What the Patriots COULD have done last year

[FredFromDartmouth]

The Patriots could have done this and picked up a great linebacker and safety while ditching the Bust-in-the-making Ron Brace:

James Laurinaitis (instead of Chung) at 35
Jarius Byrd at (instead of Brace) at 40
Darius Butler at 41​

The rest of the draft looks good (as far as I can tell) with some late round gems. All in all an excellent draft with only one major whiff (Brace). Oddly enough the Brace pick came from Oakland; payback I guess. Panic or leverage against Big Vince is the only reason I can think why they picked this guy.

 

[patchick]

Dear Fred,

I am The Ghost of PatsFans Past. I am here to reveal before your eyes what you said about the draft when it actually happened:

I would rate it a C. They just could not resist trading down; like a dog on a full stomach chasing a garbage truck, even when they did not need the extra picks. They should have stayed put and grabbed best guys available such as Delmas.

In other posts you were skeptical about Butler -- Alphonso Smith was your CB target -- and Laurinaitis and Byrd's names never came up.

 

[reflexblue]

The Patriots could have done this and picked up a great linebacker and safety while ditching the Bust-in-the-making Ron Brace:

James Laurinaitis (instead of Chung) at 35
Jarius Byrd at (instead of Brace) at 40
Darius Butler at 41​

The rest of the draft looks good (as far as I can tell) with some late round gems. All in all an excellent draft with only one major whiff (Brace). Oddly enough the Brace pick came from Oakland; payback I guess. Panic or leverage against Big Vince is the only reason I can think why they picked this guy.

Here's a suggestion

What good does it do to go over what COULD have been done? No good thats what.

 

[HarkDawg]

oohh snaap!



no you didn't


she just showed you up Mang

big
T
i
m
e

:bricks::bricks::bricks::bricks::bricks:

 

[BelichickFan]

Dear Fred,

I am The Ghost of PatsFans Past. I am here to reveal before your eyes what you said about the draft when it actually happened:



In other posts you were skeptical about Butler -- Alphonso Smith was your CB target -- and Laurinaitis and Byrd's names never came up.

LMAO, that was cool.

When you look at what we did get plus the fact that 2a and 2b in this draft are from the trade downs, last year's draft was just fine. Now . . . we need to hit on 3 out of 4 of our early picks this year.

 

[mgteich]

we could have had Eric Wood at 26.

QUOTE=patchick;1760751]Dear Fred,

I am The Ghost of PatsFans Past. I am here to reveal before your eyes what you said about the draft when it actually happened:



In other posts you were skeptical about Butler -- Alphonso Smith was your CB target -- and Laurinaitis and Byrd's names never came up.



[/QUOTE]

 

[patchick]

Here's a suggestion

What good does it do to go over what COULD have been done? No good thats what.

To be fair, he did say it was a good draft overall. I just don't think it's too meaningful to look at "what they could have done" based on what you know now that nobody knew then. But if you're going to go down that road, why stop there? With the picks at the spots they actually picked, I could come away with a draft like this:

34 Darius Butler, CB
40 Phil Loadholt, OT
41 Connor Barwin, LB
58 Sebastian Vollmer, OT
83 Mike Wallace, WR
97 Tyrone McKenze, LB
123 Thomas Morestead, P
170 Kevin Ellison, SS
198 Jake Ingram, LS
207 Myron Pryor, DT
232 Julian Edelman, WR
234 Kahlil Bell, RB

 

[patchick]

we could have had Eric Wood at 26.

Ah, memories, memories. (Though I wouldn't have taken him until the 2nd!)

I'm no better than most with my picks ahead of time, I'm just waging my little war against rewriting the past.

 

[Sciz]

Well, that one year, when we had that one pick...

Anyway, why would we want Laurinaitis or Byrd? Laurinaitis would be an upgrade over Guyton, but in your what-if situation, how about McKenzie? Who knows what he could've done.

Byrd is a ball hawking safety that is a liability against the run. His 9 picks were against Derek Anderson (3:10 TD:INT ratio), Mark Sanchez (12:20), Jake Delhomme (8:18), Matt Schaub (29:15), Vince Young (10:7), and Matt Cassel (16:16). Total TD:INT ratio of the guys he picked off? 78:86. Take out the obvious outlier in Schaub and you get a 49:71 ratio, which is pathetic to say the least. So while I'm not saying he's a bad safety, he's a ball-hawking safety who is a liability against the run and produced against QBs that throw plenty of picks. I'm not ready to pass him off as the next Ed Reed that quickly.

 

[reflexblue]

To be fair, he did say it was a good draft overall. I just don't think it's too meaningful to look at "what they could have done" based on what you know now that nobody knew then. But if you're going to go down that road, why stop there? With the picks at the spots they actually picked, I could come away with a draft like this:

34 Darius Butler, CB
40 Phil Loadholt, OT
41 Connor Barwin, LB
58 Sebastian Vollmer, OT
83 Mike Wallace, WR
97 Tyrone McKenze, LB
123 Thomas Morestead, P
170 Kevin Ellison, SS
198 Jake Ingram, LS
207 Myron Pryor, DT
232 Julian Edelman, WR
234 Kahlil Bell, RB

Hindsight is always 20/20 and what good does it do. Its not like we get to do a do-over. OH OH i said do do. But i guess if people want to have some fun going back and doing the draft over again its no biggie, ii'l get out of the way and not comment. :bricks:

 

[patchick]

Well, that one year, when we had that one pick...

