Take a look at the defense. Take a look at the offense. Find the positions with issues/questions that really exist even if all the players are healthy at the start of the season. Guess where they are?
TE
WR
ORG
C
LB (if Collins doesn't work out)
S2
As I said earlier, your post basically made no sense. It's a post that makes it seem as if you haven't been following the Patriots, or the NFL, at all for the past 3 seasons.
I basically agree with you.
No one pushed for more investment in a shallow Offensive line than did I, prior to the Draft. But that does not mean I thought all or most of the interior O line starters were very poor players. They did key an Offense that was Top 3 for three years running, so they are not bums.
I wanted a 'meat and potatoes' Draft to increase the quality of the players there, handle injuries, and to start preparing for the aging Mankins replacement in a year or three. BB apparently agreed and thought it a moderate priority, investing early Day 3 picks to groom. It is un-neccessary to move away from the incumbents in 2014. Letting Fleming inherit the swing tackle position frees Cannon to move to RG full time; and allows bigger Connolly to return to C. Veterans, and fairly good ones at that, will ensure the undersize problems of Wendell are overcome, even without resort to the actual grooming rookies. I hope a starter for 2014 can emerge from the rookies by mid-season, but I expect to see them bloom in 2015 and beyond.
Just like the investment BB made in WRs in 2013 and the RBs corps the year before that. BB had gone as far as possible with the aging WR vets in 2011, and set out to improve the roster and develop some fresh, talented, young blood there.
You predicted, and I concurred, that there would be growing pains, and there were, aggravated by the unexpected last minute loss of a star receiving TE, and too late to do much about it.
Those days are behind us at RB, and I expect at WR too, pending confirmation in 2014 play. Having a second star TE is a luxury, whose loss and replacement can be overcome, with either a two receiving RB system, or emphasis on the run game, or a triple wide WR formations, or some combination.
The selection of a a second starting quality TE was undermined by a poor Draft stock and health may have prevented the signing of a quality veteran TE, as well.
BB is well on his way to better selections for all 3 alternative possibilities in 2014. So there are really not many
actual problems on Offense.
I wish I could say as much for the Defense. BB has hopes that he will secure the play of as many as five additional, healthy, Pro Bowl quality Defensive players in 2014 versus 2013. But those are only hopes, yet to be proved. Achilles tendons are a tough injury to overcome, as may be the infection complications that Armstead faces. Then there are the knee injuries to Kelly and Easly to worry about, too.
Collins may be a flash in the pan, over rated by a couple of late season rookie performances. The acquisition of Anderson allays some fears there.
The selection of a starting second Safety may still prove problematical, especially when any such candidate may be picked on, rather than face the quality evident elsewhere. I suspect, but cannot assert that circumstantial evidence suggests BB feels otherwise, but I can see the concern. Feeling free to simply cut the incumbent, re-acquiring a former starter as mere depth, and the hopes for one of two high draft selections breaking out, would seem to allay those concerns.
Between Wilfork, Siliga, Mayo, I would hope that the vulnerability to the run which showed up when Wilfork, Kelly and Mayo and Spikes were all injured may prove ephemeral, but its cure must be demonstrated.
So I assert that the Defensive stats were not great last season, even if much better than everyone grants them. The Pass Rush was better than in decades for example. It does imply the play of new faces, and new starters, unlike the Offense.
On Offense there is no need for anything other than proven quality veterans to play, and a still Top 3 Offense is in prospect.
There are more issues to face on Offense, but these concerns are mostly to reserves. The issues on Defense are fewer but can pertain to starters.
In all, your call for caution as a Voice of Reason does make sense.
