Category: Saints

New Orleans Saints LT Trevor Penning shows power, needs a plan in NFL debut

Saints first-round tackle Trevor Penning was strong in the run game, but needed a plan when pass-blocking, in his first NFL game.

When you select an offensive tackle in the first round of a draft, you are generally expecting that guy to start right away… or pretty close to it. The New Orleans Saints took Northern Iowa’s Trevor Penning with the 19th overall pick in the 2022 draft. making him the fourth offensive tackle taken after Ikem Ekwonu (sixth to the Panthers). Evan Neal (seventh to the Giants), and Charles Cross (ninth to the Seahawks). All three of those players have much more starting experience against better competition, which gives Penning the look of a developmental prospect.

Penning was able to show his aggressive mindset at the 2022 Reese’s Senior Bowl, getting into various donnybrooks with all kinds of opponents with his bar-fighting style of play. As much as that impressed the general populace, there were also reps during the week of practice in Mobile, Alabama that had Penning out of sorts from a technical perspective.

Cleveland Browns uber-rusher Myles Garrett had something to say about that back in March.

Around that same time, I did a series of tweets in which I investigated Penning’s play in actual games, and there was a lot to wonder about from a technical perspective.

Here’s one play with straight whiffs on two different defenders on a pull…

…here’s Penning passing the end to miss against the second-level defender…

…here’s Penning missing at the second level again, and adding some after-play activity to emphasize whatever point he’s trying to make…

…and here, he does show the one thing he could consistently do in pass pro. Maul people to the ground.

Penning’s all-in wrestling personality extended itself to the Saints’ 2022 training camp.

New head coach Dennis Allen wasn’t exactly impressed.

“We’ve got to get our work done,” Allen said. “We’ve got to learn as a team how to compete, and how to play, and how to practice, and push ourselves to the limit, yet not take it over the edge.

“We are in the third day in a row in practice,” Allen concluded. “People begin to get a little bit tired and things get a little bit chippy. It’s not unusual for something like that to occur during a training camp. It’s certainly something we don’t want to see happen. It’ll be addressed and we’ll move forward.”

But when the Saints and Texans squared off last Friday, all that stuff was out the window. It was Penning’s time to succeed or fail at the highest level of football on his own merits. In Houston’s 17-13 win over the Saints last Saturday, Penning played 57 snaps — 28 in passing situations, and 29 in rushing situations. So, it was a good overall heat check on where Penning is as a player. He allowed a sack, a quarterback hit, and three quarterback hurries, and while his run-blocking was generally sound (that’s never really been a problem, the pass-blocking issues aligned on tape with what Pro Football Focus’ charting told you.

“I mean, it was good to get out there and play an actual NFL game,” Penning said after. “I felt like there were… there’s moments I definitely need to clean up for sure. That comes with time and reps in it. So, I’ll go back in on Monday, watch the film, and learn from it.”

“They played pretty base,” Penning said of the Texans. “There were a couple of stunts that were a little different than what I was expecting, but for the most part, it was kind of base.”

The Saints face the Packers in Green Bay on Friday, August 19, and there will be some joint practices beforehand. Penning said that he’s looking forward to going up against some different defenders with different techniques in practice and in the game.

It will be a learning experience for Penning, and it won’t all come together immediately, but let’s take a closer look at where Penning is as a blind-side blocker based on his first NFL action.

Touchdown Wire’s NFL power rankings podcast with Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield get you ready for the 2022 NFL season through the view of Doug’s recent power rankings.

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield get you ready for the 2022 NFL preseason and regular season with a look at every NFL team through the view of Doug’s recent power rankings, and where every team stands as they come into the new campaign. We have separated teams into tiers:

  1. Total rebuilds: Falcons, Bears, Jaguars, Panthers, Seahawks, Giants, Lions.
  2. Feisty, but not there yet: Jets, Texans
  3. WTF? Patriots, Cardinals, Dolphins, Commanders
  4. Possible playoff teams with major concerns: Steelers, Vikings, Colts, Titans, Saints
  5. The Deshaun Watson category: Browns
  6. Great, if everything goes right: Eagles, Raiders, Cowboys
  7. One potentially fatal flaw away: Chargers, Ravens, 49ers, Packers
  8. Have to take them absolutely seriously: Chiefs, Buccaneers, Bengals, Broncos, Rams
  9. Who’s going to stop them? Bills

Check it out in the link below, and enjoy the new season!

