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AFCE Draft & 2009 Recap - And How it may stack up in 2010


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Brady2Welker

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First of all, I was thinking to my self, who did our main competition get this draft and how does this make us stack up [potentially], so I decided a draft recap for each of the various teams in the first five rounds;

New England Patriots:
Rd1(27) - Devin McCourty (CB)
Rd2(42) - Rob Gronkowski (TE)
Rd2(53) - Jermaine Cunningham (DE/OLB)
Rd2(62) - Brandon Spikes (ILB)
Rd3(90) - Taylor Price (WR)
Rd4(113) - Aaron Hernandez (TE)
Rd5(150) - Zoltan Meski (P)



Miami Dolphins:
Rd1(28) - Jared Odrick (DT)
Rd2(40) - Koa Misi (DE/OLB)
Rd3(73) - John Jerry (OT)
Rd4(119) - AJ Edds (LB)
Rd5(145) - Nolan Carrol (CB)
Rd5(163) - Jones Reshad (SS)


New York Jets:
Rd1(29) - Kyle Wilson (CB)
Rd2(61) - Vlad Ducasse (OT)
Rd4(112) - Joe McKnight (RB)
Rd5(139) - John Conner (RB) [Quick aside, this has got to be the funniest name I've seen drafted in a while, incoming terminator puns from the media]


Buffalo Bills:

Rd1(9) - CJ Spiller (RB)
Rd2(41) - Torell Troup (DT)
Rd3(72) - Alex Carrington (DE)
Rd4(107) - Marcus Easley (WR)
Rd5(140) - Ed Wang (OT)


Light Analysis:

Buffalo Bills:

2009 Recap & Draft:The Bills come of a season full of turmoil, from the seasons third to worst passing offense due to their instability at QB despite trying many patchwork style remedies including bringing in aging, but still semi-effective receiver TO. The absolute lack of any type of continuity for the upteenth straight year on this team caused coaching turnover, which led them into a draft where seemingly they could do nothing wrong, a suspect passing defense, a horrid run defense. Lack of offense outside of their RB duo Jackson/Lynch. However, they went into the draft and it seemed like a fairly certain that they would nab Jimmy Clausen out of Notre Dam in order to bolster their offense, and increase fan interest in the team (assuming Cleveland didn't acquire him first). Surprisingly they decided to target CJ Spiller (RB) who proves that the rumors of Lynch's possible arrival on the trading block. In rounds 2-5, outside of getting a fourth round receiver prospect, the Bills took the path of trying to stack up their trench men, by drafting a DT, De, and OT, in the process they passed on two of the higher rated QBs multiple times (Clausen/McCoy).

2010 Season Outlook: The bills are rebuilding, and they know it. It appears they're hoping the fan base can hold on one more year and they can really strengthen their team from the bottom up, instead of drafting a first round quarterback, or even second (seeing as McCoy had a ridiculous fall for what I believed to be the best prospect for quarterback this draft) and throwing them into the fray immediately. Instead they opted for a dynamic running back to keep the staple of their current "run it, then run it again" offense and target their suspect defensive line for reconstruction.

Verdict: |6-10| Once again, unfortunately for the Bills, they look like they will be shooting for as close to a .500 record as possible. Their schedule is quite a rough one for a team in rebuilding, having to travel to BAL, MIN, GB not even counting their AFCEast road games will prove to be a daunting challenge for their team.


Miami Dolphins

2009 Recap & Draft: The Dolphins started off this season looking like a possible defender of their previous division title, but it was made very quickly that their offensive gimmick which created such mismatches for them was countered by the majority of their foes. And on top of that, their defense was regularly shredded by the likes of Matt Ryan(Wk1), P. Manning (Wk2), Drew Brees (Wk7), T. Brady (Wk8) despite their ability to maintain a convincing time of possession. This performance likely lead to a very defensive heavy draft for the Dolphins, with the departure of Joey Porter and Jason Taylor this was even more of a necessity for them, although the aforementioned players weren't exactly absolute studs this last year, they were stopgap in the transition to a young, effective defense to match their offensive style of 'ground and pound' mixed in with some light passing attacks by Chad Henne.

