How does Belichick and his staff rate at drafting wide receivers?

In the past 15 years they drafted Edelman, Givens and Branch, so not as bad as some would suggest.

Obviously the Pats haven't been good at drafting WRs, but the sample size is still too small for me to say that Belichick 'can't draft them or anything. Everyone said he couldn't draft LBs until he went and got Mayo, Hightower and Collins.

Who cares?

Best offense most years, best wins, playoffs Super bowls.

Where does Dobson and Boyce fit in

Patsfanin Philly said:

Do you include Moss and Welker who were acquired for draft picks? (2nd/7th and 4th rounders.)

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NO.......

Probably better then you think. Mostly Belichick likes to trade draft picks to pick up a WR and sign FA WR. 15 years of drafting and we complain about Bethel Johnson, Brandon Tate and Taylor Price but then we got Givens, Edelman, Slater in later rounds.

2001 No WR drafted. Top receivers on Roster were Troy Brown, David Patten and Terry Glenn

2002 Deion Branch 2nd round, David Givens 7th round. Top receivers Brown, Patten, Branch

2003 Bethel Johnson 2nd round Top receivers Brown, Patten, Branch

2004 P K Sam 5th Top Receivers Givens, Patten, Branch (Brown slipped to 4th)

2005 No WR drafted Top Receivers Branch, Givens, Brown

2006 Chad Jackson 2nd Top receivers Cadwell (FA), Brown, Gabriel (trade)

2007 No WR drafted Top receivers Welker (trade), Moss (trade), Stallworth (FA)

2008 Matt Slater 5th Top Receivers Welker, Moss, Gaffney (FA)

2009 Brandon Tate 5th, Julian Edelman 7th. Top Receivers: Welker, Moss, Edelman

2010 Taylor Price 3rd. Top Receivers: Welker, Branch (trade), Tate (Note: this is the start of Gronk and Hernandez receiving more catches. The 3rd WR is less important)

2011 No WR drafted. Top Receivers: Welker, Branch, Johnson (trade)

2012 Jeremy Ebert 7th. Top Receivers: Welker, Lloyd (FA), Edelman

2013 Dobson 2nd, Boyce 4th. Top Receivers: Edelman, Amendola (FA), Dobson

2014 Gallon 7th. Top Receivers: Edelman, LaFell (FA), Amendola

2015 No WR drafted

BB has been terrible... these are some of the WR's he could've drafted as they were there but he traded out of the spot: Greg Jennings (actually traded up with GB to get Chad Jackson), Dez, Demaryius...

Players he's drafted: Chad Jackson, Bethel, Dobson, Price, Tate... Yuck!

(I'm cutting out rounds 5-7. All of them added up equal a 2nd or 3rd round pick at most)

2013: 4th round Boyce, 2nd round Dobson
2010: 3rd round Taylor Price
2009: 3rd round Brandon Tate
2006: 2nd round Chad Jackson
2003: 2nd round Bethel Johnson
2002: 2nd round Deion Branch


In 15 seasons, BB has spent the draft capital equivalent of the 3rd or 4th overall pick on WR. He's gotten Givens, Branch, and Edelman in return.

He hasn't gotten much. He hasn't invested much. It'd be a different story if he was blowing heavy draft capital at the position.

I've been thinking about this for a while.

No, I don't think BB has a good record drafting WRs. Heck, one of the best WR he ever drafted was a QB. But, when i stopped to think about why were we able to keep being one of the best NFL teams for 15 years, i am almost glad we didn't find a great, future HoFer WR (Edelman still in contest though, lol). Why? It is not a priority for winning a Super Bowl.

Sure, when he's a rookie, we can ride that cheap rookie contract, and that would be awesome thing. But after those years are over, how much money does it cost to keep a A-grade WR (usually)? Over 10 m a year. That would be close to 10% of the cap space nowadays. Calvin Johnson's contract is something close to 16M/Y IIRC. It's that really the best use of cap space? To use on a player who will get, considering a great day, from 10 to 15 touches on the ball in a game? Honestly, i think there is a bunch of other positions that are more important than WR.

I did a bit of research. Since 2001, only TWO SB winning teams had a WR costing close to 10% of the cap space (I did not confirm how much was the cap space in that year, but my best recollection was not disregarded about that, so I'll just keep rolling here). That was 2006 Colts' Marvin Harrison(12M) and 2009 Packers' Greg Jennings(8.9M) - That's not even that much, but it was the highest paid WR in the SB in quite some time. And in those years: Colts were against arguably one of the worst teams to reach the SB in recent memory (Rex Grossman's Bears) and the Packers were cruising with a very friendly Rodgers contract - in 2009, his cap hit was merely close to 10M, in 2010 was 6M.

So, what I am saying is, although it would be great to have a incredible WR, like Randy Moss in 2007, I am not sure it is worth to pay close to 10M for a player in that position. I would rather have a LaFell (3.5M salary this year) than a Demaryus Thomas (13M this year) and spreading this money around, making us an overall better team.

I have given BB a ton of flask for striking out at that position year in, year out. But even when he makes a mistakes, it appears to be a good thing.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I was with that on my mind for quite some time now, hopefully my ideas are getting through clearly

Canuck said:

Probably better then you think...

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I stopped reading at this point.

patfanken said:

.

When are we going to learn the lesson that has played out right before our eyes for us the last 15 years. WR is perhaps the most over rated impact position in the entire league. It is also the position where the talent pool is the deepest.

