New England Patriots lose pre-season opener, 13-10, to Tampa Bay Buccaneers
New England Patriots lost the pre-season opener to Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 13-10, but the good news is that no starter was hurt.
Nick Kaczur started at right tackle and the played left tackle with the second string unit, which I imagine means head coach Bill Belichick has him penciled in as a starter right now, with right tackle Ryan O’Callaghan as back up. But we’ll see.
The Patriots ran a few draw plays on the first couple of drives, when Tom Brady was in at quarterback. Practically all those plays looked bad and produced little. The Bucs’ defensive line didn’t charge very hard which could explain why those runs didn’t really go anywhere. I saw at lest one play that looked like a standard inside zone-blocking run where left guard Logan Mankins and center Dan Koppen double-teamed Tampa’s Chris Hovan. Then Mankins, in true zone-blocking fashion, slid off Hovan to block a linebacker, which wasn’t such a good thing since Koppen had neither leverage nor angle on Hovan who made a fairly easy tackle at the line of scrimmage.
The Patriots second drive demonstrated a point I made in a post a couple of days ago about left tackle Matt Light and Mankins:
Mankins gets to execute highlight plays more often than Light does, especially on screen passes and on running plays where the guard pulls or at least traps. Blindsiding a linebacker while pulling is a heck of lot easier than blocking a defensive lineman head on.
Lo and behold, on a screen pass on that second drive Mankins got a clear shot at Hovan and leveled him. Since it was a pre-season game neither of the two game callers saw Mankins block, but it was a good one. Light spent that play pretending to be pass protecting. The very next play was the failed zone block I mentioned above. A couple of plys after that, Hovan held off Mankins on a stretch play to the left and made the tackle for a negligible gain. On the Patriots’ first drive, Mankins gave up a pressure that forced Brady to throw a hurried pass off his back foot that led to a completion to wide receiver Wes Welker short of first down.
New England’s touchdown came on a short run up the middle from the formation I spent much of last season glorifying: The three tight-end I formation. Technically it only had two tight ends (or maybe just one) since rookie offensive tackle Clint Oldenburg manned the weakside tight-end position - as he and other offensive linemen occasionally did during the early days of training camp - while recently acquired tight end Marcellus Rivers and second-year player Garrett Mills held the right side. Last year the Patriots used that formation almost exclusively to break through at the edge of the strong side, but this time the runningback, Sammy Morris, banged right up the middle, where center Russ Hochstein and right guard Gene Mruczkowski created an opening.
The best play of the game was delivered by the second unit on the Patriots touchdown drive. On 1st & 10 from Tampa Bay’s 13-yard line the Patriots ran a quite pretty little play over the right, strong side of the line. Hochstein and Kaczur slipped through the defensive line to take on second-level defenders while tight-end Rivers and linemen Mruczkowski, O’Callaghan, and Elgin shoved the Bucs defensive front to the left. What really made the play well-executed was that fullback Evans spotted and neutralized a run-blitzing defensive off the right edge of the offensive line, angling towards Morris. Evans likely saved that play from losing a yard or two. Morris might have gone in for the score had Hochstein not whiffed on his downfield block. O’Callaghan had the most impressive-looking block on the play as he shoved linebacker Derrick Brooks pretty much clear across the field.
The following play went off tackle right, but didn’t work too well. I don’t know if Morris was supposed to punch through the line or get around the edge, but neither really happened, in spite of his hard running. The line just kind of slid right to little effect, albeit enough for a first down at the three. Maybe the play fizzled because Mruczkowski got pushed back, or maybe it was something else. Anyway, the Patriots scored on the next play.
Mruczkowski also gave up a sack on Patriots final drive of the first half.
Rookie interior defensive lineman Mike Elgin had a busy night plying third string right guard, fourth string center and filling in not as second string left guard in place of the injured Billy Yates. He had a mixed outing, but generally did OK.
Oldenburg had a tougher time as third string left guard. He missed a couple of blocks on screen plays and got pushed back badly on a pass play and I think it was Oldenburg who tripped third-string quarterback Matt Gutierrez on a goal line play in the second half [actually, it was Mruczkowski who tripped Gutierrez]].
Karen Guergian has some post-game thoughts over at The Boston Herald’s The Point After blog.
Saturday evening update:
The Herald’s Breer has a good game analysis. This sentence of his won’t surprise you:
Not that it’s a surprise, but Logan Mankins, Dan Koppen and Stephen Neal continue to look outstanding on slip screens, where all three pull out and lead for the back.
The Boston Globe’s Mike Reiss makes five observations over at his blog.
