Rearranging the Pats' drafts

How would you have felt about the following 2011 draft?

1 Solder
2 Ridley
3 Dowling
4 Cannon
5 Mallett
6 M. Carter
7. M. Williams

Looks good to me.

How would you have felt about the following 2010 draft?

1 Gronkowski
2 Hernandez
3 McCourty
4 Spikes
5 Deaderick
6 Mesko
7 Cunningham

Looks awesome to me.

How would you have felt about the following 2009 draft?

1 Vollmer
2 Chung
3 Pryor
4 Edelman
5 Brace
6 Butler
7 Tate

Looks good to me.

2008 was Mayo, Slater, and washouts. Not terrible, but with the #7 overall pick to play with not great either.

2007 was poor even considering the picks the Pats were left with after some awesome trades. But hey, the rest of the football world did vote Meriweather to a couple of Pro Bowls.

2006 was downright bad, with the only successes being an excellent kicker and a TE who flourished as a backup on another team.

2005 produced Mankins, Cassell, and three dubious starters (Hobbs, Kaczur, Sanders). That's good work.

I worked from the lists on “Cap is Crap” And Other Felger Fallacies (linked in another thread). I didn't count UDFAs and other young FAs such as Arrington, Fletcher, or Ninkovich.

Fencer said:

How would you have felt about the following 2011 draft?

1 Solder
2 Ridley
3 Dowling
4 Cannon
5 Mallett
6 M. Carter
7. M. Williams

Looks good to me.

How would you have felt about the following 2010 draft?

1 Gronkowski
2 Hernandez
3 McCourty
4 Spikes
5 Deaderick
6 Mesko
7 Cunningham

Looks awesome to me.

How would you have felt about the following 2009 draft?

1 Vollmer
2 Chung
3 Pryor
4 Edelman
5 Brace
6 Butler
7 Tate

Looks good to me.

2008 was Mayo, Slater, and washouts. Not terrible, but with the #7 overall pick to play with not great either.

2007 was poor even considering the picks the Pats were left with after some awesome trades. But hey, the rest of the football world did vote Meriweather to a couple of Pro Bowls.

2006 was downright bad, with the only successes being an excellent kicker and a TE who flourished as a backup on another team.

2005 produced Mankins, Cassell, and three dubious starters (Hobbs, Kaczur, Sanders). That's good work.

I worked from the lists on “Cap is Crap” And Other Felger Fallacies (linked in another thread). I didn't count UDFAs and other young FAs such as Arrington, Fletcher, or Ninkovich.

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it's the 2006-2008 drafts that has hurt us over the past couple years. the other drafts look good to great.

The 2009 draft is still....average.

The 2010 draft is amazing, even better when you arrange it like that. All great picks except Cunningham, I've been impressed with Deaderick.

The 2011 draft is to be determined.... we have four contributers going in the playoffs from it, Solder, Ridley, Cannon, and Moore. If Moore proves to be a keeper, that draft looks good already.

I say this a lot, but...the fact that the Patriots make more picks than any other team in the league tends to lead our fan minds astray. With so many picks, they naturally have lots of misses. So it's incredibly easy for us to point to miss after miss, which gets our blood boiling. But if, instead, you look at the total talent collected, the Patriots' record is generally excellent.

For instance, compare the Patriots and Jets in the 2010 draft. Just two seasons later five of the players the Patriots drafted are no longer with the team, including a 3rd-round pick. In contrast, every single player the Jets drafted is still with them -- 100%. If you rate drafts based on misses and missed opportunities, the Jets blew the Pats out of the water. If you look at talent collected, though, it looks like this:

JETS
Kyle Wilson
Vladimir Ducasse
Joe McKnight
John Conner

PATRIOTS
Devin McCourty
Rob Gronkowski
Jermaine Cunningham
Brandon Spikes
Aaron Hernandez
Zoltan Mesko
Brandon Deaderick

Yes, that was a banner year for the Pats, but the point is the Jets only gave themselves 4 chances. And this isn't cherry-picking...over the past 5 years, the Jets have averaged 5 draft selections per year, the Patriots 10. TEN!

How can this team be called being "hurt" by the draft when they were 14-2 last year and 13-3 this year.

This off season they need 2 or 3 pieces for the defense through the draft or FA's and they should be very solid considering all the young talent on offense.

I consider the UDFA's part of the draft- the difference between a 3rd rounder and an UDFA is so minor.

PATSNUTme said:

How can this team be called being "hurt" by the draft when they were 14-2 last year and 13-3 this year.

