patriots are terrible at drafting wr

goheels22002 said:

I agree with you, and...

Amendola figured it out.
LaFell figured it out but got hurt
Lloyd figured it out.

I also think Dobson figured it out, but foot injuries are season and career killers for WRs who have to get off the line explosively and make hard cuts that put torque and stress on a part of the foot that really cannot be stabilized like an ankle or even a knee by building the right muscles and braces.

These threads always drive me crazy. The Patriots have a unique offense that features read-and-react route trees, and a QB who changes up the plays constantly. I also do not care how WRs are acquired. Ordway is articulate about using draft picks on Welker and Moss which negates the argument that the Patriots cannot use draft picks to get all-pro talent when they need it.

This is one of those years at WR, and OT.

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Lloyd figured it out?

Lloyd sucked.

Deus Irae said:

Yes, we disagree about what's a success in these evaluations. For me, if the team cuts a guy after just one season of a team friendly multi year deal, I don't consider that guy a team success, since the team obviously doesn't consider that guy a team success, even if I thought the guy got the job done. You do.

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Yep that's fine. I'm actually harder on DA than you. They signed him to big money and has been hurt 2 of the 3 contract years (in which year 3 he was asked to take a cut) and in the year he wasn't didn't really come on until later in the year. Overall though I think he was a good signing.

Deus Irae said:

And come on with Stallworth. The guy got demoted, and you're calling that a success. That should tell you that you've got an evaluation issue. That's like calling Kenbrell Thompkins and Aaron Dobson successes because they both caught more than 30 passes in 2013, when they were force fed the ball out of necessity.

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"Production" is relative to the expectation.

Everyone knew Stallworth was a 1 year deal. He was due $14m in 2008. For $3.6m Stallworth gave them 46 catches and almost 700yds and 3 TDs. Not bad for a 3/4 WR.

Pats continue spending spree, get WR Stallworth

IIRC they wanted him back but he wanted big money which was $10m in guaranteed dough from CLE.

Thompkins was a success as well. UFA and was a decent 4WR. He was a good FA signing if you want to call it that. He was cut b/c he was so-so on STs and the team upgraded to LaFell

Dobson had a good rookie year....but clearly has been a bust.

Same with Gaffney. He was on the couch before the Pats called. He never had more than 40 catches here, never made big money but was a very good 4th option. He filled his role perfectly.

Oddly, the most valuable WR to the Patriots is probably the Brown/Welker/Edelman position, which seemingly has no draft value whatsoever (as they were 7th round +).

Outside of those guys, Randy Moss and maybe Branch, the Patriots haven't really had a WR that most other teams would envy for the entirety of Brady's career.

Talent-wise, most Patriots WRs couldn't make the Lion's roster.

BB may be or may not be bad at the WR position, but it's hard to be critical of the guy considering all that happened with his teams.

robertweathers said:

"Production" is relative to the expectation.

Everyone knew Stallworth was a 1 year deal. He was due $14m in 2008. For $3.6m Stallworth gave them 46 catches and almost 700yds and 3 TDs. Not bad for a 3/4 WR.

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You keep ignoring the whole "He got demoted mid-season" aspect.

robertweathers said:

Thompkins was a success as well. UFA and was a decent 4WR. He was a good FA signing if you want to call it that. He was cut b/c he was so-so on STs and the team upgraded to LaFell

Dobson had a good rookie year....but clearly has been a bust.

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Neither Thompkins nor Dobson were successes as rookies.

Gronkowski123 said:

steelers are king at finding wr's.

antonio brown, mike wallace, sanders, weaton, bryant, coates made some plays against denver..

shessh. wish we had one of those guys. all are later round picks as well. we get stuck with dobson and josh ****ing boyce

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I think the Steelers offense is similar to the Seahawks defense in that it isn't overly complicated and they just line up and play, its not a series of reads and adjustments from the time they break the huddle until the snap. Imo this allows them to focus more on talent than having to get players who can learn all the variations and make all of the adjustments they need to make. As a result I think the Patriots have passed on better players in the quest to find the guys who they think will be best able to learn their system.

On the whole I think the Patriots draft as well as anyone, especially given the disadvantages they face every year, and I think there are phenomenal at evaluating the undrafted players and maximizing their opportunities with them, however they have not done well at WR on the whole and they need to get more hits at it going forward.

primetime said:

WRs take a few years to develop, generally. I'd hold off on calling any of the 2015 guys disappointments for now.

