Patriots Play-off game

Cade's second football season ended in the first round of the playoffs loosing to the Bengals, but overall the season was a huge success.  The team won more games than the previous year and consisted of a strong group of young men who seem excited about playing football. While the season did not end the way the team would have hoped, Cade showed fight until the very end. All season long he practiced hard in the attempt to make himself a better player for himself and for his team. As a coach that is one of the things I was most proud to see from Cade. He truly began to recognize that the way he prepared had an impact on not just his play, but on the play of those around him. He took pride in the work that he was doing. As I had the privilege of spending time with him and the team as a coach we were able to have conversations about how he thought he could help improve himself and the team. This led to him doing individual skill practices on his own outside of the scheduled practices. For example, he wanted to improve his shotgun snaps and so he began to snap at least 100 snaps a day. It was tiring and frustrating at times, but he kept going. His competitive spirit began to really show as the season progressed. Leading up to the playoff game the team had 2 weeks of practices to prepare. During this time, Cade had his best practices as a football player which quite nicely carried over into the playoff game. As a center he began to use his hands and arms more while blocking. However, he showed the most improvement on the defensive side of the ball. Again he was using his hands and arms to get rid of blockers and disrupt plays.  In fact, after starting at center all season long, he had not played much defense. This was not the case for the playoff game though. He again started at center, but also played the entire second half of the ball game on offense and defense. He took on the offensive line while many times being double teamed. He was able to get pressure behind the line of scrimmage and help make several key tackles. He was especially proud of one tackle after which he stood up and flexed his muscles for all to see when the announcer called his name! We are all proud of Cade and the hard work he has put in this past season.  Next season with the Patriots should be another great one as Cade and his teammates will surely continue to see the benefits of all the time they have invested.