Probably just talking him up...Would not be surprised to see him get the axe. I remember BB singing Marcus Pollard's praises in the 08 preseason.
After reading a plethora of unintended or ill thought out remarks in this thread, I feel grubby enough to dig into the issue you attempted to raise.
I don't think we've crossed swords and I'm afraid the ravages of a well-spent youth occasionally slow my memory so I can't recall anything you've written, in other words, no axe to grind. It's fair to forget Crumpler's past in this exercise, it's a 'what have you done for me lately?' world in the NFL, so stats good or bad aren't really critical factors. Which leaves, how he is being used, how often he is being used, our own valuation of that use, and an effort to understand how the coaches value that usage.
Per Mike Reiss
link NE used a multiple TE formation 15/39 snaps against the Rams. Hernandez was out, which left Crumpler and Gronkowski to take those snaps as we didn't see the other two kids at all that I recall.
Crumpler would have been in on a minimum of 38% of the plays. As the more experienced player, Crumpler was more likely to be in on the one TE formations, but we'll split them evenly between the two for the sake of simplicity. This puts Crumpler on the field for a likely 27/39 snaps; which is competitive, if a bit lower, with how Ben Watson was used last season when there really was no other TE option NE liked (note Baker's early departure after the season).
This analysis tells me Crumpler is being used a lot, and he's getting the assignments because the coaches like what he does. Oddly enough, that matches up with what BB said about Crumpler in his presser.
Part of the fun of this forum is the different ways people have of collecting information and looking at the information when it's lumped together with other's efforts. For example, stats freaks love their numbers. Myself, I'm an old field trainer for entry level, advanced personnel, and instructors. I like to look at how people do things and try to understand why they do them that way. Sometimes when there's no manual you will find there is more then one way to get the job done, and I learned lots of new tricks from students, some were even good ones.
In assessing Crumpler's value to the Pats, I look at how Billy O'Brien and Co. are using him, how often they use him, and how consistently they use him from game to game. What I see is a player they use in a variety of ways, he's consistently running with the ones, but in the first game he also ran a lot with the twos as Gronkowski and Hernandez were adjusting to game conditions. I assume that information means he's more than just a cog in the machine, he's also an example and pace setter for the other players at his position.
Added all together, it tells me, with the way I look at things, that he's prized for his leadership and his performance, which at final cutdown time will usually make him a keeper. Others undoubtedly used a different formula to reach a similar conclusion, sadly, differing conclusions from the data usually gets people feeling defensive instead of curious, so we all just beat each other about the head and shoulders, which explains why we have wars, hockey games, and fan forums.
