Best and Worst Patriots Players Of 2006

[Seymour93]

WTF. Dude, come back here one year from today and if Chad Jackson hasn't done something to win you over, fine, you can sit here and get all excited over the fact that you were right and we were wrong. But in the meantime, how about you give the kid (and the coaches) the benefit of the doubt and a little more time, and not take every chance you get to take a shot at him.

And you know what is backwards thinking? To blame the fate of the team on a ROOKIE and not on the LEADERS. I am sure Brady and Seymour, like great veteran leaders, do accept blame in the outcome of the season, whether they deserve it or not.

I'm not blaming the season on Jackson. He didn't help but he's not at fault either. Remix bizarrely suggested that Brady, Seymour, and Harrison had disappointing seasons. Yes, being team leaders they take more blame than others for the final picture, but that doesn't mean they each had disappointing individual seasons. They where there when it mattered. The definition of disappointing is being a so-called talented player but being involved in just 5 out of 204 offensive snaps during the playoffs when your healthy.

 

[Kdo5]

MY PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE
----------------------------

BEST

Warren, then Sanders and Hawkins.
We would have exactly zero chance at the SB without their contributions.

I cannot underestimate (for yet another year) how well our backup defensive backs have played. NO SECONDARY allowed fewer touchdown passes. Only ONE team allowed fewer points. We did this with THREE defensive backfeild starters out for most of the season.

Kudos also to Chad Scott and Baker. Finally, kudos to Hobbs and Bruschi who played with casts to play their part on one of the top three defenses in the league.

Maybe Hobbs has only the talent to be a nickel back. That's no criticism. That makes his performance as a starter even more outstanding. An injured nickel back, playing with a cast, was part of one the best performing secondaries in the league, this with backup safties helping them deep.

And BTW, Brady had a fine year. In the end, upon further review and reflection on the season and the playoffs, his wide receivers were just plain aweful.

===============================================
WORST

Gabriel, Gaffney and Caldwell.

We'd be in the SB if we had the jets receivers or the receivers from at least a dozen other teams. The number would be higher, but we can't compare to running teams, who have relatively few recievers. ALL the receivers had plenty of time with Brady by the time the playoffs came around.

I am tempted to say that Gaffney and Caldwell played up to their ability and beyond, so perhaps they could be considered to have had a solid year. But that is NOT the standard. Their receiving was terrible this year. We all watched hundreds of games and highlights this year. Receivers all over the league caught imperfect passes for big yardage and touchdowns. Not our jags! Dozens were more reliable. In the end, we had a set of jags, a gutsy star who almost retired, and an injured rookie.

I give Jackson a pass. Actually, he looked pretty good for a rookie WR. When we factor in his injuries, he was fine. We needed much more from him. We really needed an immediate starter. That's not his fault. He was brought in to contribute in his second year, and start in his second or third, and he will likely still do that, UNLESS HIS INJURIES affect his total career.

Brown didn't have much of a year, but what should we expect from someone that would have retired if we didn't have the worst receivers of any decent NFL team (and worse than some college teams) and the worst patriot receiving corps in the Brady era. Who's kidding who? Patten was head and shoulders better than anything we had this year. Brown was Brown. He did great in key situations, and we are all glad he was here, and he may have had THE PLAY of the year.

Childress was a no show yet again.

Kight was a fine STer and worthy of the last receiver spot.

BTW, I personally think that Watson had a fine season. The stats are real. He was a major contributer at the wide receiver position. HIs performance compares with the performance of our #1 and #2 receivers. That's pretty good for a TE.

I'm not criticizing Brady, Josh, bb or Pioli for the play of the receivers. They got the best they could get out of what we had. In the end, it was almost enough to get us to the SB. THE DRIVE ended at a bit over 3 minutes left with us giving up and kicking a field goal, instead of counting on our receivers with two tries for 11 yards. I personally believe that if any one of FIFTY receivers from other teams were on the field healthy, the best QB in NFL playoff history would have tried two passes to try to get the first down. Maybe it was all Josh. Somehow, I doubt it.

Josh was among the worst second half coordinators in the league, but in crunch time, it is Brady who calls (or vetos) the plays, and Brady did what he thought was best to try to win the game. He asked the defense to bail the offense out one more time. Sadly, as I relect, perhaps Brady was right. Perhaps counting on one last stand from one of the top three defenses in the league was a better idea than counting on the worst set of receivers in the league. Heck, I think that he might have passed if Faulk were healthy at the end of the game.

And without Caldwell and Gaffney would we have got into the AFC Championship game in the first place? Ask yourself that. They were a heck of a lot better in the second half of the year. Infact the only time I really was dissapointed by either of them after the first half was in the AFCCG when Caldwell dropped two easy passes that would have been huge. They were definitley not the worst.

Hawkins was not one of the best. I think it was he who looked like a fool on LT's 60 yard dash in the playoffs that set up a TD. I cant remember whose fault it was for certain games but I know for a fact that some games like the Lions game, our secondary was absolutely atrocious like them allowing 30 yard catches on 3rd and 30 and I am sure these were games when Hawkins and/or Sanders were starting.. Sanders also blew coverage on a 70 TD reception by Javon Walker, Not sure if it was 70 but definitley over 50 yards. But Sanders was pretty decent, Hawkins was alright but he was certainly not one of the best.