On BlogTalk Radio:

Preseason power rankings: Is this finally Buffalo’s season to win a Super Bowl?

Doug Farrar’s preseason power rankings have the Bills headed to (and winning) Super Bowl LVII. Which teams could knock them out of that dream?

Legendary head coach Marv Levy is justifiably in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and one primary reason is that, from 1990 through 1993, he led the Buffalo Bills to four straight Super Bowls. No other coach has ever done that.

The problem, of course, is that the Bills lost all four of those Super Bowls. The Bills capped off the old millennium with a handful of wild-card and divisional round losses under Levy and then Wade Philips, and then entered a postseason drought that started in 2000. and lasted until 2017.

Now, things are different. With perhaps the most stacked roster in the league and a superstar quarterback in Josh Allen, there’s little doubt that the Bills are Super Bowl-ready. They may have been last season were it not for a heartbreaking loss and defensive implosion in the divisional round to the Kansas City Chiefs, but in our preseason power rankings, we have the Bills as the NFL’s best team — and 2022 as the season in which the Bills win their first league championship since 1965, in the old American Football League.

Of course, there are all kinds of teams who could knock them from that dream. On the other side of things, there are NFL teams rebuilding, just trying to tread water, confident but with concerns, and on the precipice of something special.

As the 2022 preseason begins, here are our first power rankings of the new NFL campaign.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).

One stat that matters for every NFL team

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar brings forth one stat that matters for every NFL team coming into the 2022 season.

When you ask NFL coaches, executives, and scouts about analytics, you’ll get all kinds of answers which tend to reveal which teams value them — and which teams are paying lip service, because they don’t really consider advanced metrics, but they don’t want to be pilloried on social media as dinosaurs.

The teams that don’t value analytics, or don’t want you to know that they do, will tend to give more generic answers. Teams that are all in will be more specific.

Whether you believe that analytics can help your player evaluation process or not, the simple fact is that they represent a tool that can be helpful in the right hands. In the wrong hands, it’s just statistical noise.

We’re not sure if my hands are the right ones or not, but in this article, I have endeavored to find one specific metric for each NFL team that reveals a larger strength or weakness each team will either benefit from, or must address, in the 2022 season.

So, get your tape-repaired glasses, dust off your pocket protectors, and let’s nerd out with one stat that matters for every NFL team!

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).

Saints rookie OT Trevor Penning needs to stop fighting — and start learning

Saints rookie offensive tackle Trevor Penning solidified his rep as a glass-eating fighter. But that won’t matter when the season starts.

Most football coaches of any stripe love the glass-eating, ass-kicking offensive lineman type, and they’ll willingly add those players to their teams — often in lieu of the technical refinement and mechanical consistency that marks the best blockers in the game. San Francisco’s Trent Williams, the best offensive lineman in the NFL today, is quite happy to demolish any defender on any play with his physical dominance, but he’s also capable on a play-to-play basis of shutting out enemy edge-rushers with a technical palette that is the envy of the league.

There is a balance, and somebody needs to get that through to Saints rookie offensive tackle Trevor Penning. On Wednesday, New Orleans head coach Dennis Allen kicked the 19th overall draft pick off the practice field after Penning got in a fight with defenders on his own team for the third day in a row.

A rather exasperated Allen explained it thusly:

“We’ve got to get our work done,” Allen said. “We’ve got to learn as a team how to compete, and how to play, and how to practice, and push ourselves to the limit, yet not take it over the edge.

“We are in the third day in a row in practice,” Allen concluded. “People begin to get a little bit tired and things get a little bit chippy. It’s not unusual for something like that to occur during a training camp. It’s certainly something we don’t want to see happen. It’ll be addressed and we’ll move forward.”

