Harrison's 2006 Impact Overstated
 

Harrison may come back, but I think of the situation as being more similar to Colvin than Bruschi. And even the effect of Bruschi's return has been greatly overstated.

The issue is how soon he will be a top player, and be able to perform anywhere near past levels.

After all, Colvin took a couple of years, and even now nowhere near his former self (would you sign him up for $5M a year?).

Personally, I expect Harrison to be on PUP, come back at mid-season, and be part of a 3-man safety rotation.

When he returns is all guess work on your part as it is with any one of us and the media.

However, I do disagree that you consider his impact as "overrated". If Rodney can come back and be 85% of what he was, that's 100% better than 95% of the SS in this league.

I think that his loss was underated by most people and his return will be huge.

Speed and quickness was never that important to Harrison so it may not have a big effect on his game - but he can't afford to lose much of either. I guess we'll see how they feel about Hawkins, Scott and Sanders based on who they go after in the draft and FA. We continued to play good pass defense with Hawkins in there against Denver so he may be acceptable for next season with a full offseason behind him.

I'm hoping Sanders or Scott can be a good starter, Sanders was one of the youngest players in last year's draft. If they're more backup quality, I wouldn't hesitate to use one of our top picks on a Safety.

my money's on guss scott
 

rodney and bruschi are similar in that their video-graded performances are only part of the story. remember that they are both play-callers, and both move players around according to what they think they see. IMO both were missed as much in those capacities as they were at ILB and SS.
i'm not talking "intangibles", i'm talking leadership roles that others did not adequately fill.
with bruschi back, patriots run defense resumed play a la the 2004 version -- smothering and overrunning running plays, instead of the desperate hand-tackling we saw from beisel and brown. surely much of that was also due to the return of a certain all-world DL.
but with harrison gone, IMO the CBs and safeties wound up doing a lot of hitting that their bodies couldn't withstand--ergo all the injuries. it's one thing for rodney to come up and lay the wood to a 225-lb RB. it's a different matter to have wilson (190) or hawkins (195) or stone (195) or asante (185) or hobbs (188) come up and put a shoulder into somebody. IMO patriots need to draft one of those crazy 220-lb safeties if they want to have the same kind of defense next year. what we have is cover guys, not a single hitter besides rodney (and guss scott).

Sanders is supposed to be a big hitter, although he's not as big as Harrison. I would definitely like to draft a 22 year old Rodney, even if it's with our #1 or #2 pick.

I agree that we need big hitters, especially at strong safety. Many of us are looking at college linebackers for strong safeties.

Vrabel getting healthy and Sey coming back were more important than Bruschi's return. Vrabel can call plays. It is somewhat sad that Wilson is not up to the taks after several years in the defense. Harrison shouldn't be the only db signal caller.

There is a 50% chance that over 75% of us agree 100%

That's a big assertion. Personally, I was ASTONISHED at how much impact Bruschi seemed to have. In particular, I think he did wonders for the pass coverage (trademark flying leaps to knock down passes to Tight Ends).

Tedy had an impact, no doubt. But his return coincided with :

- Vrabel moving inside.
- Colvin's resurgence.
- Seymour's return.
- Wilfork's resurgence.
- Hobbs moving in and being a very good tackler.
- Hawkins moving in and playing solidly.