jeffbiologist

This may not be a popular post, but this comes from a guy who finishes his beer even before leaving the bar with the prettiest girl...a scientist who assumes nothing,lol.
Last year it got me thinking that the Pats just didnt like the talent in the draft, and we did well be trading picks for players. We all know how BB likes older players, and he has to have some idea how many jobs are open before he goes into the draft. I was thinking that last year you couldnt argue with our team on paper, it would have been difficult to improve it....but that our picks from 4-7 did nothing for THIS team. Why dont we get value for these guys?
Lets look at the roster before this years draft:
QBs-I think we can honestly say that there are 2 openings, but why not trade a 3rd rd pick for a veteran like Todd Collins rather than take another rookie on a team not known for developing QBs?(Bishop,Davey,Kingsbury,Cassel).
RBs-Eckel can be upgraded
TEs-Spahn can be upgraded
OL-we could use 1 inside and 1 outside for competition if nothing else
WR-with all our 3wr sets having only 4 wr that arent STers...could add one
DL-Wright and Smiths could all be upgraded
ILB-We dont know about Seau still
OLB-Colvin is gone, Woods isnt the future
S-Rodney has 1-2 years left, Andrews has legal problems
CB-Bunch of jags, throw em all against the wall and see who sticks?
Now to me, going into the draft there are at least 13 roster spots that can be improved. We have 8 draft picks going in. Safe to say we can create competition in at least 6-7 positions right? There are 13 guys that if they get hurt I am not comfortable with our depth....
Now some statistics. 7/8(88%) of our #1 picks have started game 1 in the BB era. Only 5/63(8%) of guys drafted in rounds 2-7 have done the same. To me those statistics are a little disturbing. There certainly isnt THAT much difference between players taken in rd 1 to rd 2 in TALENT. But its the OPPORTUNITY that this team gives first round picks that sets a standard hiearchy(sp?). I suggest this means that its coaching NOT drafting that makes this team.
The FO now scares away traders. Using the accepted value chart we lost out in value in every trade yesterday. One at a time:
1-we wanted Mayo. We knew we could trade back for him. We knew Ellis was the 2nd best DL in the draft, we had to know there was more than one team willing to trade up for him. Maybe Cincy is braindead, but why not get them into a bidding war for Ellis? We talked to NO prior to the draft about this scenario....they then offer KC 2 1sts and a 2nd for #5....and all we got from them was essentially a 4th(3rd minus 5th)?? Better than nothing I guess...we got our guy and paid him less.....but not good value.
2-the trade with SD is my bone of contention for the whole thread...Its widely accepted that a 4th in 08 is worth a 3rd in 09 and a 2nd in 10,etc..at the SAME position in the draft. SD gets 69 for a 09 2nd on a REAL good team(likely about #59). Doing the math-69-32(1yr)should be 37...not 59. The only way we break even on this trade is that SD does as badly as SF did in last year! We get a 5th? He isnt going to make the team! Put in perspective, the difference between 59 and 37 is 200pts....which is a mid 3rd rd pick we essentially just GAVE AWAY. If we traded the #94 for this, sure, even trade. Now there is some info out about us calling Crable twice,etc...that just tells me they are overdrafting guys.
More statistics. In the 7 years of the BB era the average number of rookies to make the team is 3. Of these, you have 1 starter(1st rd pick), one backup(ST), and the 3rd guy is a backup who becomes a starter every other year--usually by injury or attrition. Knowing these stats, looking back to when BB got here and we werent that good.....these stats remain steady, there is no significant drop due to team's success. Based on these statistics we replace less than 2/22 (9%)starters every year. If we were solely relying on the draft every player would have to play 11 years for this to work. Divide 11 by the average career length of say 4 years. This tells me that FAs are about TWICE as important as the draft. I did the math, so did BB.
Looking back on the 3rd round, seeing how well Baltimore did, makes me think. We had more and better picks on the 2nd day than ANYONE. To give away our first pick, reach on the 2nd, reach again on the 3rd...and then play good ole boys again in the later rounds is no way to run a business. Like last year when they hooked up Hairston, the RB from a FO guys college. Guys like Slater and Ruud are LEGACIES everyone had going as FAs. I suggest they INTENTIONALLY sloughed the later picks again because they dont want to deal with rookies.
Now looking at their draft again isnt there a demarcation line there after the 3rd? Now maybe we are tired of stocking other teams with our leftovers, but werent there players left on the board in the 3rd rd that could make this team? Is there any question that the 1,2,3 guys make the team, the rest are PS guys?Think about this for a minute, how screwed would this team be without BB/SP/TB??
Our depth is questionable.
Our age is a serious problem.
Our types of players are only good on a BB 3-4 team.
Our teams age continues to get older every year because we dont inject it with enough talented youth. Statistics bear it out. Most of the time this wouldnt bother us, winning cures this pretty quick. With the draft picks we have there should be more of an emphasis on building through the draft... but there isnt. The draft is a tool to build our team, and every year we dont win the super bowl, and even the years we do we have to look to improve in every area. We are leaving bullets in the gun and not maximizing our potential. Sorry for the length. Go ahead, rip away,lol.

