How does Belichick and his staff rate at drafting wide receivers?

[Galeb]

Draft capital spent on wide receivers has only been mentioned by a few and is the second biggest factor in NEs record in developing the WRs they've drafted. The biggest factor, IMO, is that the Pats ask more from wide receivers than any other team. Not only is the Pats offense complicated because of all of the reads and route options, but it requires more precision and split second decision making than any other team. This is a level of complexity that college teams don't come close to approaching, so is very hard to project.

I also think that, given the small sample size, if Dobson rebounds and turns into a solid receiver, the Pat's perceived record in drafting receivers would improve significantly.

 

[VrabelJr]

I'd be angry about this if Brady still wasn't throwing for 4500+ yards a year every year, but he is and our team kicks ass so who gives a ****? Some people like to live in Fantasy Football land I guess.

 

[JarOfMayo51]

I've been thinking about this for a while.

No, I don't think BB has a good record drafting WRs. Heck, one of the best WR he ever drafted was a QB. But, when i stopped to think about why were we able to keep being one of the best NFL teams for 15 years, i am almost glad we didn't find a great, future HoFer WR (Edelman still in contest though, lol). Why? It is not a priority for winning a Super Bowl.

Sure, when he's a rookie, we can ride that cheap rookie contract, and that would be awesome thing. But after those years are over, how much money does it cost to keep a A-grade WR (usually)? Over 10 m a year. That would be close to 10% of the cap space nowadays. Calvin Johnson's contract is something close to 16M/Y IIRC. It's that really the best use of cap space? To use on a player who will get, considering a great day, from 10 to 15 touches on the ball in a game? Honestly, i think there is a bunch of other positions that are more important than WR.

I did a bit of research. Since 2001, only TWO SB winning teams had a WR costing close to 10% of the cap space (I did not confirm how much was the cap space in that year, but my best recollection was not disregarded about that, so I'll just keep rolling here). That was 2006 Colts' Marvin Harrison(12M) and 2009 Packers' Greg Jennings(8.9M) - That's not even that much, but it was the highest paid WR in the SB in quite some time. And in those years: Colts were against arguably one of the worst teams to reach the SB in recent memory (Rex Grossman's Bears) and the Packers were cruising with a very friendly Rodgers contract - in 2009, his cap hit was merely close to 10M, in 2010 was 6M.

So, what I am saying is, although it would be great to have a incredible WR, like Randy Moss in 2007, I am not sure it is worth to pay close to 10M for a player in that position. I would rather have a LaFell (3.5M salary this year) than a Demaryus Thomas (13M this year) and spreading this money around, making us an overall better team.

I have given BB a ton of flask for striking out at that position year in, year out. But even when he makes a mistakes, it appears to be a good thing.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I was with that on my mind for quite some time now, hopefully my ideas are getting through clearly

Great post

One of the reasons I think theyve been able to get away with this model of roster management though is because of Brady's ability to get something out of average players. Once Brady retires, we may need one of those $10m+ a year receivers to help out the QB that replaces him

 

[Rob0729]

As long as the Patriots have Brady and he is still one of the top QBs in the league, this whole thing is an overrated storyline by the fans and media. If your starting QB is Eli Manning, you need a stud WR. If your starting QB is Tom Brady, you need smart route runners who can read defenses. Brady will make an average to above average WR look like a stud as long as they fit the right criteria.

 

[Galeb]

Great post

One of the reasons I think theyve been able to get away with those model of roster management though is because of Brady's ability to get something out of average players. Once Brady retires, we may need one of those $10m+ a year receivers to help out the QB that replaces him

Brady may require less physical talent and separation, but he does require that the receivers recognize, process and adapt quickly enough to be on the same page.

 

[McClusky]

I think if you're going to find a legitimate strong criticism of Belichick this is pretty much the one. While the offense has typically been very good, its primary weaknesses has consistently been to stretch the field and loosen things up underneath. Teams like the Jets and the Ravens have had some success against us flooding the middle of the field, and daring us to go deep. When we don't have Gronk we really haven't had a great Split End to pick up some of the slack with some easy scores. When you're in the playoffs trying to get something going by throwing 9 routes to Matthew Slater, you're lacking at the WR position.

