Other than Boldin and maybe Walters, whom would you have NE target?
I've already answered this one. I'd like to see any one of T.O., Bryant, Mason, and maybe Branch (if the FO thinks he's healthy). I don't much mind Josh Reed being brought in either. Guy had a pretty good 2008 season with Trent Edwards throwing him the ball and was all but phased out of Buffalo's offense last season. IMO, he would be good in our system.
And let me make myself clear going forward: I do not, for one second, think we should just mail it in this offseason and season just because we missed out on Boldin. Would Boldin be a better option than all of the above guys? Yes. He's been, bar none, the best #2 WR in the NFL ever since Fitzgerald joined the Cardinals. $10M in guarunteed money is not a lot, IMO, to bring him in and line him up across from a GOAT in Moss.
At what point does Boldin join Peppers in asking too much for you?
When his regular salary, not counting guarunteed money, hit the $10M per year level. As of right now, he's making $7M a year with $10M guarunteed.
-- NE asked Boldin to assume some of the risk (you say you can play in our system and are healthy, all you have to do is walk onto the field in game one and you get your $3M). NE treated Boldin like Randy Moss - why shouldn't they ask him to follow the precedent of a Hall of Fame receiver?
Because I don't think we have the leverage right now to ask big time free agents to come here to take a paycut or a one year "prove it" deal. With Moss it was gravy. Not only was he playing with Tom Brady but the Patriots were just coming off a season in which they advanced to the AFCCG and came a hair away from advancing to the Super Bowl without him. This year, Boldin would be coming into a team that is clearly in full rebuild mode on one side of the ball and is coming off of a season in which they really looked like the teams of the past only for a few games, stumbled down the stretch a bit, and got creamed by the team that WAS willing to extend itself to him a bit more. It was really a no-brainer for him. See, you see Boldin not signing with New England as being Baltimore's fault for "throwing the bank vault at him". I disagree completely. I see Boldin not signing with New England as being our fault. The injury concerns are extremely overblown as he's only suffered ONE serious injury in his NFL career and still managed to come back and play that season. The money concern is overblown because Baltimore got him at a good price. IMO, the draft picks are overblown. Yes, this draft is deep, but there are (by no means) any guaranteed guys that are going to come in here and make the impact that Boldin could have made right off the bat.
Sam Aiken was a band aid. Joey Galloway was a hole. People attack Sam as if he was some demonic force who came in to suck the life out of the team - the guy played pretty well for a receiver who probably didn't get as much route time with Tommy as the primaries.
I say hole, you say band-aid. The bottom line is that Sam Aiken should have never been put in the position to be playing WR for this team and, yet, he was. And no, Sam Aiken did not play well. He had 20 receptions for 326 yards and 2 TD's. Those two TD's came on plays in which the defense just completely blew the coverage (Tampa Bay... that was one of the most ridiculous displays of wide open I've ever seen) or a play in which the DB had actually BEATEN AIKEN on the route but the throw was poor which made Aiken actually able to go up and grab it, then saw the DB that was in one on one coverage fall down so he could gallop for a TD. On top of all of this, he regularly struggled to get open DESPITE the fact that defenses really did not give a damn about him and were rolling their coverage over to Moss and Welker. Sorry, Box. I usually trust your analysis, but I have to say that I'm completely shocked to hear you say that Aiken "played well".
A hole? Connolly played as well as Hochstein has in years past for us, much better than Yates did, I never considered Hoch a "hole" behind Neal. If Billy was NE's primary interior reserve again I'd agree with you, but Wendell looked to outplay Connolly to my eyes, Ohrnberger and Bussey have had one year of conditioning and coaching (or will by April) and NE has Light, Mankins, Koppen, Kaczur, and Vollmer who all started a substantial number of games as rookies to justify waiting for the draft if they want to acquire additional competition for RG. Not a hole, merely a competitive and still uncertain position.
