The discussion has changed from Wes v Amendola to Wes v Jules

Brady6 · Sep 19, 2014

patriot1136 said:
Wasn't the thing with Lloyd more of his locker room prescence? He had a bad attitude and didn't mesh well with the team

There was some talk about him being bi-polar.

SalemPats · Sep 19, 2014

Deus Irae said:
And yet again, another attempt to crap on a former member of the team for no good reason. What the hell is wrong with you people?

Agreed, Wes was a great Patriot and mini-tron is a current great Patriot.

Marinlik · Sep 19, 2014

Gronkandez said:
He caught some balls, I'll give him that, but was he ever tackled or did he just fall down whenever he caught the ball? He was like the Law Firm of receivers in that he was solid but never a threat to make a big play.

900 yards and 12 yards a catch is not really the Law Firm of wide receivers.

Lloyd really gets much more crap than he should. I think a lot of it comes from people who, for no real reason at all, thought that he would be the next Moss, but then got mad when he was in fact not Moss. But yeah. I would have liked him to be more physical.

Bruins29 · Sep 19, 2014

Somebody did a thorough breakdown of Lloyds performance here using metrics and it showed that given the amounts of targets Loyd got combined with his YAC and perhaps one other thing that while his production (on paper) was good - the truth was the opposite.

Ring 6 · Sep 19, 2014

Bruins29 said:
Somebody did a thorough breakdown of Lloyds performance here using metrics and it showed that given the amounts of targets Loyd got combined with his YAC and perhaps one other thing that while his production (on paper) was good - the truth was the opposite.

We need to be careful citing 'someone here did a breakdown'
Those are usually rife with assumptions and inconsistencies, and the debate over them never resolves them, it just ends up in intenet tough guy protocals.

And, you can't 'thoroughly breakdown' something like that without analyzing the target itself rather than looking at a number.
For example balls thrown to Lloyd were the type of throws that have a much lower completion % than ones thrown to Welker, so there is no meaning in comparing catches per target.

SalemPats · Sep 19, 2014

AndyJohnson said:
We need to be careful citing 'someone here did a breakdown'
Those are usually rife with assumptions and inconsistencies, and the debate over them never resolves them, it just ends up in intenet tough guy protocals.

And, you can't 'thoroughly breakdown' something like that without analyzing the target itself rather than looking at a number.
For example balls thrown to Lloyd were the type of throws that have a much lower completion % than ones thrown to Welker, so there is no meaning in comparing catches per target.

These are the stat guys who don't watch the game live. Analytics are great, but just a small part of analyzing players and plays

Ring 6 · Sep 19, 2014

SalemPats said:
These are the stat guys who don't watch the game live. Analytics are great, but just a small part of analyzing players and plays

Most football statistical analysis is flawed and lacks context. That is why using one statistical method to compare players is usually full of fail.

BradyFTW! · Sep 19, 2014

Edelman isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison to Welker. For one, when Wes was a free agent, the choice that they made was Welker vs. Amendola, not Welker vs. Edelman. Remember the timing of the whole thing: the Pats hurried to lock up Amendola once Welker was meeting with Denver and it was clear he was probably going to sign there, because they didn't want to be left with neither. Edelman was out there in free agency the whole time, but the Pats were willing to wait on him, presumably because a) they didn't think he would attract a ton of interest (which he didn't), and b) they didn't seem to be all that afraid of losing him. So while Edelman has clearly grown into a prominent role in the passing game, I think it's fair to say that the Patriots didn't plan on that. Which is fine: this is why you pay a bunch of guys a smaller amount of money and let them fight it out in camp.

Separately, if you're just looking at how they play on the field, Edelman spends a whole lot more time outside of the slot than Welker did. In terms of utilization, they don't strike me as being remarkably similar players--or in remarkably similar roles--beyond the fact that Edelman's been the primary WR target since Welker left.

If you ask me, they didn't really replace Welker at all. They couldn't, because nobody did what he did nearly as well as he did it. They moved on, for better or worse, from an offense that relies so heavily on a pure slot receiver (yes, Welker lined up outside the slot occasionally, but it was rare).

Ring 6 · Sep 19, 2014

BradyFTW! said:
Edelman isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison to Welker. For one, when Wes was a free agent, the choice that they made was Welker vs. Amendola, not Welker vs. Edelman.

