Tavon Wilson
 

Wilson played on 43% of defensive snaps and 49% of special teams snaps, he had a few rookie mistakes, but overall he has lived up to his draft position. 41 tackles 4 interceptions, 6 passes defended, 2 fumble recoveries. The question is, can Wilson step up to be the #2 safety next year? Where do Ebner and Gregory fit? The presumption being that McCourty stays at safety, who starts along side him? Where do options in FA and the draft come in?

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

He won't be a complete bust.

But we'll still look back at this pick and wonder why Tavon Wilson was taken instead of someone else.

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

Remember Eugene Wilson and James Sanders?? For now I compare him to those guys, which isnt a bad thing. You don't want him to be the first string starter, but if a starter goes down, you know you have a good backup, 3rd safety kind of guy. Gregory fits this mold as well.

Maybe Wilson In time will turn into something more, but that's where I stand on him right now.

Wonder if he can take the SS role

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

It could have been much worse.

We couldve been the 49ers and drafted AJ Jenkins over everybody else...

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

Many people think we should go for Tavon Austin as a 1st round pick, but I think there are more talented WR in this draft than SS, as expected I guess. Hopefully, we'll get someone average-good at WR in the 2nd round.

With that said, go for Matt Elam, Kenny Vaccaro or Eric Reid on the 1st round, in that order of preference. There is no way 3 strong safeties are drafted in the top 27, so we're getting one of those.
Wilson? There will be time to develop him. This is a critical position for NE; we need proven talent as soon as possible.

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

From what we saw, he was fine in man coverage against TEs but had some trouble being disciplined in deep zone coverage. I'm surprised we didn't see him at SS next to McCourty, because it seems like that would have suited him much better than when he was playing next to Gregory or Chung.

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

FTR - The Packers took Casey Hayward a few picks after Tavon Wilson.


Hayward had 6 INTs, great coverage, and will be contender for DROY.


Tavon has some nice stats, but they come from being "in the right place at the right time". He got his stats off other players forcing fumbles or tipping passes to him.

Theres nothing wrong with that, but he never made a lot of plays on his own. Actually he got burned deep twice and then rode the bench for the majority of the second half of the season. Wilson was also billed as a NickleBack/Safety, but really only played Safety (reducing his value IMO)

It was a bad pick. But Dennard in the 7th rd makes up for it.

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

It certainly wasn't a bad pick by any means, could the pick have been better? Maybe, but bad? No. Safety was the #1 need we had going into the draft. I was high on Casey Hayward going into the draft, but Dennard has also played at an extremely high level.

Re: Tavon Wilson
 

The big knock on Hayward coming out of school is that he was mostly a zone corner, and there were questions about his ability to play man coverage. Is that really the kind of guy the Pats should have taken a chance on?