Momentum for McGrone
Hype train is rolling for second-year linebacker
Cameron McGrone should have been cold coming off the bench.
It was late November, after all.
Not to mention, McGrone hadn’t participated in a single NFL practice yet, even though the Patriots drafted him in the fifth round months earlier. McGrone’s ongoing recovery from a torn ACL had delayed his on-field debut through the spring and training camp and placed him on the Non-Football Injury List. Now, because of league rules, all he had was two weeks worth of regular-season practices to impress his teammates and coaches.
Mission accomplished. “One thing that I noticed is that all the other guys on the field had been playing football for months, and then he had been coming off of a year or whatever of not playing football. And he really didn’t look, in any sort of way, out of place on the field,” Patriots outside linebackers coach and defensive play-caller Steve Belichick said Tuesday. “Which I thought was impressive.”
Despite his performance, the Patriots stashed McGrone on injured reserve for good in mid-December. Since then, mere mentions of the 6-foot-1, 233-pounder have spread smiles across the faces of several Patriots staffers this offseason.
After declining to add a linebacker in last month’s draft, director of player personnel Matt Groh said he was “really excited” about the Patriots’ current group. The first name he mentioned? McGrone’s. “Excited to see Cam McGrone was able to get on the field a little bit last year, excited to see him be in an expanded role,” Groh said. “He’s kind of an additional draft pick. … That all kind of counts to getting younger, getting faster, being a tough team.”
Despite his status as a second-year player, McGrone is actually the thirdyoungest player on the team, as first noted by MassLive’s Chris Mason. He personifies, at least for now, a global shift for the defense toward younger, faster and smaller players. McGrone is a few inches shorter and 15 to 20 pounds lighter than linebackers have historically been under Bill Belichick, including one-time starter and current inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo.
On Tuesday, Mayo described McGrone as a player “who can still fly around and make a bunch of plays in the run game and the pass game,” while cautioning the team must see how the 21-year-old performs this spring.
“Just an athletic guy who moves well. He’s able to do a bunch of different things,” Mayo said. “He’s able to cover, he’s able to play in the run game. But like I said, we’ll have to see what happens this year.”
Mayo added he expects McGrone to contribute inside his position room, which also includes returned starter Ja’Whaun Bentley, Mack Wilson, Raekwon McMillan and Harvey Langi.
In 16 career college games at Michigan, McGrone tallied 52 tackles, three sacks, one pass deflection and a forced fumble.
Uche and Perkins coming on
Patriots edge rusher Josh Uche looked like he was headed for a breakout season last year after dominating training camp and joint practices with the Giants in late August.
Only, there was no breakout. Uche didn’t see much action during his second season, limited to 12 games where he notched 12 tackles and three sacks.
Meanwhile, rookie Ronnie Perkins arrived with some promise out of Oklahoma as a best-player-available pick the team made in the third round of the 2021 draft. But he was handed a redshirt year; healthy but not good enough to see any defensive snaps.
Looking ahead, both outside linebackers figure to be part of the Patriots’ 2022 defense, especially with a vacant starting spot opposite star edge rusher Matt Judon. Outside linebackers coach Steve Belichick was especially high on Uche during his Tuesday press conference.
“I see him being an important piece to the puzzle for us going forward,” Belichick of Uche, a 2020 second-round pick out of Michigan. “There’s a lot of other factors to it besides just what he’s going to do. We gotta see what everybody else does and work the pieces around from there. But I see Josh being a big part of this defense.”
Belichick also mentioned Perkins, who he touted for having taken a step forward.
“All that really matters at the end of the day is what happens when we put the pads on. But hey, he’s done everything right to this point to set himself up to do well once we get to training camp, and the preseason and regular season,” Belichick said. “But Ronnie’s done a great job. He stuck around here.”
Judge talks about coaching Mac
On Monday, Patriots offensive assistant Joe Judge all but confirmed reports he will be the team’s next quarterback coach.
On Tuesday, he went into detail about how exactly he’ll coach up Mac Jones and Co.
“For me, it all starts with fundamentals. And that’s just the way I see it,” Judge told reporters via video conference. “If you don’t have good fundamentals, every play is doomed from the start. You have to start with a strong base, you’ve got to work on footwork, you’ve got work on your mechanics, you’ve got to work on the different throws you’ve got to make.”
He later continued: “You don’t work with a quarterback to change how they throw at this level, in my opinion. But you can work on their feet and their base and work on their release timing. You start changing how someone’s gripping the ball or throwing the ball, that’s just a great way as a coach to screw it up and think you’re a genius.”
Judge added Monday that he’ll also be working with the Patriots’ skill-position players, something he did in 2019 as the team’s special teams coordinator/ wide receivers coach.
The Pats offensive staff was in upheaval after the departure of offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Josh McDaniels, who took three assistants with him to Las Vegas.
New staff breakdown
Based on comments made by Patriots assistants Monday and Tuesday, and their positions from the 2021 season, the new staff coaching projects as follows:
Quarterbacks: Joe Judge, running backs: Vinnie Sunseri, wide receivers: Troy Brown and Ross Douglas, tight ends: Nick Caley, offensive line: Matt Patricia and Billy Yates, defensive line: DeMarcus Covington, inside linebackers: Jerod Mayo, outside linebackers: Steve Belichick, cornerbacks: Mike Pellegrino, safeties: Brian Belichick, special teams: Cam Achord, Joe Houston.