PATS68

Your put names up, not production. Willie was way better of a player than Colvin was. Production level drop off.

Samuels has 2 good years here, Law had several good years here. Law ten times better tackler and better at attacking the ball and better against the run. Overall better player. Samuel was never brought in here to replace Ty Law. Law got himself off the team becasue he would not redue his deal. Samuel to replace Pool I agree, not Law.

Wilson replaced Milloy, the plan was for Harrison and Milloy to line up next to each other. Would not redue his deal, cut a him a week before the opener. So I don't think he was brought into replace Milloy.

I do think your a little off with the TE postion. Pats were drafting for need not value. They wanted to run a 2 TE O. That is why they drafted all those TE. I think in the 3-4 you have more players at that postion that you play in a 2 TE O. More players drafted for a 2 person postion than 4 person postion.

On Dansby, for all you know he could have been great. I think he was a franchised player and most likely will be again. Who would you take today, Watson or Dansby?

On the draft, I did my home work.

Pats draft mostly 4 year players.

Common thing I see with most of the Pats drafted players, they have all played in the Senior Bowl.

Ty Warren, Mankins, Graham, Watson, Merriweather, Guyton the other RT from cal, can't remember his name. There are several other Pats players who have played in that game. I think the Pats really use that game to gage talent.

Another case that value is coach speak. Holmgren was coaching Graham in the senior bowl and made it be known that he was going to draft him. Pats traded up over Sehawks and drafted Graham.

emoney_33

Was the idea of Milloy/Harrison lining up next to each other actually confirmed by BB/Pats or is it media/fan speculation?

Irregardless, Harrison would have replaced Milloy at SS no matter whether Milloy moved to FS or not?

__________________
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not.

PATS68

I don't think BB would ever do that to a player. BB has shown that he would cut a vet early so he could get on with another team. Did it this year in training came with the vet TE that played for Colts and Seahawks

It had everything to do with the cap and they were over. They needed to be under before the 1st week of the season. He was given a bad deal by Bobby Greir and he was over paid. That is also why Ty Law left becasuse he and Milloy have the same agent and they would not budge on their contracts. Both were getting huge money and those were the best contracts at the time to get savings from.

The same agent who cost Lavar Arrington $11 million dollars becasue he did not read the contract right and signed off on it.

emoney_33

Right but I'm saying had Milloy restructured and stayed, who's to say he wouldn't have split time or backed up Harrison at SS?

Still when it comes to the discussion of replacing pre-BB players, the SS position ultimately went from Milloy (pre-BB) to Harrison (BB)

__________________
There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who do not.

PATS68

I think only BB would no that, but I think he would have been around for a while if he had re-did his deal. BB stated that it was the toughest thing he ever had to do as a coach.

DaBruinz

Fine, we agree to disagree, though I believe your thinking to be false. Why? Because TBC wasn't ever a starter. Colvin "didn't live up to his billing" because of the major hip injury he suffered in his 2nd game with the Pats. As for "moving Thomas around too much last year," how do you figure that? Thomas was playing ILB until Colvin went down. Then he moved to OLB.


No you are re-writing history. Milloy was the SS, not the FS. Harrison replaced Milloy when Milloy was cut. And it was 5 days before the season. Harris actually got the start against Buffalo and it wasn't until the 2nd game of the season that Wilson saw time at FS.

So other rookie DBs got more playing time. That doesn't mean anything especially if you follow how the Patriots DON'T like to put pressure on rookies and would rather then develop for a year. Yes, there are the cased like Mankins and Mayo who are the exceptions. But, overall, the Pats would rather their draftees develop through special teams and on the practice field than on the game field where a mistake can cost you the game.

And the Patriots, under Belichick, have drafted players who are great players and have been part of that core also. Matt Light. Dan Koppen, Richard Seymour, Jarvis Green, Tom Brady, Asante Samuel, Gino Wilson (pre-injury), Deion Branch, David Givens, etc etc. All play makers on different parts of the team.

