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Where should La’el Collins sign?
I don’t have anything new to add to the story of La’el Collins and his murdered ex-girlfriend. It’s a tragedy whether or not he was involved; all indicators seem to say he was not, which adds a layer...
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Head Coach Rankings in the 2015 Offseason
A couple of weeks ago, NFL.com released a list of head-coaching rankings that seemed to be sorted exclusively by career win totals, with little regard as to any aspect of the job of being a head coach,...
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Crossover Post: Zone Reads and Inside the Pylon Discuss Patriots-Saints
The New England Patriots play the New Orleans Saints on Saturday for preseason week 2. My old college friend and roommate, Dave Archibald, a lifelong Pats fan who contributes to Inside the Pylon,...
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Crossover Post Part 2: Zone Reads and Inside the Pylon Discuss Patriots-Saints
Following up on my answers to the Saints questions that were posted yesterday and ran on Inside the Pylon, we had some questions for Dave Archibald and Mark Schofield from ITP about the Patriots’...
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Quick and Dirty 2015 Season Predictions
Sad to say, Zone Reads has been through some lean times this year. We’ve lost some contributors and those that remain have careers that are increasingly demanding of our time. We’ll still try to keep...
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Podcast with Inside the Pylon: Saints Talk
Once again doing a little crossover work with our friends at Inside the Pylon, I appeared on their Thursday podcast to talk about the Saints’ struggles. You can listen here. (I apologize in advance for...
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Is the Drew Brees era over?
I started writing this after the Saints fell to 0-2 and it was revealed that Drew Brees injured his shoulder against Tampa Bay. With Brees missing the first game in his career due to injury in week 3...
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The Third Coast Sainted Texans
Earlier this week, I posited the question on Twitter for two nearby teams that were having poor years: What if the Saints and Texans merged rosters? They seemed to have rosters that would fit together...
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2013 Re-Draft Mock
In order to gear up for draft season, and in some small way make up for the lack of Zone Reads content over the last two months due to various personal and professional obligations, I’ll be publishing...
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2014 Re-Draft Mock
If you saw the 2013 draft that ran a few days ago, you’ll know how this works. This mock isn’t necessarily tied to that one. It operates on the same rules, though. One thing you’ll find different is...
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Draft Review of the New Orleans Saints in the Payton-Loomis era, 2006-2014
With the Saints struggling to the finish line in a dismal 2015, and the impending end of the Drew Brees era, I thought about going back and looking at how the team got to this point, what went wrong,...
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Post-Blockbuster Four Round Mock Draft
Yes, I know we’ve been living in a post-Blockbuster world for some time thanks to Netflix, but I mean the Titans-Rams trade that puts Los Angeles at the #1 spot. We’re assuming they take a QB, so I’ve...
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Rip It Up And Start Again: Double-Blockbuster Seven-Round Mock
I was working on turning that four-round mock into a seven-round mock… and then the Eagles trade broke yesterday. So, we have two blockbuster trades to the top, presumably for QBs; hence the “Double...
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Draft Thoughts Part 1 of 4: A Handful of Team Observations
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ] So it turns out I have a lot more to say about this year’s NFL Draft than I thought I did. In my first draft of this article, this was … Continue reading →
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Draft Thoughts Part 2 of 4: On the Cleveland Browns and Analytics
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ] I was quite excited for what the Cleveland Browns might do in this year’s draft. I watched a lot more baseball in the 1990s and 2000s, and was well … Continue...
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Draft Thoughts Part 3 of 4: These Are Not The Traits You’re Looking For
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ] I’ve made notes throughout the first few parts of this mega-post regarding players who fell in the draft despite their obvious talent, notes that said I would...
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Draft Thoughts Part 4 of 4: Winning Is Not The Incentive
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ] At the end of part 3, I said I’d attempt to address why teams don’t examine their processes more closely, why they don’t try to refine or improve them. … Continue...
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Hastily Assembled 2016 NFL Predictions
First, some good news: We should returning to zonereads.com shortly; I’ve been a little delayed by this whole “attempting to make a living” thing, but I should be importing the site back over soon. I’m...
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Wide Receiver Prospects, Part 1: Is there a “USC Curse”?
I’ve heard a lot of chatter about the “USC receiver curse” in recent years. how highly-regarded receivers from the school have struggled at the NFL level. With Nelson Agholor being talked about as...
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Coaching Hot Seats
Is it too early in the season to talk about firing coaches? Well, it’s already on my mind, and there are some coaches who clearly are already feeling the heat, so let’s jump right in. Greg Roman’s...
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