ESPN's Ultimate Depth Chart

[Pats/Hokies Fan]

http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?id=2502031

Ok, it's the offseason... but these are NOT the poll results... they're ESPN's (Mike Golic, Mark Schlereth, Sean Salisbury and Trey Wingo). Wow.

Patriots :
-----------
QBs -- #1
RBs -- #14
Pass Catchers -- #11

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Pats Commentary :

WOAH. How the heck did we end up at #11 in the Pass Catchers dept ? Someone just gave us a LOT of credit. I think we're about right at the QB & RBs #s though.

Pass Catchers Puzzlers :

Steelers at #11 : Just as overrated as we are.
Texans at #16 : Moulds & Andre Johnson are considered midde of the pack for #1 & #2 WRs ? Really ?
Seahawks at #14 : I'd take D-Jax, Engram & Burleson over a lot of 3 WR sets in the NFL.
Raiders at #14 : Moss & Porter can make even Kerry Collins look reasonable. They deserve better.
Redskins at #3 : Just because they might be #3 in team spending on WRs, doesn't mean that they have that much talent. They're still in the top 10 or 15 though.
Giants at #6 : I guess Shockey is the only reason for this, because Toomer is over the hill and Plax just catches jump balls.

 

[BelichickFan]

When you include our TE I don't think they have us too high. If it were WR, then yes.

 

[Kdo5]

I expected them to rank the Pats recieving A LOT lower, but the reason they ranked the Pats so high at #11 was because of Branch and the tight ends. Ofcourse everyone is pulling for Watson to have a great year after last season where he showed some signs of a pro bowl caliber player in the future. Graham is a great blocking tight end but he can make some good catches. He did use to struggle with his hands but he has made some pretty big catches for us. And adding Mills and Thomas certainly makes up for losing Fauria.

Quarterback I was really suprised but pleased. I would never have thought they'd put the Pats at #1 with Peyton Manning out there. They would usually put Peyton at #1 automatically regardless that Jim Sorgi is his back up. But they were right, Brady is AWESOME. And Cassel looked pretty good for a rookie, ripping up to Dolphins defensive starters.

Runningbacks....I would think it should be slightly higher. I mean this is the Ultimate DEPTH CHART. Doesnt necesarily mean starter. We have Dillon and I think he rocks, and a great great running back, but I have to face it, no one is going to believe in Dillon, and are ready to believe hes washed up. No he isnt, but people will throw aside injuries to himself, offensive line, etc. Kevin Faulk has proved to be a valuable backup, unless injured. 04 he was a good runner when Dillon needed some rest on the sidelines. Good player. But now we dont have Cedric Cobbs at #3, we have Maroney which is a lot lot better. When I say #3, he still might get as many carries as Faulk to give Dillon rest, in that case it is excellent to have him until hes ready to take the starting role whenever Dillon leaves.

Now next we have Pass Defense...

I expect the Pats to be ranked very very low. They dont deserve it I dont think. They looked solid at the end of last year. Hobbs looked excellent for a starting rookie. And ofcourse having Harrison back is HUGE. Gay back will be good. Then we would have four possible starting cornerbacks in the Depth at CB. I wouldnt rank us that high but not that low.

Run defense should be #1. At least top five. Seymour, Warren, Wilfork, Green, the fat bust who needs to get a good diet, on the D-Line. Bruschi on the inside...we have Beisel who is a very possible starter inside. Then we have Colvin and Vrabel on the outside. Looks good to me.

 

[Drewwho]

Cassel had NOTHING to do with the QB grade of #1. On the show, they said they threw out the backups for Brady and P. Manning since they are so far ahead of the rest of the QB pack. With that in mind, they just put Brady and Manning on the table and Brady won from the panel - no arguements.

Again, the ranking had NOTHING to do with Cassel's ONE game against a Miami team that had NOTHING to play for at the end of the season. PLEASE!

 

[Ring 6]

14 for RB seems pretty reasonable to me. Dillon was top 5 in 2004 and bottom 5 in 2005. Clearly if he was healthy he would have at least been middle of the pack. I think you can make 3 assumptions to back that ranking up. 1) If dillon is healthy he is easily top 15 RBs in the NFL 2) If he's not, Maroney is surely better than half the starting RBs out there (go through the list, there are a lot of teams with questoinable RBs that a #1 pick would probalby be an upgrade to. 3) If both play, that is fantastic depth.

