OT: Chargers Extend Danny Woodhead

Go Danny.delighted for him

We knew Danny was good. Glad his time here in NE earned him the 1st contract with the Chargers and that he excelled there and got the extension..

I'm glad he headed west and out of the division. Easier to root for him. Seems like he's in a good spot. Hopefully Vereen can stay healthy this year and show people what he can really do. And hopefully he can start catching those passes over the shoulder on wheel routes.

Happy for him, but, all in all, I still wish he were a Patriot.

Brady6 said:

I would say Vereen is the more talented player. I would not say he is better though. He has to not only remain healthy but he has to work on his issues with drops. Woodhead dropped 1 pass in the last 2 seasons.

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As long as he's not wearing a cast on his wrist, I'm not worried about Vereen's issues with drops. Woodhead would be dropping a bunch of balls if he was playing with a cast, too.

Rob0729 said:

But that is a bit misleading. Vereen wasn't used his rookie year and he was on in season IR last year. Plus, last year was Woodhead's sixth season in the NFL. His first two seasons were non-existent. And even though Vereen missed 8 games due to a broken wrist, he had respectable numbers as the change of pace/third down back.

Vereen is clearly the better player when healthy, but health is an issue.

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They had the same amount of carries their rookie years.

Woodhead had 547 yards rushing in 2010, his second season in the league, Vereen has 516 rushing yards in his career.

Woodhead's 2013 numbers are equal to Vereen's career numbers in 26 games. Vereen is not "clearly the better player".

RayClay said:

Good for Woodhead.

I do think, because Vereen's been inconsistently available, people are wildly overrating Woodhead, but let's see what Vereen and White do.

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If anyone is being wildly overrated it is Vereen, who has had only a few games over three years in which he made much of a difference. Woodhead has been the more consistent and productive player by far.

PatsWickedPissah said:

Miss Woody. You'd think that BB with all his intellect & help from MIT could have figured out how to extend Woodhead and make him taller before the Chargers did.

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That's not the "extend Woodhead" joke I thought I would see.

Rob0729 said:

For all the talk about letting Welker go, I think Woodhead was the bigger loss.

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Unquestionably. Woodhead is one of the few guys we've let go I think we can definitively say was a mistake once we saw the contract details. Maybe the only one off the top of my head at least. He would've been huge last year, especially with Vereen out and/or unable to catch the ball in stride.

RayClay said:

I congratulated him. He's definitely better than an injured Vereen and the opposite would also be true. As i say, I'm looking forward to seeing Vereen and White.

I like gutsy players like Woodhead too, but i think people here overrate him because they like him. I also don't condemn players that leave and play on other teams. I wish him the best except when we play San Diego.

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I'm a big Vereen supporter but Woodhead has proven what he is capable of and right now Vereen has shown flashes. The player who has proven capable is always the better player in my book. I think Vereen is the more talented player and if he can put it together he will prove to be the better player but right now Woodhead is the better of the 2.

Rob0729 said:

No I have seen plenty from Vereen that shows he is a better player than Woodhead. You look at the first game last year or the playoff game against the Texans the year before. Vereen has the ability to be a game changing playmaker. His problem is staying healthy which obviously affects his consistency too.

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I re-watched the first game last year and I saw nothing that made me think he was an exceptional player. The plays he made in that game came on nice opportunities but it was Edelman and Amendola who won the game. The bad drops he had later (wheel route!) may be put down to the after-effects of his injury. But I remain to be convinced. I chose my words carefully -- I said that I have yet to see him do anything that shows him to be a better player than DW. And I'm sticking with them on the strength of that evidence.

Armchair Quarterback said:

If anyone is being wildly overrated it is Vereen, who has had only a few games over three years in which he made much of a difference. Woodhead has been the more consistent and productive player by far.

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Who is wildly overrating Vereen?

I may be alone on this one, but it's hard for me to compare a player who doesn't play to one who does. I commend those that have that ability.

Woodhead wasn't very good when he missed time, then performed at less than his best, after his concussion. Edelman was nothing special when he was injured off and on either. If I could predict which players would be healthy when, I'd keep them and drop the others, but i don't have that ability.