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to me, 1st round means immediate impact....all of the guys listed were eclipsed by later draft picks tyler lockett, jamison crowder, dorial green beckham, stefon diggs

bigger point is the sheer randomness of it all

Deus Irae said:

You keep ignoring the whole "He got demoted mid-season" aspect.

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Because I'm not confident that he actually was. For argument's sake I'll assume it was after the DAL game and statistically Stallworth was targeted more than him even after that game and out produced him in the playoffs.

Deus Irae said:

Neither Thompkins nor Dobson were successes as rookies.

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Meh. We'll disagree on that one.

robertweathers said:

Because I'm not confident that he actually was.

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It's not arguable. He was the starter, and then he wasn't.

robertweathers said:

Meh. We'll disagree on that one.

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Neither Thompkins nor Dobson was successful as a rookie.

You just looking at numbers and tossing them around doesn't change that. It's like claiming that a guy who scores 20 points on a ****ty basketball team must be good, because he scores 20 points.

Dobson, for example, had 9 starts and 12 games, including some where he and Thompkins were the starters, yet he ended up with fewer than 40 catches in that offense. In the meantime, Amendola, who was either out or banged up for every game after the first one, still finished with more catches, and Gronk, who only played in 7 games and was clearly not himself, also finished with more catches.

Deus Irae said:

It's not arguable. He was the starter, and then he wasn't.

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If you look at the game logs, Stallworth started at the end of the season as well. Sometimes they went with Kyle Brady over both. Sometimes they went with Gaffney + Stallworth. Sometimes they went with Gaffney. Vs Philly Stallworth started. It wasn't like Stallworth was in the dog house.

Neither started in the playoffs but Stallworth was targeted more.

Deus Irae said:

Neither Thompkins nor Dobson was successful as a rookie.

You just looking at numbers and tossing them around doesn't change that. It's like claiming that a guy who scores 20 points on a ****ty basketball team must be good, because he scores 20 points.

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What? As long as you aren't taking 40 shots a game and make 10 if you score 20 points a game on a bad NBA you are still good because of who your competition is. Overall, numbers are major metric to determine if a player is productive or crappy.

Thompkins and Dobson earned their time here and played well as rookies. Injuries and talent ceiling pushed those guys down/off the roster.

robertweathers said:

If you look at the game logs, Stallworth started at the end of the season as well. Sometimes they went with Kyle Brady over both. Sometimes they went with Gaffney + Stallworth. Sometimes they went with Gaffney. Vs Philly Stallworth started. It wasn't like Stallworth was in the dog house.

Neither started in the playoffs but Stallworth was targeted more.

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He was the clear starter at the beginning of the year. He then was not the clear starter afterwards. Why are you arguing against the obvious here?

robertweathers said:

What? As long as you aren't taking 40 shots a game and make 10 if you score 20 points a game on a bad NBA you are still good because of who your competition is. Overall, numbers are major metric to determine if a player is productive or crappy.

Thompkins and Dobson earned their time here and played well as rookies. Injuries and talent ceiling pushed those guys down/off the roster.

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You're arguing against both common sense and the reality of what actually happened in 2013. This is not like you. I think this line of discussion needs to end.

Deus Irae said:

He was the clear starter at the beginning of the year. He then was not the clear starter afterwards. Why are you arguing against the obvious here?

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Ok...no question Gaffney got the majority of the starts but over the last 10 games was targeted less than Stallworth.

He started weeks 2-5, 7,8, 11, 12, 16
Gaffney started 9,11, 14,15, 16, 17

Deus Irae said:

You're arguing against both common sense and the reality of what actually happened in 2013. This is not like you. I think this line of discussion needs to end.

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Thats fine Neither one of us are budging on this.

Ivan said:

Lloyd figured it out?

Lloyd sucked.

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Really?

In Brandon Lloyd's one season with the Patriots - 2012 - he had 74 receptions for 911 yards, with 50 receptions for 1st downs. In two playoff games in 2012 he had 12 receptions for 102 yards and a TD.

My guess is that you would have traded your right nut for production like that from a WR in 2015.

Brandon Lloyd: Game Logs at NFL.com

goheels22002 said:

Really?

In Brandon Lloyd's one season with the Patriots - 2012 - he had 74 reception for 911 yards, with 50 receptions for 1st downs. In two playoff games in 2012 he had 12 receptions for 102 yards and a TD.

My guess is that you would have traded your right nut for production like that from a WR in 2015.

Brandon Lloyd: Game Logs at NFL.com

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The revisionist history about Lloyd is interesting. At least by fans. I think the team parted ways with him cause he's a weirdo.