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Well we can test your theory this year. Green Bay Packers were one of the three favourite teams for the SB this year and have just lost Jordy Nelson for the year. If your theory is correct, their chances should not have diminished. We can meet back here in Feb to continue this debate

I'm aware he isn't a first round WR (picked 36) but his role on the team is the same as any first round WR.

37Harrison said:

BB has been terrible... these are some of the WR's he could've drafted as they were there but he traded out of the spot: Greg Jennings (actually traded up with GB to get Chad Jackson), Dez, Demaryius...

Players he's drafted: Chad Jackson, Bethel, Dobson, Price, Tate... Yuck!

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I generally agree with your post, but NOT drafting Dez Bryant with a 1st round pick was the right move IMO.

fair catch fryar said:

I generally agree with your post, but NOT drafting Dez Bryant with a 1st round pick was the right move IMO.

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I hear what you are saying but do you really think Dez would act like he does in Dallas here? The plain fact is the dude is a beast. If BB was willing to take a shot on Dillon, I don't know why he wouldn't take a shot on someone like Dez.

37Harrison said:

BB has been terrible... these are some of the WR's he could've drafted as they were there but he traded out of the spot: Greg Jennings (actually traded up with GB to get Chad Jackson), Dez, Demaryius...

Players he's drafted: Chad Jackson, Bethel, Dobson, Price, Tate... Yuck!

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While I agree that the record has been mediocre at best drafting WRs, I feel compelled to comment on the 20-20 hindsight of drafts after the fact.

When Chad Jackson was drafted, nobody - and I do mean nobody - questioned the fact that he was selected prior to Jennings. If I recall correctly the Packers drafted another player first (between Jackson and Jennings) before selecting Jennings. In other words, at that time every fan base and every writer felt that the Jackson selection was the correct move. Jackson had that knee injury and was never the same. To me, I'm not going to fault Belichick and the Patriots for that decision.

Others (most notably Taylor Price) - yes, those were poor decisions. They didn't make a whole lot of sense then, and they make even less sense after the fact.

As far as Dez Bryant goes, they traded down and got Devin McCourty, Price and Aaron Hernandez. Considering their roster at the time, it wasn't an outlandish decision. As noted above, the Price selection was odd. Despite what eventually happened, the AH move was lauded as being shrewd up until the day he was released.

The 'woulda - coulda - shoulda drafted this guy' game is a futile exercise, so please excuse my eyes for rolling when I see a list of players that could have been selected. Every team is going to have some misses, just like every quarterback is going to have some incomplete passes. While the small sample size has not been as productive as we would like it to be, I would hesitate to label it as being 'terrible'. Expecting every draft pick to become a perennial starter is not realistic.

jmt57 said:

While I agree that the record has been mediocre at best drafting WRs, I feel compelled to comment on the 20-20 hindsight of drafts after the fact.

When Chad Jackson was drafted, nobody - and I do mean nobody - questioned the fact that he was selected prior to Jennings. If I recall correctly the Packers drafted another player first (between Jackson and Jennings) before selecting Jennings. In other words, at that time every fan base and every writer felt that the Jackson selection was the correct move. Jackson had that knee injury and was never the same. To me, I'm not going to fault Belichick and the Patriots for that decision.

Others (most notably Taylor Price) - yes, those were poor decisions. They didn't make a whole lot of sense then, and they make even less sense after the fact.

As far as Dez Bryant goes, they traded down and got Devin McCourty, Price and Aaron Hernandez. Considering their roster at the time, it wasn't an outlandish decision. As noted above, the Price selection was odd. Despite what eventually happened, the AH move was lauded as being shrewd up until the day he was released.

The 'woulda - coulda - shoulda drafted this guy' game is a futile exercise, so please excuse my eyes for rolling when I see a list of players that could have been selected. Every team is going to have some misses, just like every quarterback is going to have some incomplete passes. While the small sample size has not been as productive as we would like it to be, I would hesitate to label it as being 'terrible'. Expecting every draft pick to become a perennial starter is not realistic.

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First off, great post!

Secondly, maybe the problem is that Bill isn't interested in changing his approach to the draft, despite the number of mistakes he's made. We can't fault him for making miscalculations , but we can fault him for refusing to learning from them.

That's why this is a useful thread. Pats fans need to be reminded that Belichick isn't infallible. He has his flaws like everyone else.

the Dracula thread of Patsfans.com resurrects itself once again...

I'm ok with the WRs and the CBs being below average. On the grand scheme of things, those positions aren't as crucial (in our philosophy) as the position in the trenches (which we are definite above average).

Joker said:

the Dracula thread of Patsfans.com resurrects itself once again...

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Remember when it was 'BB can't draft tight ends'?

Joker said:

the Dracula thread of Patsfans.com resurrects itself once again...

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Be careful the board "voice" says its a useful thread. You wouldnt want to piss him off

LOL

nabwong said:

I'm ok with the WRs and the CBs being below average. On the grand scheme of things, those positions aren't as crucial (in our philosophy) as the position in the trenches (which we are definite above average).

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Remeber, that aint sexy. The 24 year olds like stats and pretty touchdowns. so its all about that.

37Harrison said:

I hear what you are saying but do you really think Dez would act like he does in Dallas here? The plain fact is the dude is a beast. If BB was willing to take a shot on Dillon, I don't know why he wouldn't take a shot on someone like Dez.

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Dillon and Dez aren't all that comparable. Different draft investment, different contracts, different production beforehand.