Why Jordan Richards is a Top 64 Pick in the Patriots' NFL

Big-T said:

He's drafted a pretty good player then.

Tavon Wilson gets a lot of flack on here and it's mostly undeserved. He's great on Special Teams and it slipped everyone's attention but look at this chart on coverage stats:

In 112 passing downs the man he was covering was only targeted 12 times and caught the ball half of the time from there

Chart from here: http://nesn.com/2014/12/darrelle-revis-shines-in-patriots-2014-season-long-pass-coverage-stats/

Also of note: Duron Harmon gave up 0 catches and got an INT on 2 targets in 214 passing downs which is quite frankly insane.

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According to this chart, if you go by "Rating" there were only 6 Pats players worse than Revis last year.

The Gr8est said:

According to this chart, if you go by "Rating" there were only 6 Pats players worse than Revis last year.

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Rating is probably QB rating when targeting that player so lower = better, which makes pretty much everyone worse than Revis which would be correct.

Big-T said:

He's drafted a pretty good player then.

Tavon Wilson gets a lot of flack on here and it's mostly undeserved. He's great on Special Teams and it slipped everyone's attention but look at this chart on coverage stats:

In 112 passing downs the man he was covering was only targeted 12 times and caught the ball half of the time from there

Chart from here: http://nesn.com/2014/12/darrelle-revis-shines-in-patriots-2014-season-long-pass-coverage-stats/

Also of note: Duron Harmon gave up 0 catches and got an INT on 2 targets in 214 passing downs which is quite frankly insane.

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Although I agree when Tavon has come in on dime situation the past two years he's handled himself very well charts like that are very subjective.

JayNM said:

I do love BB's ability to coach. If there is someone who can turn anyone into a beast, it's the Hoodie. But as of now, 1 day after the draft, I am not a fan of the pick. Plenty of time to change my mind.

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Is it the pick, or the draft slot of the pick, that you don't like?

Big-T said:

He's drafted a pretty good player then.

Tavon Wilson gets a lot of flack on here and it's mostly undeserved. He's great on Special Teams and it slipped everyone's attention but look at this chart on coverage stats:

In 112 passing downs the man he was covering was only targeted 12 times and caught the ball half of the time from there

Chart from here: http://nesn.com/2014/12/darrelle-revis-shines-in-patriots-2014-season-long-pass-coverage-stats/

Also of note: Duron Harmon gave up 0 catches and got an INT on 2 targets in 214 passing downs which is quite frankly insane.

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Wilson covered mid short routes. Anything after 15 yards was sketchy.

Harmon was a lot of zone.

I get that he could potentially be an enforcer in the secondary and we have not had one of those since Harrison.

But his tape is not very good. Against the run he shows no instincts, takes bad angles and gets fooled a lot.
Against the pass, he is even worse with false steps, bad angles and no ball skills.


Really hoping bb does better with him than with Wilson, but not seeing how at this point.

JayNM said:

Then we could have drafted someone with equal value/ability later. I truly dislike reaches for need (and i'm not even gonna discuss if S is a need or not). Now a good comeback would be to say "Oh, but you don't know if he was a reach on BB's big board"

Then I will say this: BB could be wrong. I think he was, in this particular case, just like in Wilson's pick a few year ago. I know such words are not said often, thankfully, but it does happen on occasion

I do love BB's ability to coach. If there is someone who can turn anyone into a beast, it's the Hoodie. But as of now, 1 day after the draft, I am not a fan of the pick. Plenty of time to change my mind.

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Maybe the pick was a reach, but I don't think I'd say it was a reach for need. We return both of our starting safeties along with young players chosen with day 2 picks for depth behind them. And I didn't see any site listing safety as a top 5 need for us.

So if it's a reach, it wasn't a needs thing, but because he genuinely wanted him on the roster. If it was a need position, I would actually see people being more forgiving about it than they have been.

Bobs My Uncle said:

Is it the pick, or the draft slot of the pick, that you don't like?

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Strictly from what i have gathered in the internet, he strikes me as someone who is not a great athlete and I think this lack of athleticism COULD be a liability in today's super athletic NFL (even more so when he has to go against WRs and RsB) . I'll admit that i don't love the player. However, if he was picked at a later pick, in the end of the 3rd round or even the 4th (I believe he could be there for #101), i would be really good. At the 2nd round, with players like Strong, Lockette, PJ Williams (Once viewed as a 1st round prospect, fell because of a DUI), etc etc, i was disappointed.

But I'll say again: I trust Bill Belichick. He is the best ever, and if there is some lemonade in this player, he will squeeze it out

JayNM said:

He can be Einstein on the field, it is all moot if he can't keep up with the freaks he'll face. I get why people defend this pick, intangibles and leadership are great traits. I just hope he is able to match all that with the physical part of the game.

Don't like the pick, he would have been there at the 3rd round, there were tons of better prospects. However, i trust BB to develop players. We shall see

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Maybe he would have been there we later maybe not. For years people have made this claim but imo the actual drafts suggest otherwise. We all know that Belichick was targeting Bryan Stork but he waited until the fourth round to take him, on the other hand he took Vollmer in the second even though he wasn't even invited to the combine. This year we know that they were interested in both the Florida State OL and Shaq Mason yet they again waited until the mid rounds to take them while taking Richards early. Imo this indicated that Belichick and his team have a very good idea of where players and grips of players are likely to go in the draft and play that out to the best of their ability. Belichick spent a good deal of time going to check these guys out and I hill he was talking to the players and coaches the whole time and that combined with their internal discussions provided them with a strong sense on how the draft would shake out. The disconnect IMO comes from the fact that we all draw our conclusions from the groupthink of the so called draft experts, not from a long term process of evaluating and stacking players, so while we are looking at one set of rankings they have created their own board and they look very different than the team boards one you get past the top 30-50 players. I don't think Belichick is the one whose rankings are off I think ours are.