While we haven't invested a ton in wide receivers through the draft, we've really only had about 9 seasons of solid production from BB drafted receivers in the BB era. 4 from Branch, 3 from Givens, 2 from Edelman. Considering this has been a primary spot of weakness for us, I'd consider that to show that maybe we've under emphasized it with our draft capital, and when we have invested we haven't picked the right guys. I'm not going to go through every draft and hindsight pick guys that we missed on, but I do think it's fair to say that we haven't received as much production from the receiver spot as other spots that we've picked.

I propose we pick LB's for the Packers and they pick WR's for us and then we simply trade them to each other.

 

[PatsFan2]

With you there McClusky the Packers have done a fine job in WR department from Sharpe and Freeman many moons ago to Jordy Nelson - Greg Jennings - Randall Cobb and now????

 

[BSR]

Belichick's drafting of WRs is pretty much par for the course. WRs outside of the first round are pretty much a crap shoot, especially when you are looking for ones that need to be able to play in a complex system like NEs.

 

[Oswlek]

Draft capital spent on wide receivers has only been mentioned by a few and is the second biggest factor in NEs record in developing the WRs they've drafted. The biggest factor, IMO, is that the Pats ask more from wide receivers than any other team. Not only is the Pats offense complicated because of all of the reads and route options, but it requires more precision and split second decision making than any other team. This is a level of complexity that college teams don't come close to approaching, so is very hard to project.

I also think that, given the small sample size, if Dobson rebounds and turns into a solid receiver, the Pat's perceived record in drafting receivers would improve significantly.

I'm not sure if this relates entirely to your post, but it helped me see things from a different perspective.

If it is true that NE's offense is more difficult for WRs young and old to grasp, then Bill is justified in not investing too high of draft capital. Athleticism alone may be sufficient for other franchises, but it only props open the door for the Patriots. Anecdotally, Chad Jackson having to learn four different offensive systems intrigued Bill at least as much as his physical ability.

So, you are dealing with two separate issues, more difficult scouting and avoiding top tier prospects due to ROI issues, both of which suppress hit rates. If this line of reasoning is sound, it isn't surprising that NE would struggle with drafting WRs and the answer could be that they are doing about as well as can be expected.

 

[slam]

I'm fairly sure the answer looks something like this: It's impossible to know beforehand whether a receiver coming from a different system will be able to adapt to this system. As I understand it, the Pats system may ask you to run a different route based on the defense's behavior in the first few seconds after the ball is snapped, not just on presnap reads which in itself is more complicated than most college offenses.

They might not know 100% if Dez Bryant or Calvin Johnson acquired today would come in and pick things up right away. Those caliber receivers MIGHT be worth changing the system to something simpler, but that's both a pipe dream and an extraordinary investment of resources. I'm sure going into their acquisitions, the team didn't know that the likes of Gaffney, Welker and Moss were going to pick up the system from day one (and Brandon LaFell after a few months) while Chad Johnson and Joey Galloway and others would never really get it. If they can't tell that with proven veterans, how can they possibly know with college kids?

So with the mindset, it'd be insanity to invest first round capital on someone you don't have any idea will produce in this offense. Better then to acquire six or so low to mid priced investments at a time, have two or so of them work out at a time (currently Edelman and LaFell) and let your major investments go elsewhere (D-line, linebacker, OL).

 

[McClusky]

Belichick's drafting of WRs is pretty much par for the course. WRs outside of the first round are pretty much a crap shoot, especially when you are looking for ones that need to be able to play in a complex system like NEs.

This analysis doesn't really work for the Patriots though due to how the Patriots offense has performed, and how AV is calculated the Patriots drafted WR's shouldn't be compared to a mean because they should have similar correlated AV that outpaces the NFL's average. By the very nature of playing with Tom Brady the Patriots receivers should outperform an NFL average of AV.

 

[363839]

His ability to draft good receivers is a little better than his ability to draft defensive backs.
But he makes up for it picking up good FAs.