Anybody who watched Penning at the Senior Bowl knew that he was going to be this type of player when he hit the NFL. Penning was throwing opposing defenders around all week in practice — occasionally at the feet of his own quarterbacks — and while that got a lot of oohs and aahs from those in the league who find such things scintillating, it also masked some serious technical deficiencies that will also show up when it’s time to get real in the regular season.

Browns expert edge-rusher Myles Garrett agreed.

When you’re dealing with Garrett’s bull-rush, or Micah Parson’s long-arm, or T.J. Watt’s speed through the arc, it’ll get complicated in a hurry. As Senior Bowl highlights showed, Penning gets his hands inside the pads and on the numbers, and he has the upper-body strength to jolt and dislodge defenders from their intended paths.

But in Penning’s case, I have serious concerns about his ability to operate as a pass-protector and space player at the NFL level, and these issues show up repeatedly.

Here’s one play with straight whiffs on two different defenders on a pull…

…here’s Penning passing the end to miss against the second-level defender…

…here’s Penning missing at the second level again, and adding some after-play activity to emphasize whatever point he’s trying to make…

…and here, he does show the one thing he can consistently do in pass pro. Maul people to the ground. As Myles Garrett said, good luck with that at the NFL level. Penning needs to have his hands on a defender to make it work; he’s not an asset against defenses that present more complex rush concepts.

In fact, he could be a distinct liability until he spends the time needed to get his technique together.

Last season, per Pro Football Focus, Penning allowed one sack and 11 total pressures on 435 pass-blocking reps, and he was dominant at times in the run game. But he also racked up 16 penalties, and that was against (no offense) middle-tier NCAA competition for the most part.

Penning is expected to start on New Orleans’ offensive line this season, the fact that he was selected 19th overall tells you that story. Which gives him training camp, and three preseason games, before things get really real.

“It’s part of my game, I think. It’s just how I am as a player,” Penning said Monday. “But I’m obviously out there working technique. I’m trying to get better at the technique of the game, getting the blocks down. The finishing ability, that’s what I pride myself in, and that’s always going to be part of my game.”

Hopefully, the “working technique” thing is as much of Penning’s plan as the “this is just who I am” thing. Because no elite NFL edge-rusher will be fazed one bit by the tough-guy stuff — and they’ll be licking their chops when they see Penning’s mechanical flaws.

2023 NFL Mock draft: How the first round might go after Miami’s forfeited pick

Mock draft alert! Now that the NFL has taken one of the Dolphins’ two first-round picks in 2023, here’s how the first round might look.

While we’re pretty sure that the rest of the NFL isn’t too happy about the Miami Dolphins barfing all over themselves as a franchise with the embarrassment of an unprecedented tampering scandal, there is the matter of the 2023 first-round pick the Dolphins were forced by the league to forfeit as punishment. That was estimated as the 15th overall pick at this time, and that means that a whole lot of teams get a one-pick bump in the 2023 NFL draft.

The Dolphins still have a first-round pick next year courtesy of the San Francisco 49ers in the trade that allowed Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch to move up and select Trey Lance with the third overall pick in 2021. But Miami obviously has much less leverage to move up next year if the idea was to nab one of the star quarterbacks in the 2023 class, should things not work out with Tua Tagovailoa. Right now, that has the Dolphins sitting with the 23rd pick, and by that time, the highest-profile quarterbacks will obviously be out the door.

How might the 2023 NFL draft look with 31 picks instead of 32, and more than half the first round moving up? Here’s one person’s estimate.

Early surprises as NFL training camps begin

Touchdown Wire’s Laurie Fitzpatrick discusses the biggest surprises as NFL training camps get underway.

Football is back!

All 32 teams have officially started their training camps. A few teams have been pleasantly surprised by strong performances from their rookies, while other teams have had some unexpected returns from injuries, and some teams have even made last minute trades that just flat-out shocked us all.

Jope springs eternal for all teams as the pre-preseason officially begins, let’s dive into some of the surprises from the start of training camp!

 

The 101 best players in the NFL today, Nos. 50-1

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield conclude their player lists with the 50 best players in the NFL today.

