Patriots Sign WR Brandon LaFell to 3-year contract

Snake Eyes said:

I don't care about LaFell, get someone who can actually play and I'll be happy, to me LaFell is a camp body.

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Judging by our moves at WR since Moss, prepare to be disappointed. I'd love an outside guy too. Good ones are hard to find. I'm still holding out hope for Coleman out of Rutgers.

50-yard-line said:

Point: Patchick.

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Yeah..... no

BradyToAmendola said:

This is a good read on LaFell. Scroll down to just above that first All 22 picture.

Brandon LaFell & Jordan Matthews walk into a bar - Cat Scratch Reader

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Thanks for that find - made me feel a little better about the signing.

Do we have details on the guarantees?

How about Edelman's contract?
How about Sanders' contract?

BradyToAmendola said:

This is a good read on LaFell. Scroll down to just above that first All 22 picture.

Brandon LaFell & Jordan Matthews walk into a bar - Cat Scratch Reader

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Excellent find.

Note that he did all that from the slot. I think that is primarily why we are getting him- for his versatility, i.e., his ability to line up inside and outside.

I haven't read all of the posts in this thread so I don't know if anyone brought up the possibility that LaFell would take over the role that A Hernandez had in this offense. Seems to be the same size although LaFell may be a bit lighter and they run the same type of plays/patterns.

Deus Irae said:

Yeah..... no

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Sorry but you're losing the argument.

Drafting a WR in the first round has the least value of all the positions by virtue of having the highest bust rate.

Numbers to back this up:

drafting in first round

Deus Irae said:

Yeah..... no

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Well, you got me there...

New theory: with LaFell and Browner, Belichick is signaling an aggressive move to recapture the Brandon dominance that characterized past Patriots' rosters.

patchick said:

New theory: with LaFell and Browner, Belichick is signaling an aggressive move to recapture the Brandon dominance that characterized past Patriots' rosters.

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Brandon dominance?

Snake Eyes said:

Brandon dominance?

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They used to have a lot of Brandons at the same time.

Mcgowan
Meriweather
Tate
Spikes

LaFell will be interesting but I like it, he's got experience however is still young and has been healthy most of his career.

PP2 said:

Sorry but you're losing the argument.

Drafting a WR in the first round has the least value of all the positions by virtue of having the highest bust rate.

Numbers to back this up:

drafting in first round

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Don't be sorry. Pay attention to the discussion. I've already mentioned the high bust rate for WRs, and I've already pointed out that BB might not feel it's worth spending the capital on a WR pick that high. You're implying that I'm losing an argument when I'm making points on both sides of the discussion because I'm not arguing a particular point beyond noting what's gone down. That's silly.

Reality: There are 3 ways to get WRs in this NFL: Draft, trade, FA. Trades almost never happen, so they're basically out. I was told that you couldn't get them in FA, so that leaves only the draft. I was then told that half of the listed WR1s came from round one.

That leaves an obvious result: You risk draft capital, or you pray you get lucky while planning to live without a WR1. Then, instead of keeping it general, the argument was suddenly shifted specifically back to the Patriots, but only with years and manners that were designed to make the WR choice look like the wrong one.

First round WRs since 2008 (since 2009 was when the need arose, and no WRs were taken in 2008, when one could have 'planned' for 2009):

DHB
Crabtree
Maclin
Harvin
Nicks
Britt
Demaryius Thomas
Bryant
A.J. Green
Julio Jones
Baldwin
Blackmon
Floyd
Wright
Jenkins
Austin
Hopkins
Patterson



In terms of ability to play the game, the notion that first round WRs have been a bad bet in recent years is simply not true.

Deus Irae said:

I'm not sure why you're making this a personal issue, or even a Patriots-specific one, when this is just a general discussion. Since you're going there, though, they certainly, for example, could have gotten Hakeem Nicks instead of trading out of round 1 in 2009.

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The same Hakeem Nicks who completed his rookie contract unwanted by his team and could only find a 1 year prove it deal on the open market?