 

[slam]

OK, I'm gonna be a little paranoid here...this guys last two posts have been 1) How do you rate Jake Bequette? and 2) How do you rate Bill drafting WR's? (a common complaint) Is this anything more than trolling?

How do you rate OP's ability to post?

 

[varjao]

Terrible.

I agree with some that think that including Edelman in the list of receivers who were a hit messes with the analysis, that was an experiment who turned OK 5 years later. Ok he should count as a quality and productive receiver drafted by BB, why not, congratulations for BB, we are all happy with Jules but if we are rating BB's record in drafting receivers it's just tragic.

 

[captain stone]

Bill has drafted only 3 good WRs in SIXTEEN years mainly for 2 reasons:

All of the other WRs were over-valued crap; and he bypassed WRs who could've helped in order to take over-valued crap at other positions…and ZERO of those bypassed WRs were first-rounders, BTW.

 

[BSR]

This analysis doesn't really work for the Patriots though due to how the Patriots offense has performed, and how AV is calculated the Patriots drafted WR's shouldn't be compared to a mean because they should have similar correlated AV that outpaces the NFL's average. By the very nature of playing with Tom Brady the Patriots receivers should outperform an NFL average of AV.

That isn't necessarily true since yardage is probably spread more among Patriots receivers then on other teams but that is besides the point. The point wasn't that Patriots drafted receivers compare favorably in AV against the NFL mean. The point is that WR has the highest failure rate in producing AV in the NFL.

 

[Soul_Survivor88]

Bill has drafted only 3 good WRs in SIXTEEN years mainly for 2 reasons:

All of the other WRs were over-valued crap, and he bypassed WRs who could've helped in order to take over-valued crap at other positions…and ZERO of those bypassed WRs were first-rounders, BTW.

Terrible.

I agree with some that think that including Edelman in the list of receivers who were a hit messes with the analysis, that was an experiment who turned OK 5 years later. Ok he should count as a quality and productive receiver drafted by BB, why not, congratulations for BB, we are all happy with Jules but if we are rating BB's record in drafting receivers it's just tragic.

I'm in complete agreement with both of you. However, the thing that amazes me , is that despite Belichick's poor record in drafting WRs, our team still manages to always be in the Top 3 offenses every season!

I guess when you have the greatest quarterback of all time in your corner, any thing is possible

 

[AzPatsFan]

You have Branch, Givens, and Edelman on one side and about a dozen nobodies on the other.

It's pretty poor, especially considering all the quality receivers that have come out of the last few drafts even in later rounds..[/QUOTE

BB knows which positions are important and WR isn't one of them.

I'd say that it is pretty good. Of the only 4 relatively high picks, (2x2 and 2x3), 3 were successful and have had relatively long careers to date. Only one was a bust, even before you toss in a great pick in the 7th whose career came to an end after he signed as a FA elsewhere, after he tore up a knee.

it is a amtter of perspective.

How many detractors wanted Terrel over Richard Seymour or Corderelle over Jamie Collins?

 

[McClusky]

That isn't necessarily true since yardage is probably spread more among Patriots receivers then on other teams but that is besides the point. The point wasn't that Patriots drafted receivers compare favorably in AV against the NFL mean. The point is that WR has the highest failure rate in producing AV in the NFL.

We actually haven't spread the ball out that much among our receivers since about 2007, especially recently. We've certainly seen veterans and TE's come in here and put up some solid AV's, it's just that our drafted receivers haven't really followed suit besides Branch, Edelman, and Givens.

I'd say that we haven't been as utterly horrid as some people make it out to be, but I certainly don't think it's something we should feel positively about.

 

[AzPatsFan]

I agree with the above that Edelman & Givens must be included; so that leaves us Edelman, Givens, Branch…
…and Absolutely Nobody Else.

That is, in the words of Jimmy Carter, a disgrace to the human race. Completely inexcusable, and
one of the reasons it took a decade to give TFB another ring.

BB used only 4 high picks and Branch, Tate and Dobson all have been league for years. Add in 7th rounders Givens and Edelmen and its spectacular drafting record for the few draft selections used