This off season they need 2 or 3 pieces for the defense through the draft or FA's and they should be very solid considering all the young talent on offense.

I consider the UDFA's part of the draft- the difference between a 3rd rounder and an UDFA is so minor.

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A lot of folks seem to listen to the mediots on the radio to try to understand how this team has evolved and do not look at the facts.. they seem to expect that we are substandard as we have not won a superbowl recently, but in reality we have had a winning team for a long time now and this team is being rebuilt before our eyes..

Either that or they read Borges et al..

Today was listening to the idiot Merloni, his idiot sidekick Munanski as that azzhole Shaunnessy was on Gresch and Zo there is only so many times they can say the same thing a a different way.

PATSNUTme said:

How can this team be called being "hurt" by the draft when they were 14-2 last year and 13-3 this year.

This off season they need 2 or 3 pieces for the defense through the draft or FA's and they should be very solid considering all the young talent on offense.

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since when do the pats measure success by regular season? On the one hand, the drafting for the offense has been great. on the other hand, the drafting for the defense has been less than average. all the "young talent" on the defense is a bit overstated. right now the team has a secondary and a bunch of linebackers who can't seem to cover.

While our offensive draft picks have been great the past few years, the fact that we have Molden, Moore, Ihedigbo, Edelman, Slater, and Jones playing significant minutes in our defensive backfield tells the story on the draft picks we've spent in that area. Merriweather, Wheatley, Wilhite, Butler, and Dowling should be major contributors for us instead of the spare parts we have out there.

I had a same but different thought on this type of subject,,
How many significant 5th round and later players there are.

Without counting #12, we have Welker, 4 OLmen, a big chunk of our defensive backfield, , sure I missing others,,

3/4's of Seattle's defensive backfield is comprised of these types of selections, and one or two of those 3 are back-ups for the Pro-Bowl. Pete Carrol finally got his big CB's.

Victor Cruz of NY Giants, (why a UMass grad is not a Patriot is baffling)
Myles Austin, Romo, of Dallas,,
Fiztpatrick in Buffalo

There has to be alot of these guys.

Does make one wonder about the Draft.

there's an echo in the room

the 2010 draft really in my opinion has helped this pats team be the team it is today.

Last year we had starting OLB, ILB, CB (Made one pro bowl in rookie season), TE1 (Pro Bowl), TE2 (Should be Pro Bowl), Rotational DE and Punter on a 14-2 team.

Yes McCourty has regressed this year. But there is no denying the great drafting from that year.

In my opinion this years class was shaping up to be a very good one also until Ras-I was injured.

it could have had Starting Tackle, CB and RB (because they split the carries) with our 1st 3 picks.

The Pats haven't been the best drafters in recent years, but if you look at BSMW's comparison of the Pats' draft vs. the Colts and Jets in recent years, it is far, far better than people give it credit for. I would say since Pioli left, the Pats' drafts have been above average as a whole. There were many misses, but a lot of hits too.

patchick said:

I say this a lot, but...the fact that the Patriots make more picks than any other team in the league tends to lead our fan minds astray. With so many picks, they naturally have lots of misses. So it's incredibly easy for us to point to miss after miss, which gets our blood boiling. But if, instead, you look at the total talent collected, the Patriots' record is generally excellent.

...over the past 5 years, the Jets have averaged 5 draft selections per year, the Patriots 10. TEN!

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I still think that it may be possible that Belichick is simply smart enough to realize that the draft is a crapshoot..a game of hit or miss. It's this theory that leads me to believe that securing the chance to have more picks will lead to more positive players ("hits") than all of the other teams--at least over the course of the long term.

They may have been 'better' drafting teams with less picks recently, but it's probably not enough of a sample size to determine if their method will be better in the long run vs Belichick's propensity to choose more players.

In other words...if you and I each go out and BUY 5 lottery tickets every day, and somehow I am able to trade with others who then give me MORE lottery tickets than you have every single time (sometimes twice as many as per your example with the NYJ), common sense has to tell us that my odds of winning are better than you, at least in the long run.

Yes, there may be others who get "lucky" and win instead of me, but after a certain number of years, common sense would say that my chances of producing winners would have to be much better.

It's my opinion that Belichick is smart enough to realize this, and values the chance of having more contributing players in rounds 2 and 3, as opposed to taking more of a gamble with choosing hit or bust players in round 1.

I still think that it may be possible that Belichick is simply smart enough to realize that the draft is a crapshoot..a game of hit or miss. It's this theory that leads me to believe that securing the chance to have more picks will lead to more positive players ("hits") than all of the other teams--at least over the course of the long term.

