A Tale of Two Drafts: 2007 & 2008

[Deus Irae]

What I like to see as I pretend this is MY team,lol, is improvement. I understand you cant improve everywhere every year, and a "wash" is acceptable. Our results last year were outstanding, so I would like to see that management "style" continued....but I dont see the same "style". Favoring veterans over rookies got us to 16-0, and what I dont like to see is DOWNGRADES(= losses!).
On offense I mostly agree with you...but I see a significant loss in talent at WR. This will show if Welker or Moss go down for any significant amount of time. On the OL, I dont like the way that they approached the offseason at all. They stood pat(despite Neal and the super bowl!)and neither drafted nor signed a FA til camp casualties started to pile up....then too little too late.
On defense we do have a healthy Seymour, but we had basically 5 starting LBs last year. We lost 2 of them so we HAD to draft one due to the weakness in the FA market. HAVING to do this left us likely overdrafting and losing value in that high of a pick. Mayo will be highly scrutinized because of this. And if he is injured this season......moving Thomas back inside and starting Crable outside handcuffs us with another rookie. "Signficant" improvements at safety? Lynch is a nice pick up, but I dont think he will play on ST(which limits the value of a backup S). CB could be our undoing, and Capers is set up to be a savior/scapegoat.
I think the most telling aspect is that few of the FAs brought in made the team. As a veteran team contending for super bowls every year there SHOULD be some kind of a "veteran overflow", the players that take less money to play for a chance to win the super bowl. My point is there is NOT ONE of these vets this year(Lynch came in far too late to be considered, and at 1.2M he is not a vet bargain!). Why is that? Why cant we sell this to FAs?? We made the SB again and didnt use any of our good fortune to secure the roster. And that is what I dont like as an "owner".....not getting that one starting bargain FA vet you can showcase your offseason around.

This post is a joke, right?

 

[SunnyDenmark]

We lost Colvin, and his talent hasnt been replaced. We lost Samuel,etc....now we have some nice rookies in the draft(maybe). ........

And Pats drafted high LB's which is uncharacteristic of Bioli to replace Colvin (as well as sign Hobson). Samuels loss was dealt with by signing 3 veteran CB's as well as draft 2 CB's. Not all acquisitions work out but at least Biloi were aggressive in trying to deal with the most significant losses. No one can predict how those pickups will work out ahead of time.

There is a good CHANCE that our backups have been improved except on the OL. We know backups are important because of the attrition. But health problems are always going to be there, making depth very important. We can safely say that our starting 22 arent likely going to be as good as they were last year. As a fan I always want to see my team improve no matter how difficult it is.....I think we all do.

How can one say that our starting 22 won't be as good? Yes, we broke records last year. But our WR's have one more year of working with Brady. OL looks unimpressive so far but injuries are to blame plus normally the longer an OL works together - the better they know each other and work together as a single cohesive unit. Thats what the players say themselves. And as far as the defense, every additional year in a complex Belicheck system - gives another year of valuable experience - thats why Bruschi is still starting even though he is not the most athletic anymore.

What you want as a team in a system as complex as Belichecks - is to have the least amount of turnover as possible -especially among the starters. With the exception of Samuels - the rest of the core playmakers are still here and with one more year of experience - plus with an exciting group of rookies that Belicheck himself has praised. I am very optimistic for this year (and the next few). I am not joining the Chicken Little Bandwagon until we start losing games to vastly inferior teams.

.

My remarks in itialicized blue print above.

 

[rookBoston]

Regarding this pick, does anyone know what's expected from next year's ILB crop?

Yeah, Maualuga and Laurinaitis... both sure thing top-10 picks, veteran college ILBs and rare talents.

 

[BritPat]

Yeah, Maualuga and Laurinaitis... both sure thing top-10 picks, veteran college ILBs and rare talents.

Maualuga is the second coming of Ray Lewis. He's that good.

 

[Pat the Pats Fan]

(Advance warning: bear with me on a convoluted concept and a rough attempt to sort out splintered, fractional trades...)

Heading into the 2007 draft, many of us felt it was unusually weak for Patriots-type players. The Patriots apparently felt so too, aggressively trading out of the draft. How much different is one draft from another, really? Let's take a look at the picks they did and didn't use in 2007, and compare.

2007 Picks available heading into the free agency period, by round:
1, 1
2
3
4, 4
5
6, 6, 6
7, 7

Wow. Of those, they actually drafted:
1, 4, 5, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7 -- 8 players (after trades).
Of those 8, only 1 (Brandon Meriweather) remains on the roster a year later.

