Aqua4Ever04 said:
Crazy Patriot Guy-
This is the best post I've seen by any of you guys on here. Very good points and good logic. My point is just like I said though, we are much better than the 9-7 team we ran out last year. Not just a 10-6 but an 11-5 possibly 12-4 team this year. You guys will be better with the additions of all your injured players.
BUT! You lost some of your most key players from your run. Vinatieri was the best kicker over the last couple of years. He was so clutch and won a lot of games for you.
David Givens was probably your best reciever and face it, you guys have no serious threats at WR.
Willie McGinnest was a big part of your guys' amazing 3-4 scheme that Billichik so masterfully ran.
Our offense is way better than your guys' at this point. We now have an equal quarterback and have way better skill players and our Oline is pretty good also. A lot of you people say that you've never herd of any one on the oline but, we were 4th in sacks allowed had a 900 yard rusher and a 700 yard rusher.
Those are all such huge losses and we have done nothing but make huge strides. Do you understand why I have all this optimism?
First off, you're on both sides of the argument. You say losing AV is huge because he was clutch, but all you do is compare stats to show that Cullpepper is as good if not better than Brady. Clutch is what makes Brady great, he's rarely rattled, he's always in control, and to date, only three times has he failed to put up points with a chance to tie or win the game. Cullpepper is a very good, talented QB but c'mon. I could probably find stats that make Warren Moon look better than Joe Montana.
David Givens was not our best WR. Deion Branch is far and away our best WR. Givens always had that same play called for him in the playoffs so he had a lot of TD catches when he was on TV. That's why he looks so good to you IMO.
You've got to do better than that. You saying Givens is our best WR and we have no one else would be like me saying Marty Booker was your best WR if he left and you have no one else. (obviously Chris Chambers is better)
McGinest was a fine LB and I still think he'll be a solid player for Cleveland. But he wasn't exactly all-pro last season. I honestly think people are looking mainly at his incredible game against the Jaguars in the playoffs and thinking he did that every single game for us. It simply isn't true.
AV is a very clutch kicker but you can see that he's starting to drop a little bit. A couple years back, if he missed, it was a beautiful kick that just sailed wide. Last year he had a couple that looked plain bad. Again, when a game winning kick is needed, we absolutely downgraded. However, I don't think we are going to suffer too much when it comes to normal, game-to-game kicking.
I just looked at our Week 10 game when we faced you guys. I decided to look at our "huge" losses and see what they did to you. I'm not looking at the final game because we were basically playing our JV.
David Givens had 0 receptions.
AV was 3/3 on FGs, long of just 35 yards.
McGinest had one solo tackle and one assist.
They weren't exactly the difference in us winning or losing that game.
Again, it's INCREDIBLY EARLY in the offseason. Like I mentioned, people tried telling us we were screwed without Ted Washington. We then drafted Vince Wilfork. The offseason isn't over.
I still don't think you're being very objective. You make a small mention that we'll be improved with our injured players back but then make it seem like we're in deep trouble with the loss of those three players.
We played almost the entire year without our LT and all-pro SS. We were down our top 3 CBs by Week 6. We lost our C and 4th CB by midseason. We played 4 weeks without Seymour, arguably the best all-around DL in the game. We played 6 games without Bruschi, and his impact in his return was very obvious. Brady had a sports hernia all season. Dillon had a hamstring injury all season. At one point, we had one healthy RB and another playing hurt because we had no room on the inactive list. Daniel Graham missed time which not only hurt our passing game but our running game as well because he's an absolutely incredible blocker. Kevin Faulk has been a huge playmaker for us despite his occasional bad-timing fumble and he missed two months. It goes on and on.
I would say the return of that group is just a tad bit more important to the team than Givens, McGinest and Vinatieri. It's true those three players were key players in our Super Bowl runs. However, you're talking about 20+ Super Bowl rings on IR or standing on the sidelines for a major part of the season.
Patriots fans should be optimistic. We get a lot of players back healthy. We've added some very good special teamers which should greatly improve our coverage which hurt us at times last year. We're in a good draft position and have extra picks in the mid rounds where the real value is. Our schedule is spread out very evenly where there really isn't a ridiculous stretch of games like last season.
You should be optimistic too, you're team looks to be improving. Cullpepper is a definate upgrade. (though I'm suprised no one seems to be worried about his knee) You've got a lot of young talent on offense and a good coach. So hell yes be optimistic, I would be if I was a Dolphins fan. But don't come over hear telling us to admit that we're done and the Dolphins now own the division. There's a difference between optimism and ****iness.