Big-T said:

He's drafted a pretty good player then.

Tavon Wilson gets a lot of flack on here and it's mostly undeserved. He's great on Special Teams and it slipped everyone's attention but look at this chart on coverage stats:

In 112 passing downs the man he was covering was only targeted 12 times and caught the ball half of the time from there

Chart from here: http://nesn.com/2014/12/darrelle-revis-shines-in-patriots-2014-season-long-pass-coverage-stats/

Also of note: Duron Harmon gave up 0 catches and got an INT on 2 targets in 214 passing downs which is quite frankly insane.

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IIRC, Tavon was the one who sealed the playoff game against the Ravens by coming up to make an absolute money hit on fourth down.

To me this pick is a hard one for me to digest. I'm not really one to fret all that much about a reach. BB has "reached" in the past occasionally with awesome results like a Mankins or a Vollmer. However, this pick comes in the aftermath of 2 similar type picks in the last 3 drafts, and immediately after we just signed 2 27 year old safeties to 3+ year extensions. To me there are some definite strengths to Richards's game, but I don't see them as being crucial value adds to what we already had. McCourty and Chung are experienced players who have both had the moniker coach on the field thrown around for with their name. Duron Harmon was praised for being a consistent last line of defense for the defense, and thus far has proven to be so. Tavon Wilson has proven to be a core special teamer, and played passable safety last season. I just don't see a rookie coming into a group with 2 guys with 5 years in the system and really being all that key as a "coach on the field" player.

I don't see Richard's coming in and having a clear shot at playing time unless he's an exceptional Harrison Smith type player, which I really don't see from his middling splits and OK film. If the rationale is that Richards was needed because we needed a reliable backup safety, then that means that Wilson and Harmon haven't been successful, and inherently should give you some pause now that we've gone back to the safety well drafting a player who most analysts again had pegged as a late rounder.

We've spent a lot of assets at the safety spot, very much at the expense of some other spots on our roster. If we're still working on it then something about our process isn't firing the way it should.

Richards plays SS. Athletically he is fine for SS and just OK for FS. He will be good on STs

Harmon plays FS.

Wilson is a FS who can't play CF.

Of Harmon and Wilson, one will go.

One of the CBs will be FS3

If he's not there in round 5 no big deal. Draft some other unathletic coach on the field type. They're tons of them. Plus veteran safeties on the cut wire are slow but experienced, maybe get one of them.

The Gr8est said:

You don't know that, all it takes is one other team.

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This is my main issue with anybody saying a pick is a "reach." The next guy drafting after you isn't Mayock, then Kiper, then another 29 sportswriters... And the Pats' next pick was after every other team drafted.

supafly said:

I don't know if we have any clue yet as to whether or not he'll be a defensive upgrade from Tavon Wilson.

As I've pointed out many times, Wilson led the entire team in special teams reps last season, so I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.

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OK, we'll definitely need to list Special Teamer as a separate position on defense.

1) My suggestion is that Belichick expects to be at least as good as Wilson on defense, and should penciled in as our 4th safety.

2) We can discuss how many STO players we will end up with on defense. Perhaps Wilson, Ebner, White and Freeney will all make the roster. My starting number is TWO, with Wilson or Ebner getting 1, and with White or Freeney getting the other.

supafly said:

I don't know if we have any clue yet as to whether or not he'll be a defensive upgrade from Tavon Wilson.

As I've pointed out many times, Wilson led the entire team in special teams reps last season, so I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon.

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I agree.

It's time to move on from special teams only players to players that can contribute on defense and special teams. Nate Ebner contributes virtually nothing on defense and if Jordan Richards will be a special teams contributor from the outset, Nate Ebner has become expendable.

Before we announce him as a bust, or Ronnie Lott 2.0, let him get on the field.

It's nice that Richards is smart but as we're constantly reminded, Fitzpatrick scored 48 on the Wonderlic and he's a below average QB. I'll hold off on judging Richards until I see his on field ability but right now, there's nothing wrong with people questioning the pick. Let's hope Richards proves them wrong.

ausbacker said:

It's nice that Richards is smart but as we're constantly reminded, Fitzpatrick scored 48 on the Wonderlic and he's a below average QB. I'll hold off on judging Richards until I see his on field ability but right now, there's nothing wrong with people questioning the pick. Let's hope Richards proves them wrong.

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We have two safeties in their contract years: Wilson and Ebner, and Harmon signed through 2016. Since the draft is primarily about planning for Year 2 and year 3, drafting a safety makes sense. Obviously, we all would have liked the choice to have been at 111 instead of 64. That doesn't matter now.

If Richards is a backup SS next year, many here will think that Belichick wasted a draft pick. I suggest that Belichick will be fine with having both Chung and Richards at SS, and with McCourty and Harmon at FS. I think that this is the case for both 2015 and 2016.

The open question is whether to keep a 5th safety, and if he needs to actually play safety to make the 53 man squad. I suggest that Wilson is probably the best choice as the 5th safety this year.

kennyb said:

If he's not there in round 5 no big deal. Draft some other unathletic coach on the field type. They're tons of them. Plus veteran safeties on the cut wire are slow but experienced, maybe get one of them.

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Tons? Name just one who is close.

Richards seems like a pretty unique player. We can continue to debate his worth but there are not tons of players just like him. Read some of the background on him. He sounds as intelligent and driven as BB himself.