Having 3 UDFAs on the field means nothing. I have news for you, some of the best players in the league are UDFA. Adam Vinatieri, Kurt Warner, etc, etc.

I'm not sure how you can compare Bethel Johnson to David Givens when they are different types of receivers. Johnson was supposed to be able to stretch the field. Givens was a possession type receiver who excelled at the underneath routes.

Marquise Hill wasn't beaten out by Mike Wright. They played different positions. Hill at DE. Wright at NT. Also, Wright brought some diversity in that he also played on special teams.

Chad Jackson got beat out by a former 2nd round pick in Jabar Gaffney.

Adrian Klemm played tackle. Joe Andruzzi played guard. Klemm was the starting tackle coming out of camp several times, but got injured.



You do realize that those 3 draft picks you are talking about occured over a 5 year time span, yes? Belichick has spent 9 picks over a 9 year period on TEs. Not sure how you can consider that a LOT.

You really don't follow this team as well as you think you do. The Patriots moved from the 2 TE set to the spread for a variety of reasons. One was an attempt to give Maroney more running room, they they seem intent on slamming him into the line. Another was because they didn't have the blocking TE they had in Graham anymore. Kyle Brady was a flop, unfortunately, who actually left the team at one point last year and was injured much of the time. So, its kind of hard to run the 2 TE set when you don't have TEs capable of blocking effectively. Also, they had added Stallworth and Welker and didn't add Moss until the draft. Who knows what they would have run if the Pats hadn't gotten Moss.

As for using "one of those picks on the next great LB or DB" again, you need to understand the Patriots drafting philosophy. You need to understand that they don't use the draft agencies that are out there. They use their own scouting personnel. They have their own rating system. And they draft based on value and not just need or just BPA. And the wildcard is that you never know what is going to happen. Jackson looked to be the better WR from his draft. Yet he flopped here.

And he could have flopped and been out of football by now. Like you said, we'll never know.

The fact that you think I am talking about just the linemen when I talk about the difference between the Pittsburgh 3-4 and the Pats 3-4 shows that you don't understand the defense much at all. Vrabel wasn't a LB in the Steelers system. He was actually playing DE is sub-sets and not getting time.

So the Patriots signed Chad Scott and looked at Townsend. They are DBs and the Pats play a lot of zone coverage.

The Pats review all of the free agents. They see who has done well against them and whether they can bring something to the Pats. Its why they went out and got Wes Welker.


As for what the Patriots should have done with the draft, you don't seem to understand that the Patriots use their own scouting to set their draft boards. At BEST, all the internet sites should be used as a loose guideline as to whether or not the Pats will like the player. The Patriots also draft personel based on their criteria of VALUE. Not based strictly on need and not based on best player available.


Then I guess it will be a surprise to you to know that Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie was also on their list to pick in the 1st round and that the Pats would have taken him if Mayo wasn't available.

No one can KNOW with 100% certainty who is going to be the person taken beyond the 1st overall. Surprises happen all the time. Donte Whitner being drafted by Buffalo a few years ago at #9. No one knew that. There was talk of Mayo and there was talk of the Pats dropping back farther in the 1st round than they did.
If he's the highest value player on their board, why not? Particularly if they have in mind to move him to SS or to have him be a special teams ace?

Clearly, at the time, the Patriots felt that Klecko offered slightly higher value than Samuel (only 3 picks apart) and Koppen. This goes back to the draft being a crap shoot and you never know exactly what you are going to get. Thank you for proving my point for me.
Yet you said that none of the team was set and ready for the play. And admitting that it was a great throw suggests that it didn't matter if the rest of the team was set.

Again, I wouldn't say bad coaching as much as just a series of mistakes. And we don't know if BB tried to get a Time Out in since he'd have to run a bit to get to an official. Also, you have to give Pennington credit for seeing that the Pats weren't set and rushing the snap.

DaBruinz

We'll have to disagree here. I think that Hobbs does have ball skills and just isn't able to use them to attack the ball because he's being asked to play the WR instead of the ball.