Also having Faulk as 3rd down back and reserve would raise the rating, I cant think of many teams whose #3 at RB is better than Kevin Faulk.

 

[patsox23]

Seattle's WR corps is not that good. #14 seems about right. D-Jax, sure. The others? Eh.

 

[spacecrime]

Again, the ranking had NOTHING to do with Cassel's ONE game against a Miami team that had NOTHING to play for at the end of the season. PLEASE!

Agree. The only reason that Miami left all their starters in the entire game against our third stringers was because ... umm because ... because ... well, just because.

 

[NavinR.Johnson]

NO surprises here just a good article on our two top TE's

In recent years, the New England Patriots have become famous for having a host of tight ends on their roster capable of making big catches at crucial times. This offseason, the Patriots' stable of tight ends took a hit when they lost 11-year veteran Christian Fauria to free agency. However, they still have plenty of potential at the position, with Daniel Graham and Ben Watson.

The current No. 1 on the New England Patriots ' depth chart is Graham, a former first-round pick in 2002. Quietly, the 27-year-old has emerged as one of the league's foremost blockers at his position. During his four-year tenure with the Patriots, the 6-3, 257-pounder has been at the receiving end of 99 passes, 15 of which have been touchdowns.

Unfortunately for Graham, he's never been lucky enough to stay injury-free for a full season, as he's missed at least two games in every season, including five last year. Graham is clearly the Patriots' best blocking tight end, and he makes the catch when the ball is thrown his way, which has made him a favorite of quarterback Tom Brady.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Watson holds down the No. 2 spot on the depth chart. He's not the adept blocker Graham is, but he makes up for it with his ability to be a solid receiver. Much like Graham, he too was a first-round pick, chosen in 2004.

Because of injuries, Watson only appeared in one game as a rookie; however, he showed plenty of promise last season, catching 29 passes for a jaw-dropping 15.2-yard average. The highlight to Watson's 2005 came in the AFC Wild Card round, when he took a Tom Brady pass 63 yards for a touchdown in a 28-3 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars .

The 6-3, 253-pounder has enough potential to become one of the NFL's best receivers at his position. Names like Antonio Gates, Jeremy Shockey, Tony Gonzalez and Randy McMichael are the attention-getters now, but Watson could join that list in the near future, especially with Brady, the game's top QB, throwing passes his way.

The Patriots, of course, lost one of their best receivers, David Givens, during the free agency period. If Watson can help fill Givens' void in the catch department and Graham continues his promising pace as a blocker/dependable receiver, there's no reason why New England's offense won't continue humming along in 2006.

--Connor J. Byrne can be reached at cbyrne@realfootball365.com

 

[14thDragon]

http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/story?id=2502031

Ok, it's the offseason... but these are NOT the poll results... they're ESPN's (Mike Golic, Mark Schlereth, Sean Salisbury and Trey Wingo). Wow.

Patriots :
-----------
QBs -- #1
RBs -- #14
Pass Catchers -- #11

Wow, they must be giving Marroney some serious credit to get us up to 14. Given what happened last year, I think we need to prove we have a running game this year.

I can go along with Pass Catchers if we toss in the TE and Faulk. Since Tom runs the screen as well as anyone. I can think of a lot of teams with better pure WR but we have very good TE and good third down pass catching running back.

 

[tatepatsfan]

We were number 10 for pass defense, and the way they described it, I thought they'd have us even higher. They mentioned how some of the guys who were starting in our secondary at the end of last season will now be backups and how much depth we have, and how our pass rush was really really good. They said with Rodney back and a healthy Bruschi, that by the end of the season we should definitely be better than #10.

 

[Kdo5]

Glad to see that they ranked the secondary at #10. Ranked higher than our rushing and recieving...

Rush defense we got #7, which I guess is reasonable, we could have been a tad higher. This defensive line we have is great, aside from Jonathon Sullivan(...fatso). Wilfork and Seymour and Warren, wow thats a great group of starters for the 3-4. And Jarvis Green is a pretty good player and a great backup. I think that we werent ranked higher was because of our LB's but hey that doesnt make a ton of sense. Rosevelt Colvin looked really good and Vrabel and Bruschi looked like themselves, which is great.We are looking for one more starting LB, and I wont doubt that Beisel might take that stop inside with Bruschi.