2010 Season Outlook: The Dolphins look to go into the next season with a continuing of an improvement of their defense with a defensive heavy draft alongside as the return of many promising rookies from last year - in addition to an highly touted ILB - Karlos Dansby, as well as increasing the potency of their offense by adding the Probowl receiver Brandon Marshal as a big target for Henne to throw to making their offense much more potent, although their offense has a potential to take a hit from their loss of Ronnie Brown.

Verdict: |9-7| their team is definitely strong, but its up to a fairly unproven Chad Henne to keep up with some of the more aggressive offenses they will be playing against ( @GB, @MIN, PIT (after Big Ben's return) as well as their AFCEast matchups, where they are likely to split with the Jets/Patriots. And I frankly doubt Henne's ability to do that.


New York Jets

2009 Recap & Draft: The Jets 2009 season must have been an absolute roller coaster ride for their fans, from being touted as Superbowl Favorites after week 3, to an incredibly rocky series of weeks followed, from the Crowning of the Sanchize to the demanding of his de-throwning by some. From Rex Ryan crying about the season being over, to the Colts giving them a free-ride into the playoffs, once again being Super bowl favorites, then losing to the Super Bowl favorites. Man, that season was ridiculous. But here's what we do know, they played some mean defense. And they ran the ball well, and that's exactly what they aimed to do in the draft, get a CB prospect to learn from arguably the best CB in the league, a new OG, and some running backs. Simple draft, for a simple goal. To keep the status quo.

2010 Season Outlook: The Jets were busy bees this off season, from the acquisition of problem child WR Santonio Holmes, to Jason Taylor, to ex-Pro Bowl Ladanian Tomlinson. A lot of people labeled this locker room a powder keg waiting to catch a flame, and I cant say I disagree. This season relies on ONE man though; Mark Sanchez. If he can improve, they're looking extremely potent and nasty, but that is yet to be seen.

Verdict: |10-6| I'm going to give Sanchez the benefit of the doubt and say he'll do decently, but I'm also going to assume that for the first bit of their season when they're missing Cotchery and Holmes that he struggles a bit, but still making a push for the AFCEast title.


New England Patriots

2009 Recap & Draft:The team looked good to begin with, but with some seriously disturbing late game collapse against teams they should have beaten (Colts, Miami, Denver). Several culprits have been targeted for these things, everything from a lack of running game to close games, lack of receiving threats for our quarterback, no defensive stand ability. All of these are true, to an extent, and a lot of these were addressed in the draft with the typical Belichick value system, with one trade up and many trade downs. The acquisition of two quality pass catching tight ends, some defensive leaders at a quality university, as well as a possible WR sleeper Price.

2010 Season Outlook:This is where it gets hard to predict, this team fluctuations the last season combined with the fluctuations of draft picks makes this a crap shoot in terms of predictability. Assuming that 50%+ of our draftpicks become quality starters their rookie year we could be looking at anything as good as 11-5, but if the majority bust, the Patriots could be in for a very long year.

Verdict: |11-5| I like our chances this year, we have the easier part of the schedule compared of our division rivals, we get the harder opponents at home, which even last year we did substantially better at home (excluding the Baltimore playoff game), and I'm optimistic about the possible production of our rookies.


I tried to keep this as objective as possible, I hope it showed.
 
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For once some fairly objective analysis.
 
For once some fairly objective analysis.

I tried to keep it balanced, and for the sake of analysis assumed that all draftees would be quality players for ever team, not necessarily probowl, but quality.
 