But fans always complained about him getting no yards after the catch ala Fall Down Fauria.

Now he's basically considered worse than Reche Caldwell and apparently 50 of his catches came in garbage time or something.

BradyFTW! said:

Of the WRs that the Steelers have produced over the past few years, Brown and Sanders would have done very well here. Wallace likely wouldn't have.

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Your are correct Wallace is not a good route runner all speed

blackglass3 said:

Maybe more experienced WR's are just better off in our offense. Although, they did draft Deion Branch Julian Edelman and David Givens. Not a who's who of top flight receivers, but all home grown WR's with Super Bowl wins.

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Here is a sneaky pick this year in the late rounds as WR BYU Mitch Matthews. 6'7" and 215. He will run at about a high 4.6 40. Not a one trick pony. Good career. 11 TDs in 2015.

REC YDS TD
152 2083 24



DW Toys

IllegalContact said:

drafting WR is a crap shoot...

disappointments first round alone:
kevin white(2015)
nelson agholor(2015)
breshad perriman(2015)
philip dorsett(2015)
tavon austin(2013)
coradelle patterson(2013)
justin blackmon(2012)
aj jenkins(2012)
jon baldwin(2011)

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I feel like Tavon Austin could be very good with the right QB.

Bill's recent WR draft (edit)"missed opportunities":

2009: using #83 overall on Brandon Tate, whose production, experience, health & character issues should have pegged him as a borderline top-150 value.

2010: throwing away #53 overall on the crapness of Germy Cunnyham instead of running to the podium
to announce the selection of the Charlie Weis-trained Golden Tate, who I will go to my grave believing
would have been absolutely dynamite with Brady, similar to Deion Branch, only even better.

2011: not making a better effort to keep UDFA Andre Holmes who, with his size & decent-enough speed, could have been a nice #4 OWR.

2012: not trading #62 to Denver, which would've returned #s 87 & 120, instead of to GB, which only
returned #s 90 & 163. Bill therefore missed the opportunity to draft, among others, Marvin Jones.

2013: Aaron Dropson instead of Keenan Allen…enough said.

2014: using #206 on size/speed limited DB Jemea Thomas instead of raw but size/speed gifted Jeff Janis.

2015: using #64 on 6th-round talent Jordan Richards instead of maybe Jaelen Stong or Tyler Lockett;
and using #202 on AJ Derby (not even the best TE available, never mind best player available) instead
of Tre McBride.

The two destiny-changing mistakes are of course missing-out on Golden Tate & Keenan Allen. If Golden
Tate were on the 2011 roster, the NEP would've been SB champions.

captain stone said:

Bill's recent WR draft screw-ups:

2011: not making a better effort to keep UDFA Andre Holmes who, with his size & decent-enough speed, could have been a nice #4 OWR.

2014: using #206 on size/speed limited DB Jemea Thomas instead of raw but size/speed gifted Jeff Janis.

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You've got to be yanking our chains with those two.

If LaFell has the same season as 2014, how much of a crisis do we have with
Edelman, Amendola, LaFell, Martin, Gronkowski, and Lewis as our receivers?

And perhaps we might even dream that Brady might have 2.5 seconds instead of 2.

captain stone said:

Bill's recent WR draft screw-ups:

2009: using #83 overall on Brandon Tate, whose production, experience, health & character issues should have pegged him as a borderline top-150 value.

2010: throwing away #53 overall on the crapness of Germy Cunnyham instead of running to the podium
to announce the selection of the Charlie Weis-trained Golden Tate, who I will go to my grave believing
would have been absolutely dynamite with Brady, similar to Deion Branch, only even better.

2011: not making a better effort to keep UDFA Andre Holmes who, with his size & decent-enough speed, could have been a nice #4 OWR.

2012: not trading #62 to Denver, which would've returned #s 87 & 120, instead of to GB, which only
returned #s 90 & 163. Bill therefore missed the opportunity to draft, among others, Marvin Jones.

2013: Aaron Dropson instead of Keenan Allen…enough said.

2014: using #206 on size/speed limited DB Jemea Thomas instead of raw but size/speed gifted Jeff Janis.

2015: using #64 on 6th-round talent Jordan Richards instead of maybe Jaelen Stong or Tyler Lockett;
and using #202 on AJ Derby (not even the best TE available, never mind best player available) instead
of Tre McBride.

The two destiny-changing mistakes are of course missing-out on Golden Tate & Keenan Allen. If Golden
Tate were on the 2011 roster, the NEP would've been SB champions.

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maybe belichick should be waiting 'til 3 yrs after the draft to make his picks