2020 Pats: The Training Camp

Harry Hooper

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I believe Bedard wrote that Gilmore had yesterday off as well...hmm.
 

RedOctober3829

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Zo said on the radio that Gostkowski is healthy and has turned down offers from two AFC teams. Breer mentioned this morning on T&R that this may be a year that kickers may be on the P-squad because of the bigger squads plus the fact there's less scouting due to no preseason games. There is a possibility that the Pats may try to squeeze Rohrwasser through to the P-squad if they're not happy with his development and sign Ghost.
 

bigq

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Zo said on the radio that Gostkowski is healthy and has turned down offers from two AFC teams. Breer mentioned this morning on T&R that this may be a year that kickers may be on the P-squad because of the bigger squads plus the fact there's less scouting due to no preseason games. There is a possibility that the Pats may try to squeeze Rohrwasser through to the P-squad if they're not happy with his development and sign Ghost.
That would be interesting. One of my coworkers is friends with his family. She told me the Gostkowskis sold their home in Wrentham and moved to TN. I kind of assumed he was done with New England.
 

RedOctober3829

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That would be interesting. One of my coworkers is friends with his family. She told me the Gostkowskis sold their home in Wrentham and moved to TN. I kind of assumed he was done with New England.
He absolutely may be, but the fact he's healthy and is turning down teams means that he is waiting for something else to free up that he may know about, may not want to go through training camp, or simply is done.
 

RedOctober3829

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Bedard ripping Stidham for not being in shape which he thinks led to his injury.

About midway through practice on Thursday, his play nosedived as deep passes lacked force down the field — two were picked off that way — and he threw a terrible short out to Devin Asiasi that did not go over well with the coaches.

My amateur diagnosis is that Stidham is dealing with some sort of groin/sports hernia injury.

Perhaps the injury explains that, but that doesn’t mean it excuses it.

It’s very rare for a young quarterback, in a competitive situation where there’s no contact, to deal with an injury. In fact, I can’t remember it happening in my time covering the NFL. Guys get banged up in preseason games, sure. But they don’t usually sustain injuries (outside the freak non-contact ACL, and even those are usually with player with more mass) that cause them to miss practices while wearing a red jersey.

If it’s an overuse injury — and sources believe that’s what this is — that will not be looked at favorably by the coaches. Players have had months to get ready for this camp, to prepare themselves. If you’re trying to be the franchise quarterback of the Patriots after Tom Brady and competing with Cam Newton, you are 100 percent physically ready to go and you do not miss reps for anything short of a major injury.
https://www.bostonsportsjournal.com/2020/08/21/patriots-camp-report-injury-situations-jarrett-stidham-nkeal-harry-raise-concerns/
 

Hendu for Kutch

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That’s a whole bunch of speculation there by a non-medical professional.
No shit, huh?

I'm going to guess on the injury, then based on that I'll guess on how he probably sustained it, then based on that second level guess, I'll guess the root cause of what I guessed it was, then I'll guess the coaches' reaction to those guesses. It's ludicrous.

I hate that I can't just read about what's going on in the sports world any more, everything has to be filtered through this morality play soap opera bullshit. I just want to enjoy sports. Is that too much to ask?
 
Apr 24, 2019
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I happily signed up for a long term subscription to BSJ, but Bedard's known-it-all tough-guy routine has (edit) worn super thin, especially as he shitcanned good content providers like Chris Price. Bedard seems to pride himself on being an unabashed and arrogant dick. That there is a prime example.
 

joe dokes

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If it’s an overuse injury — and sources believe that’s what this is — that will not be looked at favorably by the coaches. Players have had months to get ready for this camp, to prepare themselves. If you’re trying to be the franchise quarterback of the Patriots after Tom Brady and competing with Cam Newton, you are 100 percent physically ready to go and you do not miss reps for anything short of a major injury.
wow. What crap.
Bedard's stories have been subpar since training camp started, even though he's had several months to prepare. If it's because he's smoking crack while he writes, that wont be looked on favorably by his partners and readers.
 