Midsummer of every year is when we all make lists in this business. We’re not quite at the point of training camps in full bloom, free agency and the draft has eased off from a newsworthiness angle, and there’s still a need for clickable content. Ergo, we’re all ranking the NFL’s players in all possible ways.

Here’s how we’ve done it at Touchdown Wire over the last few seasons. Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield begin by ranking as many players as possible at as many positions at possible. This year, we ranked players at quarterback, running back, slot receiver, outside receiver, tight end, offensive tackle, offensive guard, center, interior defensive line, edge defender, linebacker, slot defender, outside cornerback, and safety.

We’ll get to long snappers next year, we promise.

The NFL’s top 13 safeties

The NFL’s top 12 slot defenders

The NFL’s top 12 outside cornerbacks

The NFL’s top 11 linebackers

The NFL’s top 11 edge defenders

The NFL’s top 12 interior defensive linemen

The NFL’s top 12 centers

The NFL’s top 11 offensive guards

The NFL’s top 11 offensive tackles

The NFL’s top 12 tight ends

The NFL’s top 11 slot receivers

The NFLs top 16 wide receivers

The NFL’s top 11 running backs

The NFL’s top 12 quarterbacks

What this allows us to do when it’s time to rank the NFL’s best players in a year, regardless of position, is to avoid overloading our list with certain positions. Because we’re limited to 12 quarterbacks (or however many Mark decides to list in a given year), we can’t throw 20 quarterbacks in the 101 at the expense of other positions.

All 12 of Mark’s quarterbacks made the top 101 list, because quarterback is the most important position, but we’re not going to throw Jimmy Garoppolo or Jared Goff in here just because. We also have 12 outside receivers, 11 outside cornerbacks, nine safeties, eight edge rushers, eight interior defensive linemen, seven linebackers, seven offensive guards, seven offensive tackles, seven running backs, six tight ends, three centers, three specific slot defenders, and one specific slot receiver. 

Perhaps that tells you which positions we think are most important in the NFL today, if nothing else. 

The methodology for this list (and all our positional lists) was this: We took what we remembered from the 2021 season and what we accentuated with offseason tape study. Then, we pored over the advanced metrics at Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders. From there, we put together our positional lists based on additional tape study, just to make sure the numbers, and our memories, aligned with what the tape told us over the summer.

Sometimes, it did, Other times, not so much. 

There are also all kinds of new players on this Top 101 list that weren’t here last year – a massive influx of young players who are seeing the light come on. Occasionally, that happens in a player’s rookie season. More often, it’s a multi-year process for a player to reach the elite at the highest possible level of football. Either way, it bodes well for the future.

As for the guy up top… well, we’ve seen him quite a bit before.

To avoid your phone blowing up when you’re trying to read this, we’ve split the Top 101 into two parts: From yesterday, our list of the players we ranked from 101 to 51, all their important metrics, and the most compelling tape examples we could find to prove their excellence. 

And now, without further ado, here are Touchdown Wire’s 50 best players in the NFL today. 

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).

The 101 best players in the NFL today, Nos. 101-51

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield list the 101 best players in the NFL today.

Midsummer of every year is when we all make lists in this business. We’re not quite at the point of training camps in full bloom, free agency and the draft has eased off from a newsworthiness angle, and there’s still a need for clickable content. Ergo, we’re all ranking the NFL’s players in all possible ways.

Here’s how we’ve done it at Touchdown Wire over the last few seasons. Doug Farrar and Mark Schofield begin by ranking as many players as possible at as many positions at possible. This year, we ranked players at quarterback, running back, slot receiver, outside receiver, tight end, offensive tackle, offensive guard, center, interior defensive line, edge defender, linebacker, slot defender, outside cornerback, and safety.

We’ll get to long snappers next year, we promise.

