Have the Patriots ever started a D this young?

[pdangle]

This has to be the youngest team I've ever seen the Patriots plan to routinely put on the field together to start a season.

Experience to start 2010:

Wilfork 6yrs
Brace 1yr
Pryor 1yr / Wright 5yrs

Mayo 2yrs
Spikes 0yr / Guyton 1yr

Cain 7yrs
Cunningham 0yr

McCourty 0yr
Butler 1yr
Chung 1yr
Meriweather 3yrs

Median Experience : 1 yr! ONE FREAKIN' YEAR! Makes me think we should expect to hit a few bumps on the road this season. If not, it would be have to be a football miracle. But on the flip side, we should be set on this side of the ball for quite a while though. C'mon BB work your magic...

 

[Mogamedogz]

Not in the Belichick era.

 

[jah]

Guyton 1yr

Not that it's a huge difference, but Guyton's been around for 2 years.

 

[SirApropos]

I'm pretty sure Cunningham is not the starter at OLB since he's been injured for several weeks now. Burgess is a 9 yr vet. Not that it adds all that much in terms of years.

 

[Satchboogie3]

Actually, I think it's 2.15 years average years of experience.

13 players, 28 total years of experience = 2.15 years (I think)

Who's Cain? CrAbel's brother

He said median, not mean. The median is the middle number (13 players ranging from 0-7 years experience, the middle guy is the 7th guy, who has 1 year experience) and in this case 1 year. The mean is the average, which is 2.15 as you said.

 

[pdangle]

I could have sworn Guyton was 2nd year. The only one I didn't double check. My bad.

Oh, and lest we forget. The man who's gonna set up the field position battles.

Zoltan 0yrs.

Also, I know some of the lineups will be older, but some will also be younger. Anyway, I just took a typical cross section of what our D might look like this year. I used MEDIAN age, not average, to get a less skewed average and better reflect each individual's age. Anyway just an observation, not a formal study or nuthin.

This defensive youth movement is actually one of the more interesting plot lines for me this year. At least we're not hearing how old the Pats are this year. Well... not as much anyway.

 

[RayClay]

I imagine Parcells ended up with a fairly young defense sometime while he was drafting the core of our SB winning Ds.

Waiting for incoming.:bricks:

 

[Ring 6]

I imagine Parcells ended up with a fairly young defense sometime while he was drafting the corps of our SB winning Ds.

Waiting for incoming.:bricks:

Bobby Grier thanks you for the complement.
Never understood how Parcells gets credit for the players that were drafted when he quit because he wasn't allowed to make the draft picks.

 

[Kontradiction]

When I did the average age for the starters on defense, it was around 26-27, IIRC. That was before cuts took place too.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

1996 was the only defense I can think of that even comes close.

Milloy, Bru were rookies
Law, TJ had 1 year experience
Slade, McGinnest had 3 years
Big play Clay, Otis, Todd Collins, Mike Jones and the rest of the regulars either had 4 or 5 years max

Too lazy to do the math but even that is not quite as young as this one.

 

[RayClay]

1996 was the only defense I can think of that even comes close.

Milloy, Bru were rookies
Law, TJ had 1 year experience
Slade, McGinnest had 3 years
Big play Clay, Otis, Todd Collins, Mike Jones and the rest of the regulars either had 4 or 5 years max

Too lazy to do the math but even that is not quite as young as this one.

Jimmy HitchCAWK had 5 starts and two interceptions in his second year.

 

[HEY BRO! WHAT UP?]

I think the better question should be, have they ever had a starting defense look this bad?

Bobby Grier thanks you for the complement.
Never understood how Parcells gets credit for the players that were drafted when he quit because he wasn't allowed to make the draft picks.

He rebuilt the Cowboys defense in like a year or two at the max.

 

[HomelandDef]

Interesting the Eagles' starting CBs are the former Pats starters - Asante and Ellis Hobbs. Of course Asante would've cost a bundle, and Ohrnberger and especially Paxton (who in essence we traded Hobbs him for) are solid, but CB is such an important position.

 

[TheGodInAGreyHoodie]

He said median, not mean. The median is the middle number (13 players ranging from 0-7 years experience, the middle guy is the 7th guy, who has 1 year experience) and in this case 1 year. The mean is the average, which is 2.15 as you said.

