Joe Thuney receives high praise from Coach B

Bill Belichick usually does not say a lot about the New England Patriots. He's more of a mumble something, make an angry/annoyed face and hope that the press conference ends soon. But in those rare instances when he does provide useful insight about the Patriots, people can actually learn a thing or two. That's exactly what happened this week.

During a press conference Tuesday, Bill Belichick paid a compliment to one of the more overlooked players on his team's roster: starting guard Joe Thuney. Here is what Belichick had to say about the third year player:

“Joe’s done a great job for us,” Belichick said. “He’s one of our best players, one of our most consistent players.”

In the NFL, at times it can be very hard to get a grip of how good a lineman is for a couple of reasons. First of all, we're all drawn to players like Tom Brady, Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski for various reasons. The other reason is because watching football on TV kind of sucks.

As someone who played on the line in the high school days, I really don't like the camera angles on TV focusing on the guy with the ball and not really the whole field. It makes it harder to really appreciate what the linemen are doing and when watching a game in real life, I like watching them more so than the guy with the ball because you can see how far the running back will go.

But yeah, if you need more proof that Thuney is good, then check out Pro Football Focus' guard ratings this season. While he is behind Shaq Mason, Thuney is fifth on their list--which is very good indeed.

So yeah, nothing to complain about here. Good linemen are important: don't forget it.