In addition to the starting role he holds down in the Patriots' line, Lawrence Guy brings value off the field with his ability to help others adapt to the team's defensive system.
FOXBORO – He’s walked a mile – quite a few of them, in fact – in their cleats.
In his second season in New England, defensive tackle Lawrence Guy had previous stops in Green Bay, Indianapolis, San Diego and Baltimore along the way.
Perhaps that is why, in addition to holding down his full-time job in the line, Guy has served as sort of an assistant’s assistant, helping defensive line coach Brendan Daly integrate the team’s newcomers into the Patriots’ system.
The 28-year-old Guy has been through a system or few during his NFL career.
“Particularly with the younger players that have come in the room, or even this year having been a guy that came from another organization or have been around the league for a while, the new guys that have come in the room – the Danny Sheltons, the Adrian Clayborns from other teams (Cleveland and Atlanta, respectively) – or even the younger players, (he) does a tremendous job in terms of mentorship, in terms of leading those guys, in terms of helping them understand some of the things that we’re asking them to do,” said Daly. “He’s been a great help and a great resource for me in that regard.”
A benefactor of that, Clayborn joined his third team in eight years (Tampa Bay from 2011-2014; the Falcons from 2015-2017) when he signed with the Patriots as a free agent in March.
Clayborn found that in his most recent transition he could lean on the 6-foot-4, 315-pounder he often lines up with up front.
“He’s been other places and he’s been a new guy before so he knows what to expect here and what’s the easiest way to adapt and stuff like that,” Clayborn said following Wednesday's practice. “So he does a great job with that.”
Signed as an unrestricted free agent from the Ravens on March 13, 2017, Guy registered a career-high 58 tackles with one sack while appearing in all 16 of the team’s games in his first regular season with the Patriots, then tacked on another 14 stops and a sack in the their three postseason games. Guy heads into Monday night’s game at Buffalo, which will mark the midpoint of this Patriots season, with 27 tackles (tied for sixth on the team), all the while continuing to perform in an understated manner.
“He’s certainly not underappreciated from my standpoint personally,” said Daly. “He’s done an excellent job for us.
“I would say one of the things that Lawrence does is he’s got a tremendous amount of experience and football knowledge and IQ, he asks very good questions, and he is going to make sure that he understands exactly how you want something done and, to the best of his ability, do it exactly that way. If there’s any gray area in terms of how we want something played or what we want done, he does a great job of making sure that he understands it fully and goes out there and executes it to the best of his ability.”
The well-traveled Guy entered the league as a seventh-round draft pick of the Green Bay Packers out of Arizona State in 2011. After spending a year on the injured reserve list, he went to the Colts, who signed him to their 53-man roster off the Packers’ practice squad in 2012. The Colts subsequently waived him in 2013.
Awarded to the Chargers off waivers, Guy was subsequently waived by that team and claimed by the Ravens in 2014, remaining in Baltimore until last season when he signed with the Patriots.
Through it all, Guy has played in 90 regular-season games, starting 42, and been credited with 213 tackles, 34 quarterback hits, 7-1/2 sacks, seven passes defensed, two fumble recoveries, one forced fumble and blocked three field goals and one extra point. He’s appeared in eight postseason games, starting four, totaling 21 tackles, two quarterback hits, one sack and one fumble recovery in that time.