Shockt327

It's slightly off topic, but I found it amusing....

Here's the article: FOOTBALL OUTSIDERS: Innovative Statistics, Intelligent Analysis | Welker? I Hardly Know Her.

Bill Barnwell wrote this article during the summer of 2007, after The Pats acquired all of our WRs for that year. We gave up a 2nd and a 7th for Welker. In the article Barnwell surmises that Welker is a "victim of his own success" because his stats will fall in NE. Why? Well, he cites a ton of statistical reasons. It's not just his own personal opinion. Again, it's the stats. It's an interesting read. Even more interesting is just how wrong it all is. So, so wrong. Keep this in mind next time you read a reasonable sounding argument from FO.

Oh! And in the comments section go read post #21. Someone points to Welker as being a future 1000 yr receiver and a pro bowler for 2007. Yet, the response from our author? "This made me laugh. I don't know about anyone else, but it made me."(In post #40)

Hmmm. If I were a mean spirited troll; I would so try to get a response from Barnwell over at ESPN (where he now writes)

EDIT: The author predicted Welker's stats at just 35 catches, 445 yards. Not being able to predict 100+ receptions and 1000 yards is one thing. But going that low? Embarrassing.

Palm Beach Pats Fan

That's right up there with the "Clint's Corner" analysis of the 2000 Patriots draft

GoPats.com - Patriots Unofficial - Clint's Corner Archive

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Rob0729

People forget that prior to 2007, Brady was not a guy who put up gaudy numbers. He was just very efficient. Prior to 2007, he had over 4,000 yards just once. I think he had only one receiver to ever get a 1,000 yards or more up to that point (Troy Brown got 1,199 in 2001). Thinking Welker would not put up gaudy stats in New England before the start of the 2007 season is not as stupid as it sounds now.

BSR

I don't have a problem with the article at all. Nobody was realistically predicting that type of production from the offense. As for post #21, I think he was mostly laughing because it was broken english.

Ron Sellers

A couple of takeaways from the 2007 column.

- Barnwell made the assumption that Moss and Stallworth would bet the bulk of the pass targets. Apparently his theory was that because Brady did not previously have as good outside receivers in the past that they would have 100 passes thrown to each of them.

- Barnwell does account for shorter pass routes, but on top of not accounting for enough of them he opines that Ben Watson will get the most of those passes.

- The most important benchmark Barnwell uses is the number of passes thrown to Troy Brown (60 in 2003, 76 in 2006, 59 in 2005) as his basis for projecting Welker to have 55 pass targets.

- Kudos to Oswlek for his response #8, even if his projections were a bit low:

What this article fails to touch upon is how important the slot WR is to NE's offense. Last year, they had significant trouble converting 1st downs because their best slot guy, Brown, was both old and outside to help the team break in the new WRs. Despite the obvious WR issues NE had, their best set was the spread. They love to have other teams get their nickle and dime CBs on the field, or have a WR/LB matchup and take advantage by having better than average 3rd and 4th guys. Obviously the 1 and 2 guys need to be good enough to command some attention, but NE generated a lot of their success in 2003 and 2004 with those spread matchups. Because of this, and how often NE spreads the field, a #3 guy to NE was much more valuable than he may be to another team.

Because of all of this, Welker seeing time in the slot is in no way a denegration of his ability. Unlike many teams who just line up their best guy off left and their second best off right and their third best guy in the slot, NE doesn't have that "rank by position". The slot is nothing more than where the WR will line up. If anything, the most important ranking is "where is the WR on Tommy's confidence list?" At this point, Welker is a solid #2, right behind Brown. And Brown and Welker won't be fighting for the same ball very often.

Shockt327

Guys. You are creating a false dichotomy. There is a huge difference between a 1000 yard season and just 36 receptions at 445 yards. That's what they predicted for Welker in 2007. That's severely low-balling it. Low balling even by the standards of Welker's 2006 season in Miami; at 67 rec 687 yrds. So, Football Outsiders? They thought Welker couldn't even live up to that. Again, they predicted just 35 catches, 445 yards. Essentially surmising that Welker was little more than a special teams maven who would be a rather limited slot WR in NE. A reach of a trade.

So again, I'm not bashing them for not foreseeing a statistical giant of a season. Rather I'm bashing them for thinking that Welker couldn't even live up to his stats from Miami. Huge difference. Huge failure for FO.

ay-yo

Look, I know Maroney played good that season but

DaBruinz

Shockt37 - I'm not sure why you find this surprising. There were many people on this board who felt that Welker was nothing but a glorified slot receiver and that he wouldn't put up better numbers than he did in Miami. There were many of those same people who felt that the Pats gave up too much in the 2nd and 7th to get Welker. There were very few who actually wanted the Pats to grab Welker because we could envision what he could do in this offense. There were even fewer who started prior to the start of the 2006 season saying that we wanted Welker during free agency the next year because of what we saw from him.

It happens. Some things go right. Others don't.

ausbacker

It's safe to say the Welker acquisition has gone right, James Right for the Patriots.

MoLewisrocks

And lest we forget, NEM predicted Welker would be traded to save face or a camp cut proving that BB made a mistake in acquiring him and once Moss and Stallworth were secured because there was no need for another midget receiver...