Spiral

Of course not. Branch is not going to be part of this team next year. It's obvious that the Patriots need a receiver who can stretch the defense, and Lloyd is not it. They need a downfield threat to complement Welker and the TEs. Lloyd is not that player, and he has the 5th-highest 2013 number on the team.

VJCPatriot

Of course Colston is better but he's also getting paid TWICE as much. He signed a 5 year 40 million dollar contract with 19m in guarantees. Lloyd on the other hand singed for 3 years 12m. Lloyd produced 900 yards and Colston 1,100 yards. I think bang for the buck-wise, Lloyd is well worth the money we paid.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/76...on-5-year-deal

ROFL and you think you can get a better receiver for that 2.5m of savings? Some people aren't very good at math here.

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Rob0729

Where exactly do expect to get that deep threat and how do you expect to pay him and Welker? Any good deep threat in free agency will cost $9-10 million a year and $25-30 million I'm guarantees. That is way too much for a #2 WR. Any deep threat less than that will be an one trick pony who will need a Lloyd type of player to rotate with.

You go the draft route and you gotta wait a year for the guy to produce in the Pats' offense. Even their hits at WR like Branch took a year to be really good.

You want a deep threat to be on the field every down and you gotta replace Welker, not Lloyd. That is the only way they can afford it.

MoLewisrocks

I don't know who is out there, although I presume they do. That said, you can absolutely get a #2 WR for less that or equal to what the Pats are going to pay Lloyd because they are going to pay him $6M this season if he remains. People have a tendancy to keep muddling cash and cap and contract average as if they are one in the same when the are not remotely.

It's really tough to have discussions about players here because the polarizers on the board persist in making every discussion an all in or cut the bum debate. Nobody accepts that there are a multitide of shades of grey in any discussion. They obviously brought Lloyd (and Ocho) in to create a roster with sufficient options where the loss of one or even two weapons (whether via injury or coverage scheme) could not stop this offense. In the end it didn't work. Do they shift gears or settle and hope for a better result going forward. That remains to be seen.

The biggest thing Lloyd had going for him when he signed here was knowledge of the system. He still has that but whether he is capable of or willing to consistently execute it at the level to which they demand it be played here remains debatable. That would be one of my concerns were they to persue Bowe.

Branch came in here wired to fit the system. That's the key in selecting WR's here, wiring. Givens assimilated almost as quickly. (FA Welker assimilated on arrival for the same reason, wiring.) They had a tough nut to crack given what Brown and Patten had just accomplished, but in year 1 Branch still managed 1.410 APY because he was also the primary kickoff returner. By year 2 the #2 + #7 tandem was putting up more than double their rookie receiving production and more importantly each showed a capacity to rise to the occasion on the biggest stage. This team should have been laser focused on reprising that kind of WR unit scenario for the last several seasons. Maybe Daboll was brough back so they finally could take a stab at it.

MoLewisrocks

Bang for the buck wise the Saints got 10 (or more that twice as many) TD's from Colston. And his deal is really a 3 year $21M deal with $17.7M guaranteed and a dead cap of $4M with $10M in cap saved if he's cut after 3 seasons...

And it's not just $2.5M in cap savings, it's $6M in cash...

We're back to the stats (absent context) are for losers arguments.

MoLewisrocks

32 year old WR's who put 20 lbs on aren't going to improve their game... He isn't worth throwing many vertical passes to at 185...

PittPatriot

Agree with the above.
Agree with the flopping. However, nobody flops more than Deion Branch, Shane Battier, and the Dook Blue Devils.

Rob0729

If you could get a deep threat that would make defenses respect the deep threat while being able to run the route tree for less than what Lloyd is getting, he would be here now. I think you might be able to get an one trick pony deep threat OR a guy similar to Lloyd or Branch a few years ago, but not a combination of both. A deep threat who can run the route tree demands big money.

I was responding to a post to replace Lloyd with deep threat not just another # 2 WR.

Spiral

Randy Moss was never able to run a route tree. Torrey Smith can't either.

Rob0729

Torrey Smith had 25 less catches (49 catches for the year), 56 less yards (855 yards), 12 less first downs (38 first downs), and 4 more TDs (8 TDs) than Lloyd did this year as a #1 or #2 target for Flacco. If he was on the Pats, those numbers would certainly go down. So you want "upgrade" the #2 WR spot by getting a guy who is likely to catch less balls, get less yards, and convert less TDs than the guy he is replacing.

And still the thing is that Smith would probably garner huge money on the open market even though he is vastly overrated because he is a flashy player eventhough he is easy to neutralize with physical play.

Torrey Smith is one of the most overrated WRs in the NFL. He plays like a stud one week and the takes the next two or three weeks off. Let the Ravens keep him. Way too inconsistent (he had 7 games where he caught 2 or less passes granted one was a game where Harbaugh rested the starters in the second half). He wasn't much of a factor vs. the Pats two Sundays ago. Dennard shut him down with physical play and the Pats got burnt by Boldin and Pitta.

As for Moss, he was more than just a deep threat here. He did run other routes, but the difference is he was an elite WR. Again, you get a Moss type of WR, you need to let Welker go, not Lloyd. You couldn't afford to pay a Moss type of receiver and Welker. The Pats got him cheap in 2007 because he was already under contract and his reputation had taken a huge hit. He quickly became one of the highest paid WRs in the NFL the following year.