They traded away:
1, 2, 3, 4, 7 -- 5 picks. (The difference between the picks used vs. traded in 2007 is 5, 6, 6, 6, 7 vs. 2 & 3...but wait, the trades also netted them an extra #2 for 2009! So it's even in terms of draft "capital" spent both ways.)
Of the resulting players, the following remain on the roster:
Jerod Mayo
Shawn Crable
Wes Welker
Matthew Slater
Randy Moss

Given how poorly the picks they did exercise in 2007 turned out, is there any chance that using the other half would have yielded the same bonanza they got through trades?

In retrospect, 2007 looks like brilliant management of a truly crappy draft.

Great perspective and analysis. In appearances, today, it looks like this could be a great draft in '08, with so many beating out veterans.....

 

[everlong]

Maualuga is listed at 6-2 260 and is fast. I'm rooting for the Jets to make the playoffs so Farve costs them a second and so they cannot draft Maualuga.

I'm not so sure on Laurinaitis being a top ten. He disappeared in last years championship game and a few other big games he didn't look great.

Cushing should also be a first rounder.

 

[borg]

My point was that we lost more talent than what we brought in. Yes, we still have plenty, but did the team do everything it could to keep as much as it could? The only thing for sure is that they are doing it completely different than they did last year. And I dont understand some of the decisions based on our success last year.....rookies are always a gamble, having this many rookies has to make anyone nervous. I think that without looking at numbers we should have had LESS rookies than most, considering our talent level last year. Having as many or more is very telling one way or another.

Money.
Tha Pats have written some big checks... Thomas, Moss, Welker from last year...Brady, Seymour, Warren...Wilfork's contract will be coming up soon. Teams need to balance the payroll using the draft. Using a 2 & a 4 for Welker and Moss seems cheap, but Kraft may end up paying $50 mill for the 2 after 4 years(Money well spent I might add)

 

[everlong]

My point was that we lost more talent than what we brought in. Yes, we still have plenty, but did the team do everything it could to keep as much as it could? The only thing for sure is that they are doing it completely different than they did last year. And I dont understand some of the decisions based on our success last year.....rookies are always a gamble, having this many rookies has to make anyone nervous. I think that without looking at numbers we should have had LESS rookies than most, considering our talent level last year. Having as many or more is very telling one way or another.

It's like the 2004 Red Soxs and Yankees. The Red Soxs realized that to have continued success they needed to get younger and more athletic. The Yankees went out and signed, and over payed, and a bunch of players who had seen their better days.

If Zach Thomas had signed here he probably does make us better for a year, maybe two, but I think the team will be better served by getting lots of reps for the young LBs now. If Vrable, Bruschi, and Harrison all play 90% of the snaps I'm going to be disappointed. They need to keep these guys fresh for January and develop the younger players for the future.

I'd rather beat KC 28-17 using the rookies than 28-3 beating up the vets. The Giants and Colts games might be different with fresh vets.

I hope Woods and Crabel are both part of the rotation. Crabel has looked so natural in coverage. I never saw that coming.

 

[Pat the Pats Fan]

My point was that we lost more talent than what we brought in. Yes, we still have plenty, but did the team do everything it could to keep as much as it could? The only thing for sure is that they are doing it completely different than they did last year. And I dont understand some of the decisions based on our success last year.....rookies are always a gamble, having this many rookies has to make anyone nervous. I think that without looking at numbers we should have had LESS rookies than most, considering our talent level last year. Having as many or more is very telling one way or another.[/quote]

I think Belichick looked at this year's schedule and thought, this is a perfect year to bring in the rookies. Good draft class and a weak schedule should enable these rookie's to learn under fire.

 

[Pat the Pats Fan]

What I like to see as I pretend this is MY team,lol, is improvement. I understand you cant improve everywhere every year, and a "wash" is acceptable. Our results last year were outstanding, so I would like to see that management "style" continued....but I dont see the same "style". Favoring veterans over rookies got us to 16-0, and what I dont like to see is DOWNGRADES(= losses!).
On offense I mostly agree with you...but I see a significant loss in talent at WR. This will show if Welker or Moss go down for any significant amount of time. On the OL, I dont like the way that they approached the offseason at all. They stood pat(despite Neal and the super bowl!)and neither drafted nor signed a FA til camp casualties started to pile up....then too little too late.
On defense we do have a healthy Seymour, but we had basically 5 starting LBs last year. We lost 2 of them so we HAD to draft one due to the weakness in the FA market. HAVING to do this left us likely overdrafting and losing value in that high of a pick. Mayo will be highly scrutinized because of this. And if he is injured this season......moving Thomas back inside and starting Crable outside handcuffs us with another rookie. "Signficant" improvements at safety? Lynch is a nice pick up, but I dont think he will play on ST(which limits the value of a backup S). CB could be our undoing, and Capers is set up to be a savior/scapegoat.
I think the most telling aspect is that few of the FAs brought in made the team. As a veteran team contending for super bowls every year there SHOULD be some kind of a "veteran overflow", the players that take less money to play for a chance to win the super bowl. My point is there is NOT ONE of these vets this year(Lynch came in far too late to be considered, and at 1.2M he is not a vet bargain!). Why is that? Why cant we sell this to FAs?? We made the SB again and didnt use any of our good fortune to secure the roster. And that is what I dont like as an "owner".....not getting that one starting bargain FA vet you can showcase your offseason around.

