patsox23

was, in my opinion, cutting Kory Chapman and putting him on the p.s. instead of the active roster. I realize some will see this as Monday Morning QB-ing, but this seemed foolish AT THE TIME.

Seems like every year one of the last few cuts leaves us scratching our heads - like in 2004 when Terrell Buckley got cut in favor of an extra OL (Hallen maybe?), who promptly retired THE NEXT DAY. Meanwhile, T-Buck signed elsewhere (Miami? Denver?) and we end up in dire straits at DB for most of the rest of the year.

Having been watching some pre-season game-tape recently - thanks to dr - I was amazed that Chapman got cut. The guy looked terrific - a Corey-type back who we all now know we really could've used. I think BB/Pioli tried to get cute and slip him onto the practice squad - obviously that came back to bite us. Once Indy picked him up, I kept waiting for them to cut him - they only grabbed him once they had THREE RB's injured. But even with their own guys getting healthy, they held onto him.

In any case, I guess the point of this post is...um...well, first of all, Where the Hell is Kory Chapman and can we get him back? Then again, at this point, do we even need him? All I know is we sure as Hell could've used him last year.

Let's hope 2006 is the year we buck the trend and make our last few cuts prudently and hope they don't come back to haunt us.

AzPatsFan

Nope!

The biggest blunder IN HINDSIGHT, was in NOT signing MLB Jeremiah Trotter who was a Free Agent. It was a a subject under lots of discussion.

What might have been if the Pats had an adequate interior LB crew for the season? Do they win another game and host a palyoff game? Do they go the Super Bow? Do the win three straight?

But they didn't know that TJ would be ruled out by the medics later that year before Training camp because of concussions.

pats1

He's still with the Colts as their #3 RB behind Rhodes and Addai.

mcdonut16

This is the biggest blunder of 2005 ? A 4th string running back ?

What about signing Duane Starks and Monty Beisel to be starters and thinking they were going to actually produce ?

Chapman may have gotten into a couple of games do to injuries, but Starks and Beisel almost completely killed the season.

5 Rings for Brady!!

This might have been a 'training camp' blunder, but the biggest screw ups to me are clearly letting Ty Law go (unless it would have been simply impossible to work out his cap hit that season), and not resigning Ted Washington, and releasing Keith Traylor in the middle of his contract because he didn't come to offseason workouts in Foxboro.

We flat could have won the superbowl with Ty Law's ten interceptions, and also with either Washington or Traylor to take over when Seymour went down and Wilfork suddenely forgot how to play for several weeks. We would have won more games, and maybe a bi-week if we beat Denver, regular season.

The Washington thing was more understandable than letting Keith Traylor not play out a veteran minimum deal and having him go to Miami and squash Dan Koppen.

5 Rings for Brady!!

Yes, I realize that Washington was actually an '04 issue, but we wouldn't have missed Seymour like we did if we had either former Bear to hol down the D-Line.

BelichickFan

I'd say it was not making Bruschi walk around the plane on those long flights to keep his blood moving

Aside from that going into the season with only Faulk as a real backup to Dillon has to be it. Looks like we learned from that and corrected it.

patsox23

Good ideas/responses from everyone - I should have been more careful in naming the thread b/c I really did want this to focus on Kory Chapman and proclaiming him as THE biggest blunder seems to have gotten us off-track. There were definitely others to point to.

As for Ty Law's 10 interceptions, I think that's kind of a silly thing to say. Those 10 picks are not transferable - who's to say he would have had the same kind of season AT ALL in New England.

And I'm not sure we should be pooh-poohing the potential contributions of "a 4th-string RB." We absolutely could have used him - and in more than just a few games. Corey Dillon played hurt a lot of times b/c of the lack of depth there, and having an actually viable option at RB could have helped a lot.

But yes, Starks was a pretty big blunder, and we all would've liked to see Trotter here, in retrospect. Not sure he was a fit, but I can't imagine he'd have hurt.

Traylor/Washington? Eh. Washington left two years ago and I think Wilfork, after a slow-ish start, was terrific.

old 55

This kid was a real find and ran very well in pre-season.

We cut him and Saban signed him immediately,then put him on military reserve status. If we had done that, we would have been able to stash him away.

We had to sign another RB during the season due to all the RB injuries too. It would have been nice to have this kid to go to.

BelichickFan

Eckels was just a straight line runner like a FB. I don't think he'd have made much of a difference.