Deus Irae said:

Don't be sorry. Pay attention to the argument. I've already mentioned the high bust rate for WRs, and I've already pointed out that BB might not feel it's worth spending the capital on a WR pick that high. You're implying that I'm losing an argument when I'm making points on both sides of the discussion because I'm not arguing a particular point beyond noting what's gone down. That's silly.

Reality: There are 3 ways to get WRs in this NFL: Draft, trade, FA. Trades almost never happen, so they're basically out. I was told that you couldn't get them in FA, so that leaves only the draft. I was then told that half of the listed WR1s came from round one.

That leaves an obvious result: You risk draft capital, or you pray you get lucky while planning to live without a WR1. Then, instead of keeping it general, the argument was suddenly shifted specifically back to the Patriots, but only with years and manners that were designed to make the WR choice look like the wrong one.

First round WRs since 2008 (since 2009 was when the need arose, and no WRs were taken in 2008, when one could have 'planned' for 2009):

DHB
Crabtree
Maclin
Harvin
Nicks
Britt
Demaryius Thomas
Bryant
A.J. Green
Julio Jones
Baldwin
Blackmon
Floyd
Wright
Jenkins
Austin
Hopkins
Patterson



In terms of ability to play the game, the notion that first round WRs have been a bad bet in recent years is simply not true.

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That is a total of 18 players in 6 years and at least 13 of them are not a proven #1 today.
Add in the fact that the best of them mostly were taken before the Patriots had a selection, and I'm curious why we are saying making bad draft choices would have been a good thing.

Marqui said:

They used to have a lot of Brandons at the same time.

Mcgowan
Meriweather
Tate
Spikes

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...and Deaderick. Around the same time the entire team seemed to have dreadlocks.

Deus Irae said:

First round WRs since 2008 (since 2009 was when the need arose, and no WRs were taken in 2008, when one could have 'planned' for 2009):

DHB
Crabtree
Maclin
Harvin
Nicks
Britt
Demaryius Thomas
Bryant
A.J. Green
Julio Jones
Baldwin
Blackmon
Floyd
Wright
Jenkins
Austin
Hopkins
Patterson

In terms of ability to play the game, the notion that first round WRs have been a bad bet in recent years is simply not true.

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That you can make that list and come to the conclusion that you do is truly impressive.

Deus Irae said:

Antonio Brown's been to the Pro Bowl for 2 of the last 3 seasons and just came up one yard shy of 1500 yards receiving this past year. It's not exactly a surprise that we don't agree on who's a WR1 when you're excluding multi-time Pro Bowlers, and All-Pros, from being WR1s.

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Antonio Brown was a 6th round draft pick who only recorded 16 receptions his rookie season.

Antonio Brown NFL Football Statistics - Pro-Football-Reference.com

So much for the first round theory.

mayoclinic said:

That you can make that list and come to the conclusion that you do is truly impressive.

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Not really. It's not as if it's even close to a bad bet. It's only got 2 true bust s in the entire list, 3 if you put DHB as bust instead of disappointment.

AndyJohnson said:

Add in the fact that the best of them mostly were taken before the Patriots had a selection

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Yep, the relevant portion of the list -- players actually available to the Patriots -- would be:

Hakeem Nicks
Kenny Britt
Demaryius Thomas
Dez Bryant
A.J. Jenkins
Cordarrelle Patterson

Deus Irae said:

In terms of ability to play the game, the notion that first round WRs have been a bad bet in recent years is simply not true.

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That is only because "recent" is too soon to see how many of them will flame out eventually. The link I put up goes all the way back to 1971, and the numbers are fairly consistent.

And although you purport to suggest you did put up that side of the argument, you do seem to be suggesting that by virtue of elimination of the other two options (trade/FA), that the only surefire way to get a WR1 is to draft in the first round, or at least it seems that way to me.

The list you put up is suspect- hard for me to believe that a majority of them are true WR1.