This Just In: Brace Looked.......GOOD!!!

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He was horrific on the couple of plays where they ran right at him, but overall he sucked somewhat than normal.
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Hawg73 said:
I haven't completed watching the game a 2nd time, but I think that last night was clearly Brace's best as a Patriot and I am not going to use the word "bust" when referring to him for at least a while.

Brace moved well, especially for a guy his size and had a nice bull rush pressure and a beautiful strip sack in which he covered some ground, closed well and attacked the ball in a textbook manner.

Well done, Mr. Brace. There is hope for you yet.
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Agreed. Nice play on the FF. Had a hard time seeing when he was inserted into the game, and didn't get much help from the announcing team in that regard all night unless you were interested in the non-sensical drivel spewing forth play after play.:cuss:
 
Dwight Schrute said:
Agreed. Nice play on the FF. Had a hard time seeing when he was inserted into the game, and didn't get much help from the announcing team in that regard all night unless you were interested in the non-sensical drivel spewing forth play after play.:cuss:
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I didn't spot him until a play in the 3rd Q where I saw Brace chasing Wilson and I wondered if it was really him because the foot speed threw me. He is a large man but runs really well considering. After that, I was spying him and I saw a number of decent plays, some pretty good, out of him and some others that weren't what you want, but the point is the whole deal was far better than last year. Way.

Watching the replay today he actually came in the the 2nd Q and didn't fare as well going against starting RT Clabo, but did manage to peel off the block for a nice tackle on an inside handoff. Even when he couldn't do much with the huge Clabo, it appeared that he was concious of his gaps and tried to hold his ground and the edge, which was nice to see. His awareness was much better than I'd hoped.

I'd credit him with about 3 tackles, an FF (I mistakenly called it a strip sack) and a couple of decent pass rushes. Something to build on, for sure.

It's interesting that we have a bunch of similar, young DLs that are fighting for a spot and you can see why all of them were drafted, but Brace is just more athletic than Weston, Deaderick or Richard et al.

NOW I can see why we took the guy, but still a long row to hoe.
 
Hawg73 said:
He is a large man but runs really well considering. It appeared that he was concious of his gaps and tried to hold his ground and the edge, which was nice to see. His awareness was much better than I'd hoped.

It's interesting that we have a bunch of similar, young DLs that are fighting for a spot and you can see why all of them were drafted, but Brace is just more athletic than Weston, Deaderick or Richard et al.

NOW I can see why we took the guy, but still a long row to hoe.
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A very long road, but at least there's a glimmer of light. I would love for Brace to eventually win a starting DE job opposite Gerard Warren. Warren, Wilfork and Brace would be a very hard line to run against, and that would keep Mike Wright fresh, with Wright and Pryor coming in on rushing downs. Long way to go before that happens, but for the first time I can actually imagine it happening.
 
Ron Brace had lowered expectations so much for me, before he was finally allowed to practice, that I had made a mental separation from him. I was assuming he was a cut and I hardly gave a thought to him.

Now that he has been active and shown much better physical condition and mental attitude than I expected to see, and actually played much better on the field than he did last year, I see him like found money.

Rather than looking at what a waste he was looking to be, I am looking at him as an important asset that has just fallen in our laps.

Brace is a genius, he found a way to make fans think of him positively when all the previous vibes were decidedly negative. Good job Ron!

I've also got to wonder if being the notorious bust among an otherwise stellar draft class has helped motivate him on a pride level.
 
I really think the media whiffed on Brace's condition. It was widely reported, and subsequently believed by the fans, that Brace couldn't pass the conditioning test because be showed up out of shape.:shake: I'm sorry, but you don't go from fat, drunk and stupid to lean, mean fighting machine overnight. Poor reporting. Granted, BB didn't give them any injury information so they had to make shit up. Hopefully he is in game shape by the start of the season.
 
Okay, hindsight is 20/20, but... was Brace REALLY as bad as he's been made out to be? I don't remember much of him from last season, and he certainly didn't stand out, but was he so horrid that so many people had written him off as a bust after one rookie season of being a backup? I assumed he was a roster lock this year simply because I assume it usually takes at least two seasons to really evaluate someone. Hell, Chad Jackson got "more time to figure shit out". He doesn't seem to have any issues cutting someone after two seasons and/or someone who was injured and didn't play much (Crable). But has Belichick ever cut a rookie after one season? I'm too lazy to go figure it out but I would think it's rare (especially a high pick).
 
JD10367 said:
But has Belichick ever cut a rookie after one season? I'm too lazy to go figure it out but I would think it's rare (especially a high pick).
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Well, it would certainly be remembered if he cut a first day pick his rookie year (old first day, rounds 1-3). The earliest I recall are a couple of fourth round picks a couple years ago.
 
mayoclinic said:
Rapoport looks at whether Brace is finally beginning to turn the corner:

http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/s...ots-de-ron-brace-began-to-change-some-minds/
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Seems a fair article, but he drops this in the intro.

second-round draft pick after he showed up at camp out of shape.
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Considering how he was last year, how long it took him to actually pass the test, how he physically looks and how he played this week, it seems abundantly clear the guy was injured. At least, to me anyway.
 
Oswlek said:
Seems a fair article, but he drops this in the intro.



Considering how he was last year, how long it took him to actually pass the test, how he physically looks and how he played this week, it seems abundantly clear the guy was injured. At least, to me anyway.
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Bingo!

OBVIOUSLY he put in serious work this off-season.

Depending how long ago he had the abdominal strain and how serious it was he probably couldn't continue to train well and the run is the toughest thing for all the bigguns.
 
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