We finished last year with Moss, Welker and Gafney as our 1-3. And that is how we open this year.....how is that a downgrade?

 

[patsox23]

One out of eight draft choices making a team is not a good draft.

In retrospect, they should have packaged their picks like the Jets

to get a better player in round one.

4's, 5's, 6's and 7's in a CRAPPY draft class and you're complaining? Really? I mean, I wish they could've done as good a job late as they have in the past, but that's simply not going to happen every time, even with BBioli. They had ONE Day 1 pick. Give me a break.

Having said that, if they could've managed to trade up ahead of the 49ers to select Patrick Willis instead of Meriweather, I would be very happy.

 

[patsox23]

Naturally its unfair to criticize based on hearsay and conjecture, but one thing the Pats may not have done well is that they failed to burn more of those 2nd-day picks to ensure they got Stewart Bradley in the 3rd round.

Rumors before and after the draft were that we were very high on him, and had him targeted for our late 3rd pick, the 91st. Which we traded after the Eagles got him at 87.

I know we eventually wheeled and dealed that 3rd and some other low picks for Oscar Lua, Matt Slater, a 2009 2nd rounder and half-off a pair of shoes at Foot Locker, but Bradley looks like he could have been a good WILB for us. He's starting at Mike for Philly I believe.

That was the one spot we could have crammed a good rookie onto our opening day defense that year and had him stick. Instead we ended up letting Kareem Brown and Justin Rodgers waltz off the bottom of our roster cause we were stacked at those positions.

We had the picks available to move up 5 slots in the 3rd. So are Matt Slater + 2009 2nd pick > 255 lb 3-4 ILB Stewart Bradley? Rhetorical question, but food for thought.

EXCELLENT point, excellent post. The Stewart Bradley thing was a real missed opportunity. It may explain why we were so overly aggressive in trading up for a guy like Matt Slater. Perhaps, after last year, they reasserted the idea that, "If we really like a guy, let's take no chances, don't get cute, and get it done."

 

[patsox23]

Mayo will likely be better than a 07 Seau in the long run, but with all the off season moves and all the transactions and drafting.....I simply dont see one position that we UPGRADED.

Sure, we might have had a great draft, but I dont judge it til year 3 and I consider the number of starters who succeed.....not who are handed jobs because there wasnt competition(aka Mayo).
Last year we upgraded WR 1(Moss),2(Welker) and 3(Stallworth), LB(Thomas), backup safety(Merriweather), backup RB(Morris)....thats 5 positions. How many do you think we improved this year??

There's a lot of shortsighted-veering-toward-stupid here, not the least of which is..."Well, we upgraded with Moss and Welker last year because there just so happened to be more places to UPGRADE there. We had NO good WRs. This year areas of improvement are not as plentiful, and it's a fluid process.

I realize it's better to judge drafts more comprehensively after three years, but the idea that we're not allowed to officially say that Mayo in the middle is an upgrade until 2011 is patently absurd. We are BETTER at inside linebacker RIGHT NOW than we were last year. Period.

 

[PatsFan37]

Thread is getting a bit hijacked. Back to the OP, which was excellent, and Unoriginal's comments about Bradley.

It's easy to critique a draft in retrospect by cherrypicking outstanding players, but I don't think that's what Unoriginal is doing. Lots of people were high on Bradley, including, it's rumored, the FO. The Eagles went tit for tat, losing Meriweather to the Pats and stealing Bradley. Clearly, they know their AFC competition. I still feel gypped when I read about Bradley.

Overall, I agree with Patchick that the Pats did well by trading out of 2007 and investing in 2008. OTOH, they played their 2007 picks poorly. If you're going to make a pick above the fifth round, the player should at least make it to the second year.

The biggest loss, I think, is that each year represents an opportunity to develop rookies, in terms of the offseason, camp, coaching time, and a season of practices. It's not just the availability of talented rookies, it's the available year of a talented group of coaches.

What they missed in 2007 was the opportunity to sniff out a few young players to groom in low roster spots and on the PS, who might have been ready to compete this year at key positions. I find it hard to believe that one draft year is so superior to the next that they can't find one player aside from Meriweather, among the picks they used, who would benefit enough from coaching to make the team. e.g. at OL. So many attempts with no success.