Maybe I'm just arguing semantics here (wouldn't be the first time), but I think that an uncertainty at a position should be counted as a hole. Connolly wasn't as terrible as his haters here made him out to be, but he certainly didn't play as well as his proponents have been saying either. I've heard good things about Bussey but the fact of the matter is (and you know where I'm going with this as I've said it before) that we still do not know anything about him as a professional football player. Same thing with Ohrnberger. As for Wendell, well, he's still behind Connolly on the depth chart which would mean, if anything happened to Neal, guess who we would probably be seeing again? Either way, I don't think it would hurt to draft a RG prospect on day two to come in and compete. Of course, Neal will be the starter. That's what he was signed for. But he's only got two more years left with us so we should start thinking about bringing someone in right now who can pick up where he leaves off two years from now.
Well, whether he's a run stuffer or not, TBC did close that window a bit from where it was. NE made an offer to Peppers. Burgess is reportedly still on the radar. Ninkovich was looking pretty good in a reserve role and is a year wiser. Woods has been tendered, perhaps he can bounce back and play the way he did in 2008, and Charlie Casserly is calling this an incredibly deep draft class (okay, there I shot myself in the foot
) - day "two," my worry meter is still pegged on zero.
It's definitely a good thing that TBC was brought back. Props to the FO for realizing how important he is as he was pretty much the only semblance of a pass rush on this defense. I'm not high on Burgess at all. He improved only a little bit over last season. His trade was a bad one, in my opinion. Ninkovich did look good, but he should be kept in the reserve role. He should only be starting due to injuries. I have no problem with the Woods tender but, like Nink, should only be kept in a reserve role. AD is likely gone this offseason and, even if he isn't, we still need to draft at least one OLB on days one to two. If he's gone, we're looking at two of them being needed.
Bodden hasn't signed elsewhere yet has he? Then I'm not worried. NE has four young CBs on the roster, three of whom actually have some starting time, plus old Mr. Springs and his powered wheelchair, and Bill hired a veteran coach to come in and work with the youngsters and their young position coach -- sounds to me as if the expert with the inside knowledge doesn't see a "hole" as much as a young, inexperienced roster. CB doesn't rise to the level of my "hole" threshold.
With Bodden, we don't have a CB1. Bodden is a very, very solid CB, but is ideally a CB2 IMO. Without Bodden, we don't have a CB1 or a CB2. Perhaps Butler would be able to step up (I actually think he'll make the leap this year) but CB would still be a need. And no, Bodden hasn't signed elsewhere yet. But he hasn't signed here either and there are teams interested in him, one of them a team that has been our direct competition over the last decade or so.
One reportedly was a black hole during the season, addition by subtraction works for me. Further, NE has gone away from TE as a primary receiving weapon - I wasn't putting much emphasis on it before and for now I'm willing to wait and see if Bill makes it an OL assignment or what he's planning.
When the O-Line wasn't banged up, the TE's were running routes last season. When the O-Line got baned up, the TE's needed to stay back and block. See BritPat's thread for proof on this. However, we can both agree that if Olsen is signed, we're going back to using the TE's as receiving weapons. I would also fully expect a blocking TE to be signed. I wouldn't mind see Watson brought back either.
Not so much. I know Wright isn't everyone's final answer, but he's adequate, the draft is deep, Jarvis Green hasn't signed elsewhere yet, and it's day two.
I hope Jarvis does sign elsewhere. I don't even think he'd be good as a reserve anymore. He couldn't so much as sniff the backfield last season and teams were ripping off runs with alarming regularity off the right side of our D-Line last season. DE is definitely a hole.
Why shouldn't the team be expected to play at a high level with rookies?
Because a team having success with rookies filling in at that many spots happens few and far between. Look what happened last year with the team as young as it was. Now imagine filling even more of those spots with rookies playing in their first year in a Belichick system. Ouch. That wouldn't be pretty.