You need to go back and review your statement about Hobbs because its just not true. In particular, check the Buffalo, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, NY Jets, and Miami games.

Borges has never been a great football writer. He's been mediocre when he wasn't blatantly attacking Belichick. Also, you and he would be wrong about there being no middle in terms of the ages of the players. Ty Warren, Vince Wilfork, Richard Seymour, James Sanders, Pierre Woods are all players in the middle (and I know I didn't list them all).

As has been pointed out many times to people, there are only so many roster slots and there is only so much talent available. Its impossible to have outstanding players at every position and outstanding players waiting to come in off the bench. When a team has its depth tested the way the Patriots are having theirs tested, there are parts that aren't going to work as well because they don't have the experience. That's just a fact of life.

I know exactly who you were talking about. Its why I pointed out Faulk's injury past and what people said about him. Also, did you ever stop to think that maybe the doctors didn't do an adequate job on his shoulder the first time and that's why it was re-injured?

People like yourself love to call a guy GLASS because he suffers a catastrophic injury that doesn't heal properly and gets re-injured. Chad Pennington was injury prone early in his career. He got over it. Kevin Faulk is another player. It happens. And sometimes they never get over it, mentally. Ala Eugene Wilson. He never recovered, mentally, from breaking his arm in the SB. And it showed in his play.

DaBruinz

I put up names because those are the people who replaced the ones you mentioned. You never replace a player 1 for 1. Other players end up stepping up and picking up the slack. Also, Colvin was a better player than McGinest was prior to Colvin getting injured.

Its Samuel not Samuels. And he could have had more than 2 good years with the Patriots had he stayed longer. Yes, Law was a better tackler and not by much. And you seriously over-rate Law's ability against the run. Samuel was brought in to be a starting CB. He ended up replacing Law at the LCB position.

Harrison had always been a Strong Safety. Lining him up at FS was playing him out of position. Wilson was brought in to be a CB. He was thrust into the FS role because Antwan Harris proved during the Buffalo game that he couldn't handle it.

I am not off on the TE position. The Pats didn't need to draft Graham and they didn't need to draft Watson. You need to go back and review when they drafted "all of those TEs" because it wasn't done in a clump. Its been done over the entire time that BB has been in NE. And he hasn't drafted a TE in the last 2 year. And the TE position has been very weak in those two drafts.

The TE position is a 3 person position, not a 2 person position. And your attempt to over-simplify the LB postion by calling it a 4 person position is sad. To effectively run the 3-4, you need to have 6 LBs, 3 ILB and 3 OLBs, capable of starting. Also, BB's philosophy previously, had been to bring in veterans who could adapt to the system. Its why he brought in Cox, Phifer, and Vrabel. Yes, he attempted it with Beisel and Brown, but he also didn't think that those two would be the starters because they were signed prior to Johnson's abrupt retirement.

Who I take today doesn't matter. Its who provides the greater perceived value on draft day. The Patriots clearly felt that Watson did. They could have had no idea that Watson would hold out and then would be injured for the season. Hindsight being 20/20 is all well and good, but it doesn't mean a damn thing.

The Pats also get information from BBs friends who are coaches at the college level. Guys like Kirk Ferentz, Saban, Meyer, etc. I did a review and found that many of the players, though not all, had connections to the coaches in the college ranks that BB is friends with.

So, it wasn't that the Patriots had Graham as their top value, they did it just to draft him so the Seahawks couldn't? You can't be serious, can you?

DaBruinz

The Pats were over the salary cap in 2003 prior to the start of the season because they had numerous injured players that they put on the IR that put them more than 2 million over the cap. The Pats had already restructured the likes of McGinest, Brady and Ted Johnson. The Pats weren't going to cut anyone who had already restructured because its bad business. They had attempted to get Law to restructure and he refused. That is when they approached Milloy. It wasn't so much that he was over-paid, but because his was the only contract left that they could restructure and get below the cap with only one roster move.