A.C Vegas

The fact is The coaching staff set up ther bored of the players they like and they are not going to do dramtic reaches because of what the fans think

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Quote:

Originally Posted by The Onion See Wes [Welker], here, the man with the honor of being my chauffeur? This resourceful bastard actually beat me home, so it's not like it can't be done.

patsgo

go study some biology and leave us alone

Zeke_Mowatt

Seriously, you, who are probably very intelligent, should work on a bit of wisdom to appreciate that the FO knows a LOT more about this than you do and has a spectacular track record of production out of mid-late round picks. I expect the Oh-No whining from some of the idiots, but I would hope for more out of someone with a respectable mind. Imagine if, in the course of you working on something in your work, the secretary, janitor, and all the other non-scientific minded people in your office/lab/whatever were invited to spend a casual volume of their "down time" looking around the internet to get a better (albeit tertiary) understanding of rudimentary biology, and to glance quickly at what few papers on semi-comparable subjects were published online. Imagine that they then critiqued your paper based on the fact that they had found student papers, doctoral theses, that were along similar lines but didn't really hit the heart of what you were doing on a professional level et al and found your work to be "not in accordance" with what they thought you should be dealing with. Would you give them credibility, or even listen, or would you wonder at their audacity? OK, it's probably not the most elegant analogy but regardless, with that said:

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patchick

OK, I'm going to take this post at face value. You are saying, as I understand it, that you believe that the Patriots intentionally draft lousy players 2nd day in order to not have to cope with an overabundance of rookies.

Putting aside the fundamental brain-exploding implausibility of this theory, here are some concrete reasons why I can't agree:

- They sign UDFAs after the draft
- Many current roster players were Pats late-round picks and UDFAs
- And forgive me if I shout, but...

If they wanted FEWER rookies, they would sign FEWER rookies, not WORSE rookies!!!!

JeffBiologist, I'd like to seriously suggest that before starting any future threads you step away and re-read again before posting.

DaBruinz

You lose credibility when you make a post like this and can't even spell players names correctly.

The TE on the Patriots is SPACH not SPAHN. SPANN is a CB.

Many of your assumptions have very little thought in them Not to mention are impractical for a salary cap league. For example, you mention the Pats having "4 WR who aren't specifically special teams players". The Pats run many of their WR sets with Kevin Faulk and Ben Watson out in formation. Also, Kelley Washington isn't ONLY a special teams player. While the Pats have only used him for that, I would be willing to bet that Washington gets more reps in the passing game this year.

ILB - The Pats added Victor Hobson and Jerod Mayo. So what if we don't know about Seau. Considering that both Hobson and Mayo have played in 3-4 sets (Hobson in one very similar to the Pats) my bet is that Hobson opens the year starting next to Bruschi or even Seau.

FB - Yes, Eckel could be upgraded. But who would you have taken over who was drafted?

People on here love to B!tch and moan about who the Pats draft, yet hardly anyone offers up someone who could work in the Pats system as a suitable replacement.

This idiocy on your part that the team ONLY gets older and the Pats don't "inject youth" into it is so much BS. Listen, Chicken Little. Just because you don't understand that the Patriots keep a good balance of youth and veterans doesn't mean the rest of us don't understand it.

As for this idea that the "Patriots leave bullets in the gun and aren't maximizing their potential, PROVE IT. Show me players who actually would have MADE last year's team and would have produced in the Pats system.

SamBamsFan

Not for nothing. I thought we won 18 games last year.

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jct

In years past, I had a similar kneejerk reaction to you.
I hated MANY of the front office moves.
But hey, since 2001 we have had 12.5 wins a year.
We set records Galore.
And if not for our defense last year we would have been perfect.
This offseason we took a big step back loosing Asante (but he wasn't worth his market price too me)
Outside of that we lost a few minor pieces...

Entering this draft we needed speed, talent, smarts and potential on Defense.
Well some pundits may say we reached (somewhat) for Mayo, I say the guy sounds like a replacement for Bruschi...brains,leadership,speed,production
Some pundits may devalue Wheatley, well there was a run on CBs by the end of round 1, the guy did have 5 INTS the last 2 years, athletic and fast
Personally I like the trade with SD, in effect based on the front office board,
(which is nationally recognized as top 5 or better at drafting) we moved up about 20 spots which IF we win the SB this year and trade away a few players for conditional picks in 2009 will be very significant IMO
I love the Crable pick immeadeate production with potential to develope into the McGinest Elephant type
O Connel provides competion and we DO develope backup QBs AKA Brady
Top STer helps
We always draft the lower rounds pretty good.

So my analysys chill out We are now arguably the best team ever.
Almost every time people second guess BB+SP they end with egg on their face.
Drink some coolade...its good for you!!

Who knows before the season starts we may well have Colvin, Law and a couple other surprises.

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Snake

DUDE!!!!! I think you have some good things to say, but you really need to divide your post into readable paragraphs. I got a headache trying to get through this. Thanks for understanding.

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mgteich

I agree with all your comments. except for the Eckel comment. First, we may not keep 5 RB's. We usually don't. I think that we should. Who would I have drafted. Well, we might have drafted Hester at #69.