borg

In 2005, the Patriots achilles' heal was ILB. Bruschi went down in the offseason, and BB replaced him with scrap heap material....Beisel and Brown...with disasterous results.
In 2006, the issue was WR. Givens, Branch, and Johnson moved on and BB once again goes "value" shopping adding Caldwell, Gafney, Gabriel, and drafting Chad Jackson. Brady squeezed out about all he could with this crew, but this group was terrible as a whole and Caldwell's drops are still burned in my mind.
Fast forward to the present and the OLB situation. With the departure of Vrabel, Thomas is the only legitimate starter. Bunta -Cain is a jag third and long situational retread, Woods has only been a sub, and Redd/Crable have yet to make contact.

So here the Patriots stand again with a glaring hole in an otherwise amazing roster of talent. Many may argue that BB addressed the problem by eliminating Hobbs, and adding 4 new faces in the secondary through FA and the draft. Watching games last year, after AD wend down, my eyes told me that even with a few extra seconds of pass rush, no Pats OLB was getting to the QB. They were physically overmatched. Some wil blame the conservative scheme due to newbies at ILB. Didn't change the fact that the OLBs were physically overmatched...no speed, no moves, no power. My eyes were not lying to me.

So, will BB repeat history and allow the team's achilles' heal to derail the ultimate goal, or will he learn from his own recent history and address this hole with ....a legit PROFESSIONAL OLB.

KontradictioN

We could be seeing a lot of Vince Redd and/or Shawn Crable this year. You may have forgotten about them, but they each just earned praise from BB himself.

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CREDIT - Sicilian

BlitzFritz

Excellent post and thread.
- weakest link in the chain
- obviously mediocre pass rush

ergo threads on Peppers trades, that seem 5% likely to me......
we can always dream tho!!

-- FRITZ

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"If you counted out the Patriots, you just don't get it." Adam Schein, September 2008

“We are building a big, strong, fast, smart, tough and disciplined football team that. consistently competes for championships.” Guess who.

JackBauer

Obviously BB disagrees with your assessment.

And yeah, obviously your pass rush is going to suck if all your pass rushers are injured. That doesn't mean we don't have the talent to get it done when we're not getting decimated by injuries.

Ghost of Ben Dreith

The OP does have a viable point though in that there is a weakness in the pass rush.

All teams have weaknesses though and the Pats have less than most and more strengths. The issue isn't necessarily that BB would not have liked to add a quality pass rushing OLB this past weekend, but as has been stated many times....there were none at the value he thought they deserved and/or were any better than what he had already.

With the salary cap, any team will have some weakness. The trick is to adjust for it to minimize it. BB is great at that and has a lot of talent this year to work different schemes....at least I think he does.

Maybe it really isn't a weakness but more a situation as it won't be the strength of the team.

Deus Irae

The achilles heel last year was Brady's injury. That would be the same achilles heel this year.

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"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
- Marcus Aurelius

borg

Who's to argue with BB.....but...I listed two examples in the last 4 years where KNOWN deficiencies in the offseason were treated with JAG replacements, and it can be easily argued that the ILBs in '05 and WRs in '06 derailed those teams chances.

Deus Irae

Which receiver gave up 30+ points to the Colts in '06?

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"The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
- Marcus Aurelius

Sicilian

You mentioned conservative play calling due to rookies at ILB. What about conservative playcalling because no one in the secondary could cover one on one?

Remember when we started blitzing Meriweather late in the year? Great pass rush there, right? Well, maybe with a more competent secondary, we can mix up the blitzes a little more because A) The safeties are needed as much for coverage and B) We'll have more confidence in the TACKLING ability of our secondary, thus freeing up linebackers for additional blitzes as well.

borg

The QB sub played a hell of a lot better than the OLB subs.