Googefest: The 2015 Patriots O-Line Thread
- Thread starter Shelterdog
- Start date
Stork has played all over the line in his college career. He played right guard as a freshman, started his sophomore year off at left guard before moving to center, played tackle the entire spring between his sophomore and junior years, then played at center his junior year and senior year. Part of the reason BB and Googe liked him is that he's extremely versatile.
This was the starting OL in the Super Bowl:
Solder -- IR
Wendell -- IR
Stork -- PUP, hasn't been activated yet
Connolly -- retired
Vollmer -- had to change position
No wonder they've had such a fall from last season's success.
Oh. Wait.
Solder -- IR
Wendell -- IR
Stork -- PUP, hasn't been activated yet
Connolly -- retired
Vollmer -- had to change position
No wonder they've had such a fall from last season's success.
Oh. Wait.
Sure it does. Jackson will be back soon and Mason/Stork will probably be in there on Sunday. All isn't well right now, but will be soon.
That's actually pretty incredible, that they've been able to sustain offensive excellence with almost total turnover on the OL.
I don't see it this way. Trading out Wendell, who hadn't played anyway, for a presumably healthy Stork seems like an upgrade. They still have a ton of depth inside. The Tackle position is being tested for sure, though.
Actually, neither Stork nor Wendell were practice squad eligible, right? In that case, this may have been as simple as Belichick not wanting to carry 6 interior linemen and having to make a choice between the two.
Last edited:
So do we know why Wendell is being put on IR? Just generally too hurt? He had the surgery in the offseason, then his mystery illness, then played a little, then hurt his knee in some way last week? Do we think that it's actually a very severe injury, or is it more that he is just not likely to be 100% soon and with all the other OL injuries he is just caught in the roster crunch because they need guys who are healthy today?
Wendell wouldn't have been PS-eligible. Stork is eligible but it's not like optioning him to the minors; they actually have to waive Stork to get him to the practice squad and there's no way he'd make it through. They also don't have to activate Stork yet if they don't want to.
It's a little hard to tell because the Patriots so rarely use the Doubtful designation. They only used it once last year, for Siliga right before he went on IR-DTR. That tells me the injury isn't trivial. On the other hand, he did practice this week (limited each day), so it seems unlikely it's an ACL tear or something because they're usually good at diagnosing those. So it's probably either a) a minor injury that he tweaked during the week and turned into something season-threatening, b) a multi-week injury (like an MCL sprain) that, in conjunction with his illness (which was severe enough to keep him out of two weeks of practice), meant he wasn't going to be 100% this year. They need the bodies, but they have other options, like waiving one of their eight safeties.
Straight from his FSU bio.
http://www.seminoles.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=32900&ATCLID=209588204
BB might have dropped a bomb in his WEEI conference. He noted that Stork playing tackle is going through a challenge "just like McCourty did when we moved him to safety from corner where he'd played in college and his first few years" in NE. He then mentioned that he thought Stork would be better next week than he was this week.
Is BB suggesting this is a longer term move? Stork is slightly short for a RT but certainly in the ballpark at 6'4". Any chance Stork is our RT going forward?
Is BB suggesting this is a longer term move? Stork is slightly short for a RT but certainly in the ballpark at 6'4". Any chance Stork is our RT going forward?
Considering the cap hits on Vollmer or Solder, I highly doubt it.
Edit: sorry if you meant for the rest of this season. In which case, probably. Sorry if I misconstrued your question.
Edit: sorry if you meant for the rest of this season. In which case, probably. Sorry if I misconstrued your question.
I was actually thinking maybe into 2016. Solder is the 2016 left tackle (if healthy) but Vollmer doesn't have that much dead money (2 million left) would be a 4 million cap saving and he'll be 32 so he's at an age/salary where he might be a cap casualty--particularly if you think Stork/Flemming/some random fourth tackle can get the job done on the cheap.
Didn't hear the WEEI segment but BB makes sense (as usual) - moving to a position you haven't played much is a challenge, and good players get better in week 2 than they were in week 1 of a transition.
Long term, no clue. The Patriots do now have an embarrassment of riches for LG-C-RG when everyone is healthy: Mason, Jackson, Kline, Andrews and Stork can't all play at the same time, and all of them have shown the ability (or potential) to be starters in the league. Trading any of them would probably only net a mid-round pick which solves the logjam with a lottery ticket.
It'd be nice to have all the OL talent healthy at the same time.
And FWIW, Brian Filipiak is working on an Andrews piece, and has done plenty of film work on Stork, so he'll probably have some thoughts.
Maybe they move somebody to tackle but I think long term the most likely answer is that you start your three best guys out of that group and you have two overqualified back-ups--which isn't that big a deal because all five of the players are on pretty cheap contracts and is a nice problem to have because you will have injuries to your starters from time to time.. In a year or two you have to start thinking carefully about who to extend, whether you need to bring in new guys,etc. because you have a lot of contracts expiring simultaneously in the group but I think we can cross that group when you get there.
Plus, the team started a rotation system earlier this season, so maybe the gap between starter and backup will be smaller in future seasons