For another, Edelman spends a whole lot more time outside of the slot than Welker did. In terms of utilization, they don't strike me as being all that similar as players, beyond the fact that Edelman's been the primary WR target since Welker left.

No one is apples to apples. We don't have 'roles' that we squeeze people into despite their skillset. We have an offense that changes to adapt to the talent available.

BradyFTW! · Sep 19, 2014

AndyJohnson said:
No one is apples to apples. We don't have 'roles' that we squeeze people into despite their skillset. We have an offense that changes to adapt to the talent available.

Sure, but some players are a lot more similar than others, and a lot more comparable in their roles than others. In this case, I think Edelman and Welker are a lot less similar than most of these posts suggest.

Ring 6 · Sep 19, 2014

BradyFTW! said:
Sure, but some players are a lot more similar than others, and a lot more comparable in their roles than others. In this case, I think Edelman and Welker are a lot less similar than most of these posts suggest.

Well they do a lot of the same things. There skillsets, of course are not identical.
But they are both white, so that causes misconception all by itself.

voluntarysaftey · Sep 19, 2014

Maybe the discussions should be:
Instead of paying Amendola and Lafell money to be crappy, we could've had 1 probowl outside WR with that money

BradyFTW! · Sep 19, 2014

AndyJohnson said:
Well they do a lot of the same things. There skillsets, of course are not identical.
But they are both white, so that causes misconception all by itself.

I also suspect that that's where a lot of the similarity talk comes from. And yeah, they do a lot of the same things, but you could say that about pretty much any under-6-foot WR who lacks burner speed

They also do a lot of very, very different things, as evidenced by the number of times we've seen Edelman going deep down the sidelines. I'd argue that he's a lot closer to a poor man's Antonio Brown than a poor man's prime-Welker.

BradyFTW! · Sep 19, 2014

voluntarysaftey said:
Maybe the discussions should be:
Instead of paying Amendola and Lafell money to be crappy, we could've had 1 probowl WR with that money

Which one? These hypotheticals are pointless: name a pro bowl receiver who we could've had over the last two offseasons for LaFell + Amendola money.

Two offseasons ago, when we signed Amendola, which of the following would you have preferred?: Greg Jennings, Mike Wallace (and the boatload of money that he got), Dwayne Bowe, or Victor Cruz (with his first round tender, so goodbye Easley)

As much as Amendola hasn't panned out, I wouldn't want any of those other guys for what they would've commanded either. If there was a better play, it was probably getting Emmanuel Sanders as a RFA... which the Pats tried to do.

PatCat · Sep 19, 2014

Wes is obviously fading but he is clearly better prime for prime than jules and Amendola.

Rob0729 · Sep 19, 2014

BradyFTW! said:
Edelman isn't really an apples-to-apples comparison to Welker. For one, when Wes was a free agent, the choice that they made was Welker vs. Amendola, not Welker vs. Edelman. Remember the timing of the whole thing: the Pats hurried to lock up Amendola once Welker was meeting with Denver and it was clear he was probably going to sign there, because they didn't want to be left with neither. Edelman was out there in free agency the whole time, but the Pats were willing to wait on him, presumably because a) they didn't think he would attract a ton of interest (which he didn't), and b) they didn't seem to be all that afraid of losing him. So while Edelman has clearly grown into a prominent role in the passing game, I think it's fair to say that the Patriots didn't plan on that. Which is fine: this is why you pay a bunch of guys a smaller amount of money and let them fight it out in camp.

Separately, if you're just looking at how they play on the field, Edelman spends a whole lot more time outside of the slot than Welker did. In terms of utilization, they don't strike me as being remarkably similar players--or in remarkably similar roles--beyond the fact that Edelman's been the primary WR target since Welker left.

If you ask me, they didn't really replace Welker at all. They couldn't, because nobody did what he did nearly as well as he did it. They moved on, for better or worse, from an offense that relies so heavily on a pure slot receiver (yes, Welker lined up outside the slot occasionally, but it was rare).

Replacing Welker is a relative term. What do you mean by it. Replace the current version of Wes Welker (or what the Pats probably would have gotten if they resigned him) or what Welker was in the past for this team? When I talk about replacing Welker, I talk about what Welker would have probably given us more so than what he did for this team in the past.

