I can only assume that this is humor.
Of course it is. Because as you already pointed out, even if the Pats get a Lawrence Taylor or Tom Brady with the pick (you know one of those once in a generation players) and has him around for 10-12 years, it can never make up for the loss of Seymour for the 2009 season.
You can argue all you want that Seymour would definitely be here right now if it wasn't for the trade, but you do not know that. Most of the indications were that the Pats were going to only keep EITHER Wilfork OR Seymour and not both.
They had the room. They chose to extend other players.
Really?!? Who? You backed up Miguel when you were beating up the Pats for not giving Wilfork a contract when he said the Pats haven't given a big contract to anyone since Moss in 2008.
No, you couldn't. You really couldn't. It's not even close.
Actually, if you are looking at 2006-2008, you right it isn't close. I would take Ellis and Castillio. Seymour rebounded in 2008, but was average in 2006 and 2007. Even when he rebounded last year, he wasn't the 2003-2005 Seymour.
What that player does is irrelevant. If he never plays a down, if he becomes the greatest player in NFL history, if he falls somewhere between. It's not "Richard v. Bob". It's "Richard v. unknown pick in 2011". Or, as the homers here have been screaming for years as a defense whenever the team makes a move that doesn't make any real sense, it's "value".
That is B.S. Of course it is Seymour vs. the player taken with the pick. If you look at it the way you want to look at it, the Vikings got the better of the Cowboys when they traded all those draft picks for Hershall Walker. The Cowboys traded Walker who was their best player at the time for a bunch of unknown draft picks and scrub players.
The fact of the matter is the Pats traded Seymour on the gamble that they will get as good or possibly better player in 2011 that will be the cornerstone of their offense or defense for a decade. If you want to look at 2009, then you gotta look at that player.
If you want to look purely on value. The Pats traded a very good player who has declined in recent years in the last year of his deal who is pushing 30 for what could be a top five pick. Based on pure value alone, the Pats stole on the deal. You want to cheat and mix value with production on the Seymour end. What the Pats did in 2009 is irrelevant in a pure value deal.
The notion that Seymour typically came off the field on third downs isn't even accurate, so there's really nothing to address here. As for WR3, that's just another failing of BB this past season.
Seymour does come off the field a lot on third downs. Typically is an overstatement and I apologize.
From SMY in Last year's column after he was traded to the Raiders:
In the years since, as he was one of the highest-paid players in the league when the $24 million in bonus money in his 2006 contract extension is factored in, there have been implications within Gillette Stadium that Seymour wasn’t willing to play hurt, and last season he was held out of certain packages, particularly third down, a move that didn’t sit well with Seymour.
Pats trade Seymour to Raiders for a 1st round pick in 2011 | New England Patriots | projo.com | The Providence Journal
Here is a story after the Steelers game that year where he was pulled out of all the third down plays.
Richard Seymour down with staying on field - BostonHerald.com
I'm not sure what part of "legitimate WR3" you seem to be struggling with here. The reason the offense was struggling so much, other than Brady's inconsistencies, was that teams could ignore Aiken. Hence "Seymour/Welker/WR3".
I think we are in agreement that the reason why Brady had inconsistencies and the Pats didn't have a WR3 was clearly the loss of Seymour. You look at many of the Patriots' losses (the first Jets game, the Denver game, etc.) and the offense is probably more to blame for the losses than the defense (sometimes a lot more).
One player can affect teams this way, and they often do. Favre in Minnesota is an easy example from just this past season. In New England, in 2007, it was 2 players. This sort of thing goes on all the time in sports.
The Vikings were a complete team without a QB. They had a great defense, good o-line, and great RB. Favre was the missing piece. And let's not forget he was a QB, not a DE.
Let's get real here. This is a bogus comparison. The QB position is the most important position
As for what I'm thinking, of course you feel that way. You spent all year defending BB's moves. Even with the season flushing down the toilet the way it did, you're not going to admit to his screw ups. My initial post was nothing more than pointing out the lack of accuracy with the "can't keep both" notion. I wasn't the one who started pointing to the quality of the trade and to belittling Seymour in an effort to buttress Belichick rather than just admitting that he screwed up royally for pretty much all of 2009, including the Seymour and Burgess trades. That's been the standard playbook of all the 'defenders'.
I have said repeatedly that the Burgess trade ended up being a bad trade. I have said the Pats screwed up by not signing Samuel before his value got out of proportion. I said Belichick screwed up letting Branch shop his wears since he did not take into effect that a team like the Jets would screw with the Pats and force a trade. I was against both the Moss and Dillon trades at the time they made them. I felt the Pats were stupid to resign Dillon. Sorry, you confuse me with someone else. Belichick has made plenty of mistakes over his career here. He has been far more successful than not though.
I don't believe that Seymour was going to be back this year. So I like the trade. I knew at the time it could hurt in 2009 and still liked the trade.
...... transition to generalized soapbox-style comment aimed at a general group and not an individual.....
What I don't get is why so many fans have just chucked all sense of reason and objectivity for the sake of a coach/GM who never claims to be perfect in the first place. It's not as if Jonathan Kraft didn't make it pretty clear that the Patriots knew there were issues with the team this past season, after all.
Well, at least you admit you have a problem.