Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

Its was suggested in another thread that BB's trading for future picks was always advantageous but I suggest it isnt. What trading for future picks does is get both more AND younger players on an already-overhauled 14-2 team. Follow my logic...

I am not related nor the biggest fan of Matt Light. Our LT has been here quite a while and has been the benefit of our style of offense and has made a few Pro Bowls because of it. He has been a good fit, low key, understated guy who hasnt been out to break any banks lately. Now he is a unrestricted FA watching the draft on TV to see us draft Solder to basically replace him. Light is one of just a few players that were here in the Super Bowl years. IMHO part of "team building" is mixing youth with experience and rewarding the vets like Light even if they are slightly past their prime. This week he will be listed between 60-70 of the best players in the whole friggin league as judged by his peers(top 5%). There are a few positions that continuity and loyalty should be rewarded and LT is one of them especially if he can still play!

Now there are alot of people who can argue that losing Light means we get younger, stronger, cheaper etc...what we cant see nor measure is how losing a leader in the locker room and a model citizen-Patriot is influencing the mass of youth on this team. Losing Light sends a clear message to any potential FAs that loyalty isnt rewarded. Keeping Light sends our highest draft pick in a few years to the bench as our #3 T and blocking TE!! Thats not going to happen.

Now the reason Solder will define BB is simply because we didnt win SBs with BB draft picks. Our SB teams were the grizzled old vets who were old and slow, a bunch of ragtag players off the scrap heap etc. BB can coach them! With the remake of this team we are now one of the youngest teams in the league and BB hasnt demonstrated the same success with his draft picks. Having and paying Seymour(yes, a BB pick) would have won us more games, likely playoff games, in the last 2 years. Period. Would it have cost us a few players at the end of the roster....YES. Solder wouldnt be here. But those players at the end of our roster now are guys like Wilhite, Brace, Ornberger who in years past would have been replaced by a JAG like Otis Smith/Anthony Pleasant/Hochstein. Those type of JAGs have something in common that BB drafted/coached players dont......MOTIVATION. There is simply no motivation from the youth on this team!! There is something to be said for the heiarchy system paying stars and sprinkling in JAGs, it keeps the "middle class" hungry. I suggest so many 2nd-3rd round picks only expands the "middle class" and wont be fully rewarding those that do make it to stardom.... which is particularly difficult to define on a BB team. The guys in the locker room will see this first. At what point in this evolution does BB lose his locker room because of it?

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

I find it hillarious when people say, "he didn't win the SB with draft picks" as if recognizing talent in the FA market is supposed to be some big knock or something. And when you win a SB in your 2nd year, it's hard to have drafted enough players to entirely turn over a roster. :rolleyes:

But, to the larger point, something tells me that these guys had an impact on NE's SB winning teams

Brady
Seymour
Wilfork
Warren
Branch
Givens
Light
Koppen
Geno
Asante

That's 10 or 22 starting positions that were pure draft picks.

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

Oh, one more thing. OT was by far the most needy position on the entire team. You had one sure thing, one guy who is coming off an injury who is a likely execution target, one older FA and two nobodies.

If you don't like Solder the player that is fine, but chastising the position selection is one of the most idiotic things I've ever read on this site.

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

Ditto. And want to add that you keep harping on the Seymour trade...You apparently forget that, either due to injuries, motivation, or being malcontent, Richard Seymour didn't exactly play like an All Pro many games over his last 3 years here.

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

An example of the tenuousness of the locker room:
When Brandon Meriweather is the elder statesman of your defensive backfield,
you're in big trouble.

Edit: Whoops; I forgot James Sanders. Must've been a freudian slip.
Too bad that Stomper doesn't have Sanders' intangibles; then he would've truly earned his Pro Bowl nod.

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

First of all, Light's last contract was pretty lucrative. To say he wasn't rewarded for his loyalty shows that you didn't really look into it.

Mayo was a higher draft pick than Solder.

Putting Solder on the bench and working him in rotation wouldn't be a bad thing. That's what the Pats did with Vollmer. They also started to do that with Light when Light was a rookie.

Also, if Light is the one who chose to go to free agency this time around instead of signing an extension. He said so himself. So, it's a bit premature to say that the Pats haven't shown him any loyalty. Not to mention that it's Light's decision on where he goes. He can look at the Pats and see that the writing is on the wall. At MOST, he'll have one year of starting at LT before Solder takes over. Could Light move inside? Possibly. But it's a position he's never played before, to my knowledge.

So, tell us, again, how the Pats aren't showing loyalty since it was Light's decision to go to free agency?

HUH?? How the hell do you get that BB drafted/Coached players don't have motivation?? Where do you get that there is no motivation from the youth on this team?? in all honesty, that is you talking garbage with no proof whatsoever to support you.

I believe that it could easily be argued that neither Otis Smith nor Anthony pleasant were at the bottom of the roster during the first SB. Especially since they both started in that 1st SuperBowl. :rolleyes:

Again, you show you don't actually do any homework for your "theory" (and I use that term lightly). How can you expect to be taken seriously if you can't even be bothered to check your facts?

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

Leigh Bodden says "HI". So does James Sanders. They both have more seniority than Meriweather.

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

The entire premise is wrong. With the possible exception of a Ryan Leaf/Jamarcus Russell highly expensive bust, no one picks defines a single draft let alone a team's offseason or a GM's legacy.

If Solder stinks to high heaven but, for example, Vereen, Dowling Mallett and Cousins are multi-year pro bowlers, it's not only a good draft, it's a great draft.

Re: Why picking Solder will define BB's personel moves
 

I think Solder is a boom or bust for sure.. But with the way the coaches brought along all the other lineman dont you guys think he is going to be awesome?!? I mean the jump Sebas had was tremendous!!

Vereen and Riddley I AM TELLING U are going to be a sweet combo guys the only thing im still stuck on is wheres WoodY? I love that guy!