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Bearing in mind, that I know it's only August 2, and that I am as far from the "chicken little" crowd as anyone here, I will say this...
The Patriots LB situation grows more dire by the day.
Claridge - cut
Banta-Cain - apparently just not good enough, possible cut
Beisel - better than last year, but nowhere in sight the last couple days. Working his ass off, but tackling technique remains a question
Vrabel & Colvin - terrific, hope to hell they stay healthy
Bruschi - likely out with a wrist injury for awhile
Barry Gardner - Eh. JAG
Chad Brown - could be okay as a sub pass-rushing OLB
Woods, Mincey, Roach - rookies, won't do much for at LEAST a year
BOTTOM LINE: I remain convinced that the biggest loss of the off-season rhymes neither with Trinitary or Smivens. Willie McGinest needed to be re-upped. Bad move.
Haven't you heard? We don't need linebackers.
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Bearing in mind, that I know it's only August 2, and that I am as far from the "chicken little" crowd as anyone here, I will say this...
The Patriots LB situation grows more dire by the day.
Claridge - cut
Banta-Cain - apparently just not good enough, possible cut
Beisel - better than last year, but nowhere in sight the last couple days. Working his ass off, but tackling technique remains a question
Vrabel & Colvin - terrific, hope to hell they stay healthy
Bruschi - likely out with a wrist injury for awhile
Barry Gardner - Eh. JAG
Chad Brown - could be okay as a sub pass-rushing OLB
Woods, Mincey, Roach - rookies, won't do much for at LEAST a year
BOTTOM LINE: I remain convinced that the biggest loss of the off-season rhymes neither with Trinitary or Smivens. Willie McGinest needed to be re-upped. Bad move.
You do realize that McGinest is the one who chose to leave, right? The Patriots offered him a contract extension right after the play-offs and he turned it down.
Why do you say that TBC isn't good enough? The Patriots have two damn good OLBs in Vrabel and Colvin and they are the starters, not TBC. As others have mentioned, Bruschi will wear a cast and play. Its just unlikely that he'll have any interceptions.
What about Alexander? There is a good chance that he could do something on this team. Be it special teams or more.
Also, Mincey, Woods, and Roach could make an impact on special teams and add depth. Why are you so down on them? Yes, the likelihood is that they won't do anything, but many people thought that Kaczur wouldn't do anything last year and he ended up starting like 10 or 11 games for the Pats at LT of all positions.
Trust me, you are NOT as far from "Chicken Little" as anyone here. Read what you wrote above, then get indoors before something lands on your head.
Sheesh. We kept 10 of 11 defensive starters. What NFL team makes that boast?
There was a piece that turned up in my google search that reported Duh Bears brought back all 22 starters (plus those that started first and were injured). You do make a good point, not to mention we could make a killing selling surplus helmets and hard hats on this forum. Time to invent that concrete umbrella for the fashionable portable bunker look.
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Why do you say that TBC isn't good enough? The Patriots have two damn good OLBs in Vrabel and Colvin and they are the starters, not TBC.
First of all, I say TBC isn't good enough based on literally every single thing I've read and heard of his TC performance thus far. Hope he turns it around. Secondly, I don't think any of us is ragging on the starters. This is about LB DEPTH, and that's a scary spot for us.
With Bruschi and Beisel out, it becomes an area of concern, for sure. But I don't think that keeping Willie was in the cards because he lost a step, he didn't want to switch sides with Colvin, and he wanted more money than we offered. Looking back, we might decide it was a mistake, just like I personally think it was a mistake to release Ty Law. But that ends up being hindsight. At the time, the Pats didn't think they needed Willie, for the money it would cost to sign him.
I happen to agree that Tully has not impressed anyone as a run stopper or every down player, but I was curious what you knew about him.
Bottom line is that the Pats need to develop players for the future at LB, and if they have all their D-Linemen healthy, they can run a 4-3 temporarily if the LB depth ends up being more dire than the D-Line depth during the season.
A lot of our current starting LBs are converted from other positions at college, so we are going to have to pray that they can convert a couple more players quickly, and also get somebody like Gardner up to speed in the two gap system. Drafting high picks at LB might not be a good choice, because they also come out of college playing in a one gap system, and might not convert any easier than Beisel or Chad Brown had to the two gap.
I didn't take it as lightly as a lot of people around here about the possibility of Bruschi having a broken wrist. The wrist does not heal nearly as easily as a lot of other parts of the body. I had a wrist sprain that lasted like six months, and I always recover quickly from injury, and I don't mind pain. But that injury refused to go away.
Re: LB worries...
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