roster who does.
Belichick’s top pick in the 2020 draft, safety Kyle
Dugger, possesses the most versatility of any player on the Patriots’ defense
and, as such, he could fill a different role in just about any alignment. A
violent striker in space with the speed to handle the back end as well.
Dugger’s coaches at the Senior Bowl tried him at the single high safety
position and as a hybrid linebacker who fills well in run support and excels at
underneath coverages. He has the size to hold his own at the “Will” spot, where,
as mentioned, Belichick used Chung at times to handle the better tight ends in
the league.
Former Los Angeles Chargers’ safety Adrian Phillips
was signed by Belichick in free agency, most likely to make him more
comfortable in facilitating a trade with the Detroit Lions that sent Big Nickel
safety Duron Harmon packing in a salary cap move. Phillips is also capable of
reducing down into the box, but his presence only adds fuel to the speculation
that Dugger will play a major role – something we will get into in a later
article.
But with both Phillips and Dugger on the roster,
Belichick should be able to continue fielding three safeties in both his Big
Nickel and Amoeba packages, especially the latter, which is defined by no
definition, a “formation” that is constantly shifting shape during the
offensive cadence, making it close to impossible for the quarterback to set his
protection at the line because he has no idea where the pressure will be coming
from.
And that is important to remember about this defense.
In the Amoeba, all of the defenders are juking and shifting as if they are
rushing the quarterback, then at the snap, some defenders rush while others
fall back into coverage so it is imperative that Belichick have as many
versatile athletes on the field…
…and while the Amoeba is geared more towards
late-down, long-yardage situations, the presence of players like Uche, Dugger
and Phillips, along with young breakout candidates in linebackers Ja’Whaun
Bentley and Chase Winovich, he could employ the tactic on early downs as well,
albeit with a tweak or two.
All of that said, there is no guarantee with the
newbies on the roster, but the versatility in their individual skill sets
actually gives Belichick more options both in coverages and in run support than
he had with more traditionally-skilled defenders in Hightower and Chung – but
that doesn’t mean those players won’t be missed, it simply means that Belichick
will have to open up his playbook a little wider, which isn’t a bad thing…
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