Apr 24, 2019
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Rookie kicker has Been seen kicking FGs in only one practice thus far. PFW wondered about maybe an injury situation there, and thought the team might bring in a vet kicker just in case.
 

BaseballJones

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Can't make the club from the tub. I worry about Jeff Thomas in particular here (though I don't know if it's an injury or what...the saying still works). Tremendous talent but obviously came with some issues.
 

BigSoxFan

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Cajuste needs to get in there. This is a big year for him and we really need him with Cannon out. Who is RT right now? Cunningham?
 

Soxy

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Cajuste needs to get in there. This is a big year for him and we really need him with Cannon out. Who is RT right now? Cunningham?
Reports out of camp say Eluemunor has been the top RT and has looked surprisingly good.
 

Scoops Bolling

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I am hopeful that Harry and Newton can find some chemistry. Newton has always done well with that kind of big bodied receiver.
 

Super Nomario

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I am hopeful that Harry and Newton can find some chemistry. Newton has always done well with that kind of big bodied receiver.
You're not the first person I've seen say something like this, but I don't see much evidence for it. Notably, Cam had really inefficient seasons throwing to Kelvin Benjamin, and his best year was the year Benjamin got hurt.
 

Soxy

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You're not the first person I've seen say something like this, but I don't see much evidence for it. Notably, Cam had really inefficient seasons throwing to Kelvin Benjamin, and his best year was the year Benjamin got hurt.
I've heard that too and it does seem like people are basing that idea entirely on the fact that Benjamin had those two "good" (not really) seasons with Cam. The fact of the matter is Cam had to throw the ball to somebody else besides Greg Olsen. So he threw it to Benjamin. A lot.

Kelvin Benjamin was a bad football player who only put up good looking counting stats because Carolina had no other receivers. Dude had 145 targets as a rookie. I remember arguing with some here at the time, saying that Benjamin wasn't nearly as good as his numbers would have you think. He was a high volume guy who made enough splash plays, and had enough good looking fantasy football statlines, to fool people into thinking he was actually good. He had terrible hands, would drop routine catches all of the time, didn't run crisp routes, and had trouble staying in shape. Cam tried to work with what was there, and the injury in year two certainly didn't help, but it went downhill pretty quickly. Dude was out of the league last season at 28 years old.
 

Marciano490

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Damn. That’s cornier than my poop after a cookout. Unless both their mother’s are named Martha.
 

SeoulSoxFan

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Don't let me get over-hyped over Gunner again but oh no here we go:


https://boston.cbslocal.com/2020/08/25/gunner-olszewski-standing-out-patriots-training-camp/
Last week, Belichick was asked about Olszewski’s progress in year two. Instead of speaking in generalities about how every player is trying to improve, Belichick borderline gushed about Gunner’s progress.

“Gunner’s improved tremendously. Again, both physically and from a football standpoint,” Belichick said. “He’s a smart kid, he works extremely hard. He’s tough, he’s very, very competitive. He needs to learn how to do a lot of different things for us and he continues to work on things that will expand his opportunities. So it’ll be interesting to watch him take advantage, or try to take advantage of those opportunities, and watch him play and see how all of that’s coming together. His overall background, knowledge, understanding, being a professional athlete, training, some of his fundamental athletic skills — he’s refined those quite a bit and he’s much, much, much further ahead from where he was last year, similar to other second-year players that we just talked about. He’s certainly in that group.”

Forget it, I'm all in on the "Gun Show"!
 

bsj

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Anyone else worry that the gushing over Gunner is Bill talking up a player he wants someone else to give a shot to if/when he lets him go? I really hope not I am a fan.
 

DJnVa

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Anyone else worry that the gushing over Gunner is Bill talking up a player he wants someone else to give a shot to if/when he lets him go? I really hope not I am a fan.
I wouldn't say "worry" is the word. If he talks someone into taking him when he's really not that good, I count that as a win.
 

