Cunningham looked good at times for the Pats last year, but he's not made the impact that Dunlap has.
It's the same thing every year. Fans try to convince themselves that their team made the right choice by listing the alleged positives of their new player vs the alleged negatives of the player the team didn't choose. For all those saying he can't fit in a 3-4, then why you did you want Peppers so badly two years ago? How is Mario Williams possibly playing OLB? There is no evidence that Dunlap couldn't have played in the 3-4. It was just an excuse for why the Pats passed on him.
I actually liked Cunningham in that draft and he was solid in limited play last year, but I was surprised too. Dunlap was the consensus better player in all pre-draft talk among scouts/media members. Dunlap was the bigger difference maker when you watched Florida play. Dunlap had that freakish size and athleticism that guys like Mario Williams and Peppers display.
But the Patriots are smarter than everyone else, right? They saw something no one else did and took Cunningham. It's the same thing every year. It's like when the Pats traded down for Butler rather than taking Vontae Davis who was more highly touted and clearly more physical when you watched them play. Davis had a bad attitude and poor technique, while Butler was so athletic, etc. It's the same thing when the Pats took Ron Brace. He was the one clearing the space for BJ Raji to wreak havoc.
That's just the way beat writers and fans think. They want their team's decision to be the right one. I can guarantee you Jets fans were saying the same thing when they took Gholston. Oh he fits perfectly and Keith Rivers and Sedrick Ellis are just overhyped USC prospects that don't fit the scheme. Dominque Rodgers Cromartie and McKelvin didn't play tough enough competition. Etc.
And of course, we'll always have fans who accuse anyone unwilling to label a second year player "bust" as being a "homer."
Allow me to re-quote Sciz for effect:
For all the hate on Cunningham relative to Dunlap, remember that he did have more total pressures than Dunlap a year ago. Now, he had fewer sacks and more just "hurries," but he impacted the QB more than Dunlap did.
My new favorite stat, though, is 7. That would be the number of tackles on running plays that Dunlap had last season. Cunningham had 31. And I'd be willing to bet that Cunningham dropped into coverage around 10 times as much as Dunlap did last season.
People aren't satisfied with Cunningham strictly because of his stats.
There's a segment of Patriots fans that take delight in criticizing the team whenever possible, even when said criticism has no basis in reality (see above). It baffles me.
I don't think anyone here has ever claimed the Patriots are perfect; but yet everyday we have people trying to actively PROVE that they're not, that Belichick is overrated, he can't draft, his schemes suck, and that no on in the organization has an explanation for any superficially strange-looking move they might make. And then they want the "homers" to come out and admit how wrong they were about the Pats.
And that's what it boils down to. All these people, from Borges to Felger, have a bone to pick with Belichick because they've piled on him for one thing, only to be proven wrong time and time again.
These people think they're smarter than the "homer" fans, but in reality they're even more impatient and delusional. Who passes judgment on a second round pick after just one year? And as shown above, they don't really pay attention to what the players even do--they just look at stats, see no sacks, and assume the guy sucks.
