Your thoughts on Patriots cornerback strategy in the draft...

The big question in my mind is why did the Patriots almost ignore the CB position in the draft? It is quite curious; they almost seemed to deliberately ignore quality CBs on the board when they picked. In the second, they ignored PJ Williams to get an obscure safety from Stanford. Later in the draft, Bobby McCain was available, but they traded away the pick and got a long-snapper. In the 6'th or 7'th they could have had Ifo Ekpre-Olomu, but let the Browns nab him.

Clearly the Patriots know a lot more about the draft and their own team than we do, so what happened? Tom E. Curran suggests that the Patriots are happy with the CBs on their roster. Seems unlikely, but who knows. Butler and Dennard are the only guys who are any good at coverage. Arrington and Ryan were exposed in the SB.

Maybe the Patriots had the cornerbacks undervalued compared to other teams so that, for instance, they had Bobby McCain valued as a 6 or 7 instead of the 4 (?) that he went at. Maybe the Patriots wanted a spotless off-field record thus eliminating PJ Williams. Maybe the Patriots only wanted speedsters, again eliminating PJ.

I don't know what happened and we may never know, but next season should be interesting. Is the cupboard bare or do they already have adequate CBs?

They don't need to be satisfied with their current roster of corners to not like any of the available alternatives.

The strategy seems pretty clear: compensate for any deficiencies in the secondary with a hellacious front 7.

Bonzo said:

They don't need to be satisfied with their current roster of corners to not like any of the available alternatives.

The strategy seems pretty clear: compensate for any deficiencies in the secondary with a hellacious front 7.

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That is a flawed strategy; you cannot sack the QB on every play and every time you do not get to the QB, you are inviting disaster.

If they had CBs rated higher on their boards than players they took and if they felt those CBs could come in and contribute to the roster, they probably would have taken one.

Just because Mel Kiper puts a grade on a bunch of CBs doesn't mean the Patriots would even consider drafting them.

As for their current CBs, the Pats pretty much had to give Malcolm Butler the nod as a presumptive starting CB heading into camp -- with or without Revis. Did you see the way he played in the SuperBowl? He was the star CB in a game with Darrell Revis and Richard Sherman. You would have to be insane to think that you'll get that level of performance from a rookie draft pick.

The Pats are looking at the "next Richard Sherman" and Pats fans are complaining about it...

FredFromDartmouth said:

That is a flawed strategy; you cannot sack the QB on every play and every time you do not get to the QB, you are inviting disaster.

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The 2007 Super Bowl champion NY Giants say hello.

One can only assume they like what they have @ CB. Heading into the draft, I thought finding a replacement for Chung was a critical need and, hopefully, they found the answer in Richards.

My guess, and this is the way I viewed the draft, is that outside the few top guys, none of the CBs were an upgrade on what is on the roster already. And if that's the case, why draft them?

manxman2601 said:

My guess, and this is the way I viewed the draft, is that outside the few top guys, none of the CBs were an upgrade on what is on the roster already. And if that's the case, why draft them?

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Exactly my thoughts.

Ekpre-Olomu is the only one who, if healthy, would be a strong contender to win a starting place. However he won't be healthy this year for sure, and maybe never will. His knee got obliterated.

Nobody on here or in the media knows what defense the Patriots will be running so you don't know how the current corners fit in with what they have in mind.

manxman2601 said:

My guess, and this is the way I viewed the draft, is that outside the few top guys, none of the CBs were an upgrade on what is on the roster already. And if that's the case, why draft them?

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Yeah, and surprised at how early some of those corners were taken... grateful for a team that leans closer to a BPA draft philosophy.

Their strategy was to get a cornerback with their high first round pick. They knew they didn't have a high first round pick, so they signed three vets and probably might sign more.

Nobody in the draft would or could replace Revis! There was never a step in and save us type of pick. I don't personally like it, but my feeling on the subject are meaningless. BB seems to be OK so far with it, so we can only wait and see how it turns out. I will always support BB over the faithless!

two words - Jimmy Jean

Either they're satisfied with what they've got at CB, or they didn't think the draft options would be any help, I suppose.

Roberts and Wells are both coverage type LB/SS in the box types, who you'd imagine would be deployed against TE and RB in coverage, so maybe that takes some of the schematic burden off the CBs to play that role.

I do think it is strange that BB not double, but triple-dipped at DE/OLB pass rusher in the draft. And he seemed almost giddy about Grissom and Flowers. There may be some deeper significance there that I don't quite appreciate.

One thing for sure, the 2015 D will be quite different from what we had in 2014. All those coverage sacks we had this past year will probably not be in the cards this year. Signs are the plan would be to force the ball out quickly, into the teeth of an opportunistic zone. When in man coverage, if the pass rush lives up to expectations, the CBs don't have to stick on their marks for 5-Mississippi any,ore... 2 or 3 should do it.

FredFromDartmouth said:

That is a flawed strategy; you cannot sack the QB on every play and every time you do not get to the QB, you are inviting disaster.

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Don't think there's anything terribly controversial, particularly in a salary-cap league, about playing to your strengths to mitigate relative weaknesses. (Can't have a roster of 53 pro-bowlers -- and even if you could, you're still not going to "win" on every single play!) And not for nothing, it's not like the LBs are completely without coverage responsibilities. Specific to your point, the Patriots have won super bowls implementing this very tactic, when they were forced to start reserves in the secondary due to injury.

As an aside, just because there's only one Revis in the universe does not preclude me from liking the trio of Butler, Dennard, Arrington.

FredFromDartmouth said:

That is a flawed strategy; you cannot sack the QB on every play and every time you do not get to the QB, you are inviting disaster.

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You don't need to sack the QB on every play as long as you're getting pressure and disrupting plays. Sacks are overrated. Pressure and hurries are just as important.

Seriously, most drafts there are very few top corners and a bunch of projects. You can find other teams cut projects with a few years experience.

I'm thrilled they got waht looks like a dominat DL at their spot. You're usually look at depth at that position after the top 15 or so.

DE/OLB was strong so they picked up a few of them and, yes, the pass rush we anticipate does allow you to play zone and ball hawk.

You can pick up guards in the 4th, so they did that instead of using 1st or 2nd rounders.

I have no clue about Richards but i bet one other team had eyes for him and that they are really going to emphasize the s/lb hybrid to replace a LB in their pass coverage.

I'm not sure why everyone is ignoring the kid they did get, you know, the one who ran a 4.38 40, has a 39 inch vertical leap, an 11.01 broadjump, 23(!) reps at 225 and a 6.66 3 cone, as well as a rep for being physical with receivers.

rochrist said:

I'm not sure why everyone is ignoring the kid they did get, you know, the one who ran a 4.38 40, has a 39 inch vertical leap, an 11.01 broadjump, 23(!) reps at 225 and a 6.66 3 cone, as well as a rep for being physical with receivers.

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Yeah, I liked the pick. But he is very raw. Measurables are fine as a component of player evaluation but tape is more important. I think we'll see him develop into a solid cb over time, but he'll be limited to mainly special teams action this year.

As someone who wanted Ifo, it looks like his knee was worse than we thought. Other than that, the Pats DO HAVE cbs. yes, they don't have a Reevis but how many teams do?? Looks like the Pats are going to zone with a non-stop pass rush as well as having a D-line that can stop the run. Maybe more blitzing from the Lbs as well.

Its not always who you have, its also how you use them and few coaches excel like BB in the latte.