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I came to this line of thought this year. It's one thing to miss on Darius Butler as one of 12 draft picks. It's another to miss on Vlad Ducasse as one of only 4.

Also, as faulty a barometer as Pro Bowl appearances is, a link from earlier this year shows that the Pats have drafted the second most number of Pro Bowlers during 2002-2010 (9), trailing only San Diego (10) and tied with two other teams. You can now add Gronkowski and Slater to that list.

TommyBrady12 said:

since when do the pats measure success by regular season? On the one hand, the drafting for the offense has been great. on the other hand, the drafting for the defense has been less than average. all the "young talent" on the defense is a bit overstated. right now the team has a secondary and a bunch of linebackers who can't seem to cover.

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Reading comprehension- try it.

"This off season they need 2 or 3 pieces for the defense through the draft or FA's and they should be very solid considering all the young talent on offense".

supafly said:

I still think that it may be possible that Belichick is simply smart enough to realize that the draft is a crapshoot..a game of hit or miss. It's this theory that leads me to believe that securing the chance to have more picks will lead to more positive players ("hits") than all of the other teams--at least over the course of the long term.

They may have been 'better' drafting teams with less picks recently, but it's probably not enough of a sample size to determine if their method will be better in the long run vs Belichick's propensity to choose more players.

In other words...if you and I each go out and BUY 5 lottery tickets every day, and somehow I am able to trade with others who then give me MORE lottery tickets than you have every single time (sometimes twice as many as per your example with the NYJ), common sense has to tell us that my odds of winning are better than you, at least in the long run.

Yes, there may be others who get "lucky" and win instead of me, but after a certain number of years, common sense would say that my chances of producing winners would have to be much better.

It's my opinion that Belichick is smart enough to realize this, and values the chance of having more contributing players in rounds 2 and 3, as opposed to taking more of a gamble with choosing hit or bust players in round 1.

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You have articulated my sentiments, better than I am able to...

There are those who harp on the misses, without looking at the big picture and the successful pix.. this team is being rebuilt on the fly, guaranteeing success for not only today but for the next few years..

Every team makes draft mistakes, and if you visit their message boards their sentiments echo the ones here.. but for some reason we had 13 wins this year, which is pretty incredible. For many they can only focus on the misses of this team without looking at a bigger picture.

BB is working hard at developing a sustainable model for the NFL.. compare our success to what happened in Indy after Peyton went down, they were not prepared.

PATSNUTme said:

How can this team be called being "hurt" by the draft when they were 14-2 last year and 13-3 this year.

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Well, to be fair, a lot of people - in this group as well - have been very critical of the Colts' drafts recently, and yet until this year they had finished 14-2 (and went to the SB) and 10-6 the previous two years. Only after losing Peyton Manning did they fall off a cliff. So couldn't Colts' fans have said, on the eve of the 2011 season, hey, how can this team be called being "hurt" by the draft when we've been 14-2 and 10-6 in the last two seasons, and went to the SB two years ago?

They could have, and they would have been wrong.

I'm not necessarily arguing that the Pats' drafts have been good or bad. I think it's pretty clear that they had a few very rough drafts but that the last few have been much better. But all-time great QBs still in their prime can cover a lot of mistakes.

Before he destroyed Denver and St Louis , McDaniels ruined Patriot drafts from 2006-2008. Read War Room.

DropKickFlutie said:

Before he destroyed Denver and St Louis , McDaniels ruined Patriot drafts from 2006-2008. Read War Room.

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Please stop with the lies about McDaniels. You've already been shown that he didn't do anything in St. Louis. 8 offensive starters on the IR is what "destroyed" St. Louis. And that doesn't even get into the 6 CBs they put on the IR.

And, as Deus pointed out, much of the talent that Denver has today is because of McDaniels.

That being said, McDaniels hurt the 2006 and 2008 drafts. The 2007 draft was horrible, talent wise, in general. Which is why most teams failed in that draft.

I hope that Belichick is more patient with the remaining plauyers from some of the earlier drafts.

People tend to forget how long it took players like Asante Samuel, David Givens, Deion Branch, Kevin Faulk, Tedy Bruschi and Willie McGinest to develop.

Sure, others like Ty Law, Richard Seymour and Vince Wilfork contributed in their rookie year, but so did Mayo and McCourty.

The point is, the Patriot heroes of the past sometimes took 3 or even 4 years to develop into the players they became. This was certainly true of Bruschi, Faulk, McGinest and Samuel.

Patience grasshopper.