 

[ilduce06410]

maroney

If Maroney's performance is dissapointing to anyone, I suggest that they better be prepared for many more disappointments in football and in life.
Maroney had a fine season, and was even playing at rookie of the year type quality for some of it. He was a great pick and contributed a lot in his rookie year.

you are right, maroney turned out to be a good pick.
i think we can also agree joseph addai was more effective in the championship game. maybe addai's plays were better conceived than the ones where maroney got the pill.
but that dancing around troubles me. who's the RBs coach? why isn't maroney learning from corey? take the 2 yard gain, then continue to work the defense.
the young man is developing bad habits. that worries me.

 

[Kdo5]

Re: maroney

you are right, maroney turned out to be a good pick.
i think we can also agree joseph addai was more effective in the championship game. maybe addai's plays were better conceived than the ones where maroney got the pill.
but that dancing around troubles me. who's the RBs coach? why isn't maroney learning from corey? take the 2 yard gain, then continue to work the defense.
the young man is developing bad habits. that worries me.

I wasnt dissapointed by Maroney. But I wasnt thoroughly convinced he should be the future RB of this team for a long time to come. He has loads of talent, looked terrific at times but at other times he was struggling to get more than back to the line in some games.

 

[cstjohn17]

Honestly looking at the entire 2006 season as the body of work I think the whole team player very well, above expectations.

Defense - Warren, Samuel
Offense - Mankins, Brady
ST - All units produced and some young guys were added to the mix (Ghost., Mays, Woods, Andrews)

I don't think we lost because any player played poorly.

Defense - At the end we had some key injuries on D (Harrison, Seymour was banged up, Seau) and the lack of depth at ILB caught up to us. People slam the secondary but the Pats only allowed 10 passing TDs all year (simply amazing stat). Our D was heading in the wrong direction at the end of the year, we will all be watching to see how much they think was injury related and how much was personnel. At a minimum ILB and Samuel will be interesting to watch.

On offense we were inconsistent all year, not sure what we do. Maybe add another WR but that doesn't answer why the running game was so up and down. Maybe all we need for 07 is most practice as a unit and a bulked up Maroney.

ST were up and down played played great down the stretch. Happy to see some young blood and expect even more in 2007.

 

[DaBruinz]

Green? As in Jarvis Green? Are you serious? He had one good game against the Bengals and then you didn't hear about him for the rest of the season.

Really? Green got 7.5 sacks in ONE GAME? WOW. I don't remember dominating the Bengals that badly..

Now, while Green didn't disappear as you so claim, he wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire either. However, he was a SOLID back-up to Seymour and was good when he lined up with Seymour as the 2 down-lineman.

 

[DaBruinz]

Didn't Mike Wright have the same 3 first round picks in front of him that Hill did and still play well enough in the last 2 years to not only get on the field but to make solid contributions when he was in there?

No. Mike Wright did NOT have 3 1st round picks in front of him. He had 1. Wilfork. And Mike Wright earned the right to be the back-up to Wilfork and has produced. Marquis Hill has 2 1st rounders and a 4th rounder who would start on many teams in front of him. It doesn't help that Wright can ALSO play the positon, but Wright is the primary back-up at NT.

 

[DaBruinz]

Re: Hey, 64, what about wilfork?

ya wanna talk about best player?
i choose wilfork, then mankins, then samuel.

issues: without rodney, eugene wilson is an average FS. he's a cover guy, not a hitter. he, and matt light, are playing out of position. light was drafted to be a RT.

No, Light was NOT drafted to be a RT. He was drafted to be the LT. Otherwise, the Pats wouldn't have gone after Graham in 2002, they would have gone for an OT.

wilson was picked to be a CB. i'd like to see both of them at their natural positions.

disappointing (sic): watson, maroney, gabriel, jackson.
didn't get one full season's productivity out of the 4 of them combined.

worst:
1. caldwell. he was supposed to be the next "big find" of the BB/SP era (vrabel, harrison, neal, kaczur, mankins). from tht dropped TD pass in the postseaon, to the drop against dolts, he just didn't make the plays one would expect from a WR of his calibre.
2. BB/SP. we'd have beaten the dolts if we hadn't had to depend on caldwell and gaffney, for chrissakes, to grab brady's passes. total extra cost for branch, givens: $2 million in 2006 cap space. available 2006 cap space: $8 million. this formula stuff may make for a well-run franchise, but it Does Not make for Championship Teams.

worst?

1) Caldwell was touted as a #2 WR coming in, NOT a #1. Yes, he did have the 2 bad drops in the Colts game (of which only 1 cost us anything). But so what? T.O. led the league in drops this year. But to say he was the WROST player is proof positive that your football acumen leaves EVERYTHING to be desired.


2) BB/SP: You're friggin NUTS. The Pats have 3 Championship teams because of their formula. Both Givens and Branch decided to go else where. Givens went to the Titans for an extra 4 million over 5 years. Branch decided that he was better than Brady and Seymour and shouldn't have to follow the same rules they did and was shipped out for a contract that probably wasn't as good as the Patriots were willing to offer.

 

[Kdo5]

Re: Hey, 64, what about wilfork?

I dont get it why is Gaffney getting knocked on when he did nada wrong in the post season besides help us win?