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Al Fronczak, a truly respected NFL and Draft expert really summed up the Patriots and Jets situation best with this:

http://www.eastcoastsportsnews.com/2010Draftnews.html

"Post Draft - Each and every year I refrain from picking the winners and losers in the Draft because nobody truly knows how a teams draft will turnout until several years down the line, but I can't help but comment on one football team that really helped themselves and another that may have set themselves back with their moves. The New England Patriots are the best team in the NFL in terms of being able to work the board. Not only did the Patriots fill needs and come away with five potential starters in the draft, but they also committed highway robbery by fleecing the Carolina Panthers out of their second round pick in the 2011 Draft by trading the Panthers their third-round pick in the 2010 Draft. The Panthers 2011 pick will likely turn out to be a Top 5 pick in that round.

On the flip side, the New York Jets came away with two potential starters in CB Kyle Wilson and OG Vladimir Ducasse, but at the end of the day, Jets fans are likely scratching their heads and wondering if they're a better team post-draft after dealing away HB Leon Washington and releasing OG Alan Faneca. The Jets also passed on several edge-rushers in the draft that could have improved their pass rush, and are hoping that the ancient Jason Taylor has one good year left in his body. In my opinion, for a team that was on the brink of playing in the AFC Championship Game, the Jets moves and draft strategy may have set them back a bit."
 
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Al Fronczak, a truly respected NFL and Draft expert really summed up the Patriots and Jets situation best with this:
As he stated, despite the jesters splashy moves, I think that by the end of the season the Patriots will look more improved than the jets. If you call the first round CB a wash and eliminate McKnight as they dumped the similar Washington, the jets got nothing in the draft for this season yet the Patriots have tons of players, the two TE, punter, two LB who should help significantly this year based on their talent and playing a lot at the highest level of college football.
 
As he stated, despite the jesters splashy moves, I think that by the end of the season the Patriots will look more improved than the jets. If you call the first round CB a wash and eliminate McKnight as they dumped the similar Washington, the jets got nothing in the draft for this season yet the Patriots have tons of players, the two TE, punter, two LB who should help significantly this year based on their talent and playing a lot at the highest level of college football.

Leon Washington's wife is in full agreement with you:

Leon Washington's wife is happy to leave New York | ProFootballTalk.com

Leon Washington's wife is happy to leave New York
Posted by Gregg Rosenthal on April 25, 2010 3:59 PM ET
Leon Washington said all the right things about leaving New York, saying he was "stoked" and "ready for a change of scenery." His wife Charity was less diplomatic.

"Good Luck paying the 20 people due contracts @ the end of the season. Lol," she wrote on Twitter
 
Why is it objective because he said 11-5???.. I hope we are 11-5 with the schedule and the improvements the jets and dolphins... Only time will tell, but Im going with 9-7...and I hope im wrong, but I guess we should just wait till they start practicing...
 
Why is it objective because he said 11-5???.. I hope we are 11-5 with the schedule and the improvements the jets and dolphins... Only time will tell, but Im going with 9-7...and I hope im wrong, but I guess we should just wait till they start practicing...

There was a distinct difference between our home game stats and our away game stats, I also assumed that our our rookies would become productive. This is just an estimate, you could easily make the argument that we are closer to 9-7 but personally I believe that if rookies make a decent impact that we will be on the upper scale. Our schedule is difficult, yes, but the majority of the hard games are at home. I believe a split versus the Miami/Jets is likely. (2 Losses). I think we'll lose 2 of the vsGB,vsMin,vsInd,@SD games (2 Losses). Throw in a loss to the Ravens or Bengals and I estimate 5-6 losses, but I doubt it will be much larger than that.
 
Why is it objective because he said 11-5???.. I hope we are 11-5 with the schedule and the improvements the jets and dolphins... Only time will tell, but Im going with 9-7...and I hope im wrong, but I guess we should just wait till they start practicing...

Objectivity isnt in the conclusion, its in the reasoning that leads there.
 
At any rate, its extremely hard to predict how a season will unfold. That's what makes us keep coming back to watching sports, year after year.
 
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TRANSCRIPT: Eliot Wolf’s Pre-Draft Press Conference 4/18/24
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