Even then, Welker and Edelman are different players with different skill sets. But they both played a similar role in this offense in that they were both slot receivers who are/were Brady's favorite target.

edkk323 · Sep 19, 2014

So one day WW will enter the Pats HOF. What is your opinion on that? Yes or No. He was great less Da Drop.

BradyFTW! · Sep 19, 2014

Rob0729 said:
Replacing Welker is a relative term. What do you mean by it. Replace the current version of Wes Welker (or what the Pats probably would have gotten if they resigned him) or what Welker was in the past for this team? When I talk about replacing Welker, I talk about what Welker would have probably given us more so than what he did for this team in the past.

Even then, Welker and Edelman are different players with different skill sets. But they both played a similar role in this offense in that they were both slot receivers who are/were Brady's favorite target.

That's exactly where the misconception is. Edelman is not primarily a slot receiver. I just went back over last week's game, and he lined up for 47 snaps on offense (including penalties). The breakdown was as follows:

Lined up in the slot: 14
Lined up as an outside receiver: 28
Lined up in slot then motioned out: 3
Lined up out then motioned into slot: 2

So he lined up outside about twice as often as he lined up in the slot. A few of his snaps from the slot were in trips formations with multiple slot receivers, and conversely a few of his outside snaps were inside the numbers, but neither was the case frequently enough to make those numbers misleading.

But, to be fair, that doesn't tell the whole story. It would be just as telling to look at whether he was lined up inside or outside the numbers. Again, this includes penalties, and I accounted for short/far side of the field (so if he's lined up barely outside the numbers on the short side, I count it as inside, or barely inside the numbers on the far side counts as outside).

Inside the numbers: 19
Outside the numbers: 28

While I don't record this for every game (in fact, this is the first time I've done it), this lines up pretty closely with what I was expecting from watching the past year-plus. Edelman can line up in the slot, and does a good amount of the time, but he's primarily an outside-the-numbers guy by a pretty wide margin, in a way that Welker never was. His skill set more closely resembles Antonio Brown's than Welker's.

Rob0729 · Sep 19, 2014

BradyFTW! said:
That's exactly where the misconception is. Edelman is not primarily a slot receiver. I just went back over last week's game, and he lined up for 47 snaps on offense (including penalties). The breakdown was as follows:

Lined up in the slot: 14
Lined up as an outside receiver: 28
Lined up in slot then motioned out: 3
Lined up out then motioned into slot: 2

So he lined up outside about twice as often as he lined up in the slot. A few of his snaps from the slot were in trips formations with multiple slot receivers, and conversely a few of his outside snaps were inside the numbers, but neither was the case frequently enough to make those numbers misleading.

But, to be fair, that doesn't tell the whole story. It would be just as telling to look at whether he was lined up inside or outside the numbers. Again, this includes penalties, and I accounted for short/far side of the field (so if he's lined up barely outside the numbers on the short side, I count it as inside, or barely inside the numbers on the far side counts as outside).

Inside the numbers: 19
Outside the numbers: 28

While I don't record this for every game (in fact, this is the first time I've done it), this lines up pretty closely with what I was expecting from watching the past year-plus. Edelman can line up in the slot, and does a good amount of the time, but he's primarily an outside-the-numbers guy by a pretty wide margin, in a way that Welker never was. His skill set more closely resembles Antonio Brown's than Welker's.

I understand he is more than just a slot receiver and plays outside a lot. But he still last year lined up in the slot more than outside. But the point is he replaced Welker as Brady's goto guy.

Rob0729 · Sep 19, 2014

edkk323 said:
So one day WW will enter the Pats HOF. What is your opinion on that? Yes or No. He was great less Da Drop.

Welker will definitely get into the Patriots HOF, but since the fans vote on it, I wouldn't bet on him being a first ballot HOF.

The discussion has changed from Wes v Amendola to Wes v Jules

Pro Bowl Player

Experienced Starter w/First Big Contract

Rotational Player and Threatening Starter's Job

Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal

PatsFans.com Supporter

Experienced Starter w/First Big Contract

PatsFans.com Supporter

Goodell sucks

PatsFans.com Supporter

Goodell sucks

PatsFans.com Supporter

Third String But Playing on Special Teams

Goodell sucks

Goodell sucks

On the Game Day Roster

PatsFans.com Supporter

Third String But Playing on Special Teams

Goodell sucks

PatsFans.com Supporter

PatsFans.com Supporter

Similar threads