FWIW the mode is 1 year as well. Now we have all three measures of central tendency. Anybody up for calculating the standard deviation?

 

[RayClay]

Bobby Grier thanks you for the complement.
Never understood how Parcells gets credit for the players that were drafted when he quit because he wasn't allowed to make the draft picks.

Well, they were making picks together. i wondered about that myself, so i put Bruschi and "Parcells drafted" into a search and it came up with this...

It’s funny because Tedy’s first year here was my first year in ’96 when Bill [Parcells] drafted him in the third round out of Arizona...

[He was] the all-time Pac-10 sack leader coming into the NFL [and] we’re going to make him a linebacker. We don’t really know what to do with him. We’ve never seen him do anything but rush the passer, but we didn’t really think he could do that at this position in this league, so he became a player that transformed himself from a great, great college player to a great NFL player.

Tedy Bruschi Press Conference

Belichick is pretty precise with his language. We'll never know exactly who influenced what picks, but i think circumstantially, there seems a pretty dramatic break with the quality of players, especially on defense.

 

[Ron Sellers]

I think the better question should be, have they ever had a starting defense look this bad?

The 1970-75, 1981, 1989-92, and 1995 Pats all say hello.


I ran into a response to another 'have the Pats ever' question in another thread, and the response was that I should have known that the topic was in reference to teams during the Belichick era. If that is indeed again the case - which I am hesitant to assume - then it is no wonder that fans of other teams accuse Pats fans of being bandwagoners and Johnny-come-latelys. When some Pats fans use the wording of 'in Pats history' to mean 'in the BB era', no wonder others assume none of us followed the team prior to 2001.


And if you are referring to the Belichick era, the 2002 and 2005 Pats say hello also.

He rebuilt the Cowboys defense in like a year or two at the max.

The statement you responded to had nothing to do with what did or did not happen in Dallas. I'd love to hear an explanation of what a great job Grier did in New England; it sounds as if you think he was better than those in his place currently in Foxboro.

 

[Nikolai]

The 1970-75, 1981, 1989-92, and 1995 Pats all say hello.

I ran into a response to another 'have the Pats ever' question in another thread, and the response was that I should have known that the topic was in reference to teams during the Belichick era. If that is indeed again the case - which I am hesitant to assume - then it is no wonder that fans of other teams accuse Pats fans of being bandwagoners and Johnny-come-latelys. When some Pats fans use the wording of 'in Pats history' to mean 'in the BB era', no wonder others assume none of us followed the team prior to 2001.

And if you are referring to the Belichick era, the 2002 and 2005 Pats say hello also.

The statement you responded to had nothing to do with what did or did not happen in Dallas. I'd love to hear an explanation of what a great job Grier did in New England; it sounds as if you think he was better than those in his place currently in Foxboro.

Good post. I think the anticipation of this season is definitely showing us who the pink-hat fans among us really are. For me personally, "ever" started in 1986, when I first started watching football, so while I can't comment on teams from before that era from a personal standpoint, I can say with great certainty that I've seen several teams worse than this one since then.

I wouldn't pay attention to his rants too much. He pretty much takes any opportunity to bash BB. I think he takes his talking points from the guy in my siggy.

 

[PatsBoy12]

Not in the Belichick era.

Yeah, I was about to post this. I should of figured that someone already beat me to it.

 

[BTTA]

He rebuilt the Cowboys defense in like a year or two at the max.

Which illustrates why Parcels had to be fired in NE. Kraft was catching on about building a team for the long term, to have year over year shot at a SB win. Oddly, one of his models was the Cowboys.

Parcels was looking out for his legacy and wanted another SB win with another franchise to cement himself as a great coach. This reshaped his personnel philosophy, and he was willing to give up a lot long term for short term gain.

The Cowboys lost the thread on long term, and started going for big-ego, flash in the pan success. Dez Bryant is the latest example. Parcels was all too happy to go there and take a short term shot at success. And both failed then, and continue to fail - no SB win, which is the only measure of success for both.

Meanwhile, the Krafts succeeded wildly.

 

[zoostation]

I imagine Parcells ended up with a fairly young defense sometime while he was drafting the core of our SB winning Ds.

Waiting for incoming.:bricks:

The D was young in 1996....but not this young.

Check out this website. You can toggle back and forth through the seasons on the top left. 1996 New England Patriots Starters, Roster, & Players | Pro-Football-Reference.com