Lucas Patrick’s switch to Center after McCoy left (3 Viewers)

[Craig Walker]

I know it's a difficult thing when you lose a player like McCoy, and Patrick has to shift to center. But you'd expect the guy to be getting beat like a drum to be the guy who was on the bench.

Patrick spent way too much of the game reading the Eagle's DTs name on the back of their jersey

He got beat at the snap way too much for a pro. I lay a lot of what happened yesterday at his feet.

 

[BBarnes]

He looked awful in certain situations for sure, and Ruiz became borderline pathetic once McCoy went out.

 

[DeuceMcAllisterFan]

I was surprised we didn't move Ruiz to center.

 

[kennydfresh]

I know it's a difficult thing when you lose a player like McCoy, and Patrick has to shift to center. But you'd expect the guy to be getting beat like a drum to be the guy who was on the bench.

Patrick spent way too much of the game reading the Eagle's DTs name on the back of their jersey

He got beat at the snap way too much for a pro. I lay a lot of what happened yesterday at his feet.

He's playing out of position, not to mention your going against 2 elite DTs. You had OL running into each other. Losing McCoy was a huge blow to us. Losing your center throws the whole team out of whack.

Corrections: Move Ruiz to center, move Patrick back to LG, and move Nick Saldiveri to RG. Done.

 

[Consigliere]

These guys were over-performing at their normal positions and had to get switched mid-game, and it was as bad as should be expected.

The season will depend on McCoy's return - any word on that?

 

[BBarnes]

These guys were over-performing at their normal positions and had to get switched mid-game, and it was as bad as should be expected.

The season will depend on McCoy's return - any word on that?

They said groin injury. Not good. Simple grade 1-2 would possibly take 1-3 months to heal according to anything I see online. Hoping for some luck with him.

 

[AARPSaint]

The coaches have a week to figure this out as best they can. I hope there are some terrific OLs in the next draft.

 

[BreesHOF2024]

Reddit had a good write up on how the center is responsible for calling out all of the protections on the O-line. With McCoy leaving on the first drive we were simply trying to survive this game. It got better after halftime but we just had really crappy luck with the injury happening so early in the game and being up against an insane Eagles DL

 

[SystemShock]

 

[St. Widge]

He looked awful in certain situations for sure, and Ruiz became borderline pathetic once McCoy went out.

The entire interior OL was bad. It's hard to know the line calls or who exactly was a fault for every pressure/penetration, but it looked like Udoh at LG was getting beat more than anyone else. But, given the combination blocking that this scheme uses, it could just be more that these guys are not used to working together rather than just one player or another playing bad. I'd like the hear Belfast Saint's opinion on this if he's around.

 

[los226]

I was surprised we didn't move Ruiz to center.

They said Patrick has more experience in the system and is the reason why he took C.

 

[St. Widge]

He's playing out of position, not to mention your going against 2 elite DTs. You had OL running into each other. Losing McCoy was a huge blow to us. Losing your center throws the whole team out of whack.

Corrections: Move Ruiz to center, move Patrick back to LG, and move Nick Saldiveri to RG. Done.

I'm pretty sure that Patrick has played a lot of Center in his career and while Ruiz played Center in college, I don't think he's taken many snaps, if any at Center in practices with the Saints. I don't recall hearing him playing Center at any point in camp this year which would make it hard to move him to Center in a week.

Patrick is the backup Center so I wouldn't be surprised to see them stick with the same guys this week or just put Landon Young or Saldiveri at LG. Someone mentioned that Hergel took some snaps at Center during camp so maybe they could put Hergel at Center while keeping Patrick at LG and Ruiz at RG to reduce the number of moving parts.

 

[St. Widge]

Reddit had a good write up on how the center is responsible for calling out all of the protections on the O-line. With McCoy leaving on the first drive we were simply trying to survive this game. It got better after halftime but we just had really crappy luck with the injury happening so early in the game and being up against an insane Eagles DL

And the bad luck was compounded by the injury happening against a team with really good DTs that decided to play a 5 man front. It was the perfect storm.

 

[UFCSaint]

I was surprised we didn't move Ruiz to center.

Same. Patrick's snaps from shotgun were a little high every time. Felt like Carr lost 1/2 second each time just getting the ball into position.

 

[SAINTSFAN]

Yesterday made me wonder how much McCoy makes up for how terrible Ruiz is. Watching him all game, he looked like a rookie at best. I expected Patrick to struggle a bit, but was highly disappointed at how terrible Ruiz played.