 

[cstjohn17]

Call me a realist or a pessimist but I don't know how we could even be rated in the top 20 in pass defense. I hope I am wrong but I see pass defense as a major challenge for the 06 team. We may have more depth but no real improvements have been made. We can hope players perform better and return from injury but Harrison is a huge question mark and overall the play was terrible for most of last season. I think signing Law will go a long way to shoring things up.

2005 Stats - Pass Defense
- pass yards allowed 231.4 - rank 31 out of 32
- interceptions - 10 - rank - tied for 27th out of 32
- sacks - 33 - rank 23 out of 32

 

[RxJock1120]

Call me a realist or a pessimist but I don't know how we could even be rated in the top 20 in pass defense. I hope I am wrong but I see pass defense as a major challenge for the 06 team. We may have more depth but no real improvements have been made. We can hope players perform better and return from injury but Harrison is a huge question mark and overall the play was terrible for most of last season. I think signing Law will go a long way to shoring things up.

2005 Stats - Pass Defense
- pass yards allowed 231.4 - rank 31 out of 32
- interceptions - 10 - rank - tied for 27th out of 32
- sacks - 33 - rank 23 out of 32

I agree with your assesment, based on those stats we probably do not deserve the 10th ranked pass defense. But we did improve. Hobbs having a year under his belt, Harrison's return, and Bruschi playing the whole year will take care off a lot of minor things that we struggled with last year.

 

[Ring 6]

I think if you look at those rankings over the second half of the season, they would be very different.
The argument isnt what they were last year but what they will be this year.

Who would you rank higher, going into the following season, the team that was #1 the first half of the season and #32 the second half, or the one that was #32 the 1st half and #1 the second half?

The improvement included changing personell and those that made it better are still here. The improvement was without Harrison, and he should be back.

The stats created against guys who are no longer here, or guys who were forced into starting and now backups arent really relevant.

 

[5 Rings for Brady!!]

I am a little concerned about the pass rush. Hopefully, Colvin and Vrabel will be better than Willie and Colvin. We need to get to the QB, and Warren is not much of a pass rusher. I think we overlook this area because the team defense can be effective at times, but we don't always get much heat on the QB. We would really be a tight defense if we were hitting the QB more.

 

[Kdo5]

I remember a few games where we just shut down some of the good runners in the league near the end of the season. Notice how our first meeting with Buffalo MgAhee ran all over us, the second game he was completely and I mean completely stuffed. We had one of the best in the league, we lost Willie Mac but its not the end of the world as we still have everyone else on the D.

 

[cstjohn17]

An excuse for more useless stats - breakdown of last years pass defense

Thanks Andy, This gave me an excuse to break down last years stats in more detail. The breakdown compare the number of points allowed and pass yards allowed against three variables:
- First half schedule versus second half of the season
- Against teams with winning records versus losing records
- Against quarterbacks of various levels (Excellent, Good, Average & Crap)

The full data is in the attached .pdf

Pass yards allowed Average points allowed
Schedule
1st half 254.75 28.13
2nd half 237.38 14.75


Opponents record
winning record 257.6 25.4
losing record 226.8 14.83

Quarterback rating
Excellent 321 40
Good 241 31.3
Average 267 19.6
Crap 188 13

Full Data
Game Team Opp. Record Pass yards QB Schedule Points QB Rating
1 OAK Loser 265.00 Collins 1st half 20 Average
2 CAR Winner 154.00 Delhome 1st half 27 Good
3 PIT Winner 216.00 Roeth. 1st half 20 Average
4 SD Winner 248.00 Brees 1st half 41 Good
5 ATL Winner 298.00 Shaub 1st half 28 Average
6 DEN Winner 262.00 Plummer 1st half 28 Average
7 BUF Loser 274.00 Losman 1st half 21 Crap
8 IND Winner 321.00 Manning 1st half 40 Excellent
9 MIA Winner 360.00 Frerotte 2nd half 16 Average
10 NO Loser 343.00 Brooks 2nd half 17 Average
11 KC Winner 323.00 Green 2nd half 26 Good
12 NYJ Loser 135.00 Bollinger 2nd half 3 Crap
13 BUF Loser 181.00 Losman 2nd half 7 Crap
14 TB Winner 155.00 Simms 2nd half 0 Average
15 NYJ Loser 163.00 Bollinger 2nd half 21 Crap
16 MIA Winner 239.00 Frerotte 2nd half 28 Average