DJnVa

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Games start 2 weeks from tomorrow, guys like Thomas need to show out quickly.
 

dynomite

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You're not the first person I've seen say something like this, but I don't see much evidence for it. Notably, Cam had really inefficient seasons throwing to Kelvin Benjamin, and his best year was the year Benjamin got hurt.
I'll start by admitting I didn't watch nearly enough Panthers games to say anything intelligent about Cam’s relationship with his WR corps — which explains why I’m hesitant to even comment here — but I remember there were a bunch of big WRs on that roster over the years. Not just Kelvin Benjamin, but Devin Funchess is huge (6'4", 225), old friend Brandon LaFell is pretty big, and of course Cam is huge part of why Greg Olsen (a TE known for his receiving) may end up in Canton.

Now, obviously Cam was also pretty successful throwing to 5’9” Steve Smith, whose mouth is the biggest thing about him, so maybe there’s no real conclusion to be drawn here. But for one reason or another, Cam did have a number of big targets in Carolina.
 
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Super Nomario

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I'll start by admitting I didn't watch nearly enough Panthers games to say anything intelligent about Cam’s relationship with his WR corps — which explains why I’m hesitant to even comment here — but I remember there were a bunch of big WRs on that roster over the years. Not just Kelvin Benjamin, but Devin Funchess is huge (6'4", 225), old friend Brandon LaFell is pretty big, and of course Cam is huge part of why Greg Olson (a TE known for his receiving) may end up in Canton.

Now, obviously Cam was also pretty successful throwing to 5’9” Steve Smith, whose mouth is the biggest thing about him, so maybe there’s no real conclusion to be drawn here. But for one reason or another, Cam did have a number or big targets in Carolina.
He had a bunch of big targets, but success with them was a pretty mixed bag. As I said above, Benjamin was super inefficient. Funchess had one good year. LaFell was much better after he left Carolina. Olsen I will give you, but I think TE is a fundamentally different proposition because Cam puts the underneath defenders into run/pass conflict. I think Cam might help Asiasi quite a bit; I don't think it's going to make much difference for Harry (unless he plays a lot in the slot).

You mentioned Steve Smith, but Cam/ the Panthers also revived Ted Ginn's career. And McCaffrey is tiny. For some reason Panthers management tended to get big receivers for Cam, but I don't see evidence he worked better with them than with other skill sets.
 

SeoulSoxFan

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Games start 2 weeks from tomorrow, guys like Thomas need to show out quickly.
Apparently, Thomas' speed was quite noticeable. I think he's a PS candidate.

Butler is said to have been pretty unmovable. With Beau Allen getting a slow start to the camp, this is great news.

Out of the excellent Tweet thread by Lazar (how long until he's snatched up by a national network or the NFLN?), this was the most encouraging:

View: https://twitter.com/ezlazar/status/1298443338799091713?s=20


"#Patriots OT depth has been the surprise of camp. Big jumps for Eluemunor and Cunningham and sixth-round pick Justin Herron might be a player. Eluemunor’s focus on conditioning this offseason is paying off. Strong run-blocker, + athlete"
 

Super Nomario

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Apparently, Thomas' speed was quite noticeable. I think he's a PS candidate.

Butler is said to have been pretty unmovable. With Beau Allen getting a slow start to the camp, this is great news.

Out of the excellent Tweet thread by Lazar (how long until he's snatched up by a national network or the NFLN?), this was the most encouraging:

View: https://twitter.com/ezlazar/status/1298443338799091713?s=20


"#Patriots OT depth has been the surprise of camp. Big jumps for Eluemunor and Cunningham and sixth-round pick Justin Herron might be a player. Eluemunor’s focus on conditioning this offseason is paying off. Strong run-blocker, + athlete"
I was bummed that Cajuste wasn't seizing that job, but now I'm wondering if he even makes the team.