That is my one complaint.

 

[patchick]

It's easy to critique a draft in retrospect by cherrypicking outstanding players, but I don't think that's what Unoriginal is doing. Lots of people were high on Bradley, including, it's rumored, the FO.

For those who can't resist a Bradley regret wallow, here's the original thread from last year:
http://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/messageboard/showthread.php?t=55478
So nope, it's not just hindsight.

 

[Jimke]

Thread is getting a bit hijacked. Back to the OP, which was excellent, and Unoriginal's comments about Bradley.

It's easy to critique a draft in retrospect by cherrypicking outstanding players, but I don't think that's what Unoriginal is doing. Lots of people were high on Bradley, including, it's rumored, the FO. The Eagles went tit for tat, losing Meriweather to the Pats and stealing Bradley. Clearly, they know their AFC competition. I still feel gypped when I read about Bradley.

Overall, I agree with Patchick that the Pats did well by trading out of 2007 and investing in 2008. OTOH, they played their 2007 picks poorly. If you're going to make a pick above the fifth round, the player should at least make it to the second year.

The biggest loss, I think, is that each year represents an opportunity to develop rookies, in terms of the offseason, camp, coaching time, and a season of practices. It's not just the availability of talented rookies, it's the available year of a talented group of coaches.

What they missed in 2007 was the opportunity to sniff out a few young players to groom in low roster spots and on the PS, who might have been ready to compete this year at key positions. I find it hard to believe that one draft year is so superior to the next that they can't find one player aside from Meriweather, among the picks they used, who would benefit enough from coaching to make the team. e.g. at OL. So many attempts with no success.

That is my one complaint.

Good post. I agree with you about the missed opportunity in 2007.

 

[AzPatsFan]

Regarding this pick, does anyone know what's expected from next year's ILB crop?

The upcoming draft is a gargantuan one for ILBs.. Lauranitis, Maulaga, and Jasper Brinkley are probably first rounders. The OLBs even have a couple who are better, and could convert. The USC OLB/ILB could be all you would ever want as a blitzing, interior, hard-nosed, big, fast, ILB...

The Pats have 1, 1 and 2 2s and 3 3s as well as a few more lower comp picks. The Offense could draft with a 2 and 3 and that leaves a 1, 2, and 3 to address the Defense for example.

The Pats could get two OL candidates high; and ALSO a ILB/OLB, CB and Safety for example. Nice way to find replacements for Bruschi, Rodney and Lynch.

 

[cstjohn17]

Great points plus the are stacked going into 2009.

1
2,2 (from SD)
3, 3( for Samuel)
4

Plus an extra 5th or 6th for Stallworth / Gay,


I forgot the 2008 haul could have been even better, I think the Pats had to forfeit a 1st round draft pick, I can't seem to remember why...

 

[loosebearing]

It's only a missed opportunity looking back. BB & Pioli don't have the reverse crystal ball. And even if they did somebody else has to be stupid enough to give up their opportunity ( in order to make the trade ) which isn't always a given.

And if you don't think this 2008 team is good enough - then don't watch. I'll see a great season - one that has a shot at SB 4. Not perfect enough is still better than 31 other organizations. Perfection doesn't exist. Better is in the eye of the beholder. I prefer to behold through the eyes of BB and Pioli than all the "sky is falling" posters.

Go get your own team and skrew it up.

Last year and this year have been rebuilding years. (like 2001) Aging vets and talented but clueless rooks. And how have they done. 19 straight and still counting.

 

[jeffbiologist]

There's a lot of shortsighted-veering-toward-stupid here, not the least of which is..."Well, we upgraded with Moss and Welker last year because there just so happened to be more places to UPGRADE there. We had NO good WRs. This year areas of improvement are not as plentiful, and it's a fluid process.

I realize it's better to judge drafts more comprehensively after three years, but the idea that we're not allowed to officially say that Mayo in the middle is an upgrade until 2011 is patently absurd. We are BETTER at inside linebacker RIGHT NOW than we were last year. Period.

Again, you CANT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. You cant say we upgraded at WR because"we had no good WR"....and then say Mayo is an upgrade without mentioning the hall of famer he is essentially replacing. And reason Seau was there was because of the injury to Colvin forcing Thomas outside. I dont think you can say Vrabel-Thomas-Bruschi/Seau-Colvin is upgraded to Vrabel-Bruschi-Mayo-Thomas can you?
I think history will prove that 07 isnt going to be as bad as the FO says it was....and 08 wont be as good. Some of this years' rookies are a product of not having "enough" last year(in my opinion)which goes against what worked in 07---keeping vets!