Anyway, why would we want Laurinaitis or Byrd? Laurinaitis would be an upgrade over Guyton, but in your what-if situation, how about McKenzie? Who knows what he could've done.

Byrd is a ball hawking safety that is a liability against the run. His 9 picks were against Derek Anderson (3:10 TD:INT ratio), Mark Sanchez (12:20), Jake Delhomme (8:18), Matt Schaub (29:15), Vince Young (10:7), and Matt Cassel (16:16). Total TD:INT ratio of the guys he picked off? 78:86, with 37% of those TDs coming from Schaub alone. So while I'm not saying he's a bad safety, he's a ball-hawking safety who is a liability against the run and produced against QBs that throw plenty of picks. I'm not ready to pass him off as the next Ed Reed that quickly.

I liked Byrd quite a bit in the draft, but he struck me as too close to Meriweather -- I wanted more of a classic SS type. As it turned out, the real finds at that position were 6th-rounders, Ellison & Afalava.

BTW, everybody writes Jarius, like Darius. Jairus is actually a classic Biblical name.

 

[mgteich]

I well remember that you didn't think Wood was worth a first (or any interior lineman).

People who re-write should have better memories. It will be awhile until I accept have Chung on the team instead of Laurinitis. I don't think it is re-writing to recall that not may of us wanted Chung at 34 or Brace at 40.

I probably would have taken Butler at 34 and Loadholt at 40. It is only in hindsight would I have passed on Butler at 34.

Ah, memories, memories. (Though I wouldn't have taken him until the 2nd!)

I'm no better than most with my picks ahead of time, I'm just waging my little war against rewriting the past.

 

[BillBelichickFan79]

I liked Byrd quite a bit in the draft, but he struck me as too close to Meriweather -- I wanted more of a classic SS type. As it turned out, the real finds at that position were 6th-rounders, Ellison & Afalava.

BTW, everybody writes Jarius, like Darius. Jairus is actually a classic Biblical name.

Yeah I thought Ellison would be a good pickup last year, but I was happy with the Chung pick. We needed a Rodney-type safety and I thought Chung was that guy. Loved the pick. Byrd was/is not needed with us already having Meriweather.

I wanted no part of Laurinatis then, and I want no part of him now. I did like Maualuga as a good fit inside next to Mayo.

To be honest, I hadn't even really heard of Brace until we took him so when I first heard the pick I thought to myself "crap who is this bum he probably had success b/c Raji demanded double teams." But then the pick grew on me because we definitely needed that insurance for the Wilfork situation. Brace didn't do anything last year, but it's too early to give up on him.

All in all hindsight is 20/20, but I really like what Belichick did in this draft. I think Butler, Chung, Vollmer, Edelman, Tate will all prove to be great picks. Brace is a question mark. Pryor looks like he can be a solid depth guy. I really like McKezine as well and think he will be a good contributor and leader on this defense. 09 was an imperative year in the draft, and BB seemed to nail it.

 

[patchick]

I don't think it is re-writing to recall that not may of us wanted Chung at 34 or Brace at 40.

Absolutely. There are some on my re-draft that I would have done at the time (Butler, Barwin, Wallace, Morestead) and some I don't think anybody here was yelling for at the time (Pryor, Ellison, Vollmer quite that early).

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Absolutely. There are some on my re-draft that I would have done at the time (Butler, Barwin, Wallace, Morestead) and some I don't think anybody here was yelling for at the time (Pryor, Ellison, Vollmer quite that early).

I assume you mean Edelman?

That said:

34(170) Patriots (Compensatory selection) - Julian Edelman WR Kent St
This kid is really a less-famous version of Pat White. Very athletic college QB, who can contribute at WR, STs, and maybe even safety.

 

[patchick]

I assume you mean Edelman?

Nope, it was Kevin Ellison from USC.

 

[bakes781]

My wishlist was Darius Butler, Larry English, Eric Wood and Louis Delmas

I did like Clay Matthews as a plan B if English wasn't available. Barwin was a distant plan C.

 

[Ochmed Jones]

Dear Fred,

I am The Ghost of PatsFans Past. I am here to reveal before your eyes what you said about the draft when it actually happened:



In other posts you were skeptical about Butler -- Alphonso Smith was your CB target -- and Laurinaitis and Byrd's names never came up.

I really liked Smith as well. His ballskills in college were off the chains. This year I like Ghee as a Pats type CB, although he is less quick twitch than I would like to see.

 

[Underdog]

Hey, know what else they COULD have done last year?

Brian Robiskie instead of Chung
Pat White instead of Butler
Jarron Gilbert instead of Vollmer

I'm just sayin'...

 

[FredFromDartmouth]

There is no question that hindsight is 20-20, but we can be allowed to speculate can't we? If you threw out all the speculation on this forum there would be very little left.

With the exception of Brace it was a good draft and compared to the last few years of the Pioli, error, ah, era, it was an excellent draft. I have to believe that Flloyd Reese is the reason and expect a super draft this year.