mgteich

We are short 3 corners and a safety.

Perhaps we need to consider moving McCourty back to corner and be short 2 corners and 2 safeties.

This plan requires less resources than others. For example, we could re-sign Arrington and Cole (and/or their upgrades) and also add a couple of safeties (ideally one from free agency and one from the draft.

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Or we can simply decide to franchise Talib.

AndyJohnson

Why franchise Talib rather than signing him at half the first year cap cost?

Jimke

McCourty will probably be moved back if Dennard is found guilty and gets a jail or prison sentence.

MoLewisrocks

Adding two safeties is probably a bad idea seeing as one of them needs to be the QB in the secondary and that means a system veteran. Not sure Gregory is up for taking care of his own business let alone everyone else's.

I think they have to be in limbo until they know the situation with Dennard. And I think Talib can be replaced easier than locating another safety to essentially direct the unit on the field. You don't weaken two positions in a desperate attempt to shore up one unless you're given no alternative. I think Talib would be fine aside from the fact that he's not a guy you have enough confidence in to commit $10M in guaranteed money, be that signing bonus or franchise tag. Not sure he's talented or durable enough to pay that price for one year, and he doesn't have the track record you'd want to see from a guy your committing to on a 5 year deal even at below market money. You'd still want some protections woven in to any contract you signed him to, although someone with a lot more cap may be willing to get around that via frontloading a deal and rolling the dice. Otherwise you look for a viable alternative.

I have a feeling this team is presently willing to sit back and let the market speak and deal with the fallout even if it means they lose 3-4 UFA. Hopefully they are guessing right, although that hasn't been their strong suit for some time now. If not the FA market for corners might still yield just enough and the draft is looking good for safeties. And both provide options at OL. WR will be the toughest hole to fill if they let Welker walk.

Helmet2Helmet

So the general consensus is Tavon Wilson is hopeless?

Avenger

I think he had a good year for a rookie safety in a Belichick defense.

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Deus Irae

Or....

Keep McCourty at safety
Sign a CB1 (Talib or other)
Re-sign Arrington
Draft Safety in round 1

Just doing that gives you plenty of safeties (rookie replaces Chung) and sets up the team at CB1, CB2 and CB3/CB4. At that point, they can bring in the annual parade of CB3/CB4 wannabes and find one that sticks, while hoping that Dowling isn't already a broken china doll and also has some game left in him.

There's no need to franchise Talib. In fact, I'll look at any decision to franchise Talib over Welker as evidence that the Jets have gotten to the Patriots brain trust with some sort of mind altering (and dumbing down) substance.

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supafly

How Belichick feels about Wilson's year and progression here during that time will likely be one of the bigger variables in how he may approach the situation.

Personally, I think it's way too early to be able to tell much one way or another regarding Wilson and his future. One good thing is that he received some valuable reps, more than Meriweather did when taken in the first round that year. Of course there were other issues that forced that to happen, mainly the competition in front of him, but regardless he did receive some decent looks for a first year player.

I think he did some things well, and also obviously had some growing pains too, but I can't see how anyone could give up on him or say that he's hopeless after one rookie year.

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supafly

Keep in mind that there were reports during training camp from both Greg Bedard and SMY that stated their sources claimed that Belichick wanted to keep McCourty at FS all along from the start of the mini-camps, but could not due to his concern about adequate depth at CB last season.

We don't know if those reports are true or not but they exist, so it's something to keep in mind.

I would have to assume that Belichick will plan on some continuity from keeping him at safety for now and to start the season, and only change that plan if significant injury forces him to do so. That's just my guess though, but it's hard to ignore the better play of the secondary which has now happened two years in a row by moving McCourty to safety---with and without Talib.

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Patiently waiting to defend the next "bubble" player in this summer's training camp.....

Avenger

more safeties were signed/drafted than corners, that scenario does not go with the actions they took.

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