Armchair Quarterback said:

They had the same amount of carries their rookie years.

Woodhead had 547 yards rushing in 2010, his second season in the league, Vereen has 516 rushing yards in his career.

Woodhead's 2013 numbers are equal to Vereen's career numbers in 26 games. Vereen is not "clearly the better player".

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A lot of players in the league have more rushing yards than that and not just against pass defenses.

Again, I doff my hat for your ability to predict what production a player who didn't play would have had. I don't possess that skill.

RayClay said:

A lot of players in the league have more rushing yards than that and not just against pass defenses.

Again, I doff my hat for your ability to predict what production a player who didn't play would have had. I don't possess that skill.

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Apparently you do because you called the more consistent, more productive player "wildly overrated" and blamed it on Vereen being "inconsistently available".

We're not comparing them to a lot of players in the league, we're comparing them to each other and Woodhead has been by far the more productive player, yet you think he is the wildly overrated one.

I don't buy the argument that Vereen is better than Woodhead, especially after last season. Do people forget his SB46 performance as well?

Woody is a beast. Vereen has potential. It's almost reminiscent of the old "Amendola is a more talented version of Welker" nonsense.

@FFJeffM: Shane Vereen's drop rate was 3rd in the NFL in 2013 at 10.1%. He trailed only Reggie Bush & Devone Bess among players with 50+ targets.

Vereen might be more athletically gifted than Woodhead. But nothing that he has shown, to date, indicates that he's better than him. That might change if he stays healthy, but he'll have to remain injury-free for a season in order for that to happen.

Health is pretty key here and Vereen just hasn't been. I'd like to see how they stack up if SV could stay healthy for 16 games but that just hasn't been the case. So the better player is definitely the one that is always out there.

However if there is an argument for potential I can see the Vereen fans waving the the 47 rec's in 8 games stat out there for all to see as well as the 4.7 is greater than 4.0 ypc. In a nutshell I like like both players but cheer for Vereen because he is still with the Patriots. No doubt in my mind he can more than duplicate Woodheads production but health is the main issue and he hasn't proved squat in that department yet.

At the end of 2012 the two players had the same skill set and didn't seem markedly different in ability. Vereen was the cheaper player so it made sense to stick with him last year. Obviously Woodhead had the much better season in 2013 but I don't think having Woodhead instead of Vereen would have made a huge difference for this team either. I really like Woodhead but I can't seem to put letting him go high on my list of regrets, or at least not yet.

RayClay said:

Who is wildly overrating Vereen?

I may be alone on this one, but it's hard for me to compare a player who doesn't play to one who does. I commend those that have that ability.

Woodhead wasn't very good when he missed time, then performed at less than his best, after his concussion. Edelman was nothing special when he was injured off and on either. If I could predict which players would be healthy when, I'd keep them and drop the others, but i don't have that ability.

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Anyone who says Vereen is clearly a better player than Woodhead is overrating him. There is nothing to suggest Vereen is a better player, actually, it is the opposite, Vereen and Woodhead were on the same team for 2 seasons, and Vereen never took any of Woodhead’s playing time. If Vereen really were a “clearly better” player, he would have taken reps from Woodhead. Belichick let Woodhead walk because at the end of the deal he signed last season he will be 30 years old, and RBs generally slow down at 28-30.

Brady6 said:

Anyone who says Vereen is clearly a better player than Woodhead is overrating him. There is nothing to suggest Vereen is a better player, actually, it is the opposite, Vereen and Woodhead were on the same team for 2 seasons, and Vereen never took any of Woodhead’s playing time. If Vereen really were a “clearly better” player, he would have taken reps from Woodhead. Belichick let Woodhead walk because at the end of the deal he signed last season he will be 30 years old, and RBs generally slow down at 28-30.

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If you look at the game logs from 2012 it is pretty clear that Vereen was taking the majority of the reps over Woodhead after game 10, other than a couple of games where he was benched for fumbling. In the playoffs that year Vereen clearly had the majority of reps over Woodhead. Of course that may have been a bit forced to see what they had in the kid, but I recall people being pretty excited about him back then and being a pretty even trade off with Woody.