The NFL’s top 13 safeties

The NFL’s top 12 slot defenders

The NFL’s top 12 outside cornerbacks

The NFL’s top 11 linebackers

The NFL’s top 11 edge defenders

The NFL’s top 12 interior defensive linemen

The NFL’s top 12 centers

The NFL’s top 11 offensive guards

The NFL’s top 11 offensive tackles

The NFL’s top 12 tight ends

The NFL’s top 11 slot receivers

The NFLs top 16 wide receivers

The NFL’s top 11 running backs

The NFL’s top 12 quarterbacks

What this allows us to do when it’s time to rank the NFL’s best players in a year, regardless of position, is to avoid overloading our list with certain positions. Because we’re limited to 12 quarterbacks (or however many Mark decides to list in a given year), we can’t throw 20 quarterbacks in the 101 at the expense of other positions.

All 12 of Mark’s quarterbacks made the top 101 list, because quarterback is the most important position, but we’re not going to throw Jimmy Garoppolo or Jared Goff in here just because. We also have 12 outside receivers, 11 outside cornerbacks, nine safeties, eight edge rushers, eight interior defensive linemen, seven linebackers, seven offensive guards, seven offensive tackles, seven running backs, six tight ends, three centers, three specific slot defenders, and one specific slot receiver. 

Perhaps that tells you which positions we think are most important in the NFL today, if nothing else. 

The methodology for this list (and all our positional lists) was this: We took what we remembered from the 2021 season and what we accentuated with offseason tape study. Then, we pored over the advanced metrics at Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders. From there, we put together our positional lists based on additional tape study, just to make sure the numbers, and our memories, aligned with what the tape told us over the summer.

Sometimes, it did, Other times, not so much. 

There are also all kinds of new players on this Top 101 list that weren’t here last year – a massive influx of young players who are seeing the light come on. Occasionally, that happens in a player’s rookie season. More often, it’s a multi-year process for a player to reach the elite at the highest possible level of football. Either way, it bodes well for the future.

As for the guy up top… well, we’ve seen him quite a bit before. But to avoid your phone blowing up when you’re trying to read this, we’ve split the Top 101 into two parts: Here are the players we ranked from 101 to 51, all their important metrics, and the most compelling tape examples we could find to prove their excellence. We’ll put up our top 50 players tomorrow.

So here, without further ado and in two parts, are Touchdown Wire’s 101 best players in the NFL today. 

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Sports Info Solutions, Pro Football Focus, and Football Outsiders unless otherwise indicated).

The NFL’s top 12 offensive tackles

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar continues our position lists with the NFL’s 12 best offensive tackles.

Things have changed a lot in the NFL’s offensive tackle hierarchy of late, and sadly, for all the wrong reasons. On last year’s list of the league’s best tackles, David Bakhtiari of the Packers ranked first overall, and Baltimore’s Ronnie Stanley ranked third. Then, Bakhtiari missed all but one game last season due to an awful knee injury he suffered late in the 2020 season, and word is that he might be ready for training camp this season.

As for Stanley, he missed all but six games in 2020, and all but one game in 2021 with an ankle injury that required multiple surgeries. As is the case with Bakhtiari, the hope is that Stanley will be ready for training camp.

We do not like this. We would prefer to see the best tackles in the business dealing with the best pass-rushers on a regular basis, but this is where it is.

The… well, not “good news,” but the thing this allows, is new names to discover and analyze. In many cases, the new guys on our list this year are players who needed time, patience, and coaching to reach their full potential. You’ll see a few players who came into the NFL, looked like open gates early on, and then figured it out. We always like to see that, at any position.

We have also seen an increasing blurring of the lines in the importance of left tackle and right tackle. As the NFL becomes more of a quick-game league, the front-side protector had best be on point. Five of our tackles this year ply their trade on the right side, including our second- and third-best.

As for the best offensive tackle, outside of Aaron Donald’s place atop our list of interior defensive linemen, no choice was easier than this. If you’re a 49ers fan, you can skip right ahead and start gloating.

Here are Touchdown Wire’s 12 best offensive tackles heading into the 2022 NFL season — along with links to our position lists to date, which lead to our list of the 101 best players overall.

The NFL’s top 13 safeties

The NFL’s top 12 slot defenders

The NFL’s top 12 outside cornerbacks

The NFL’s top 11 linebackers

The NFL’s top 11 edge defenders

The NFL’s top 12 interior defensive linemen

The NFL’s top 12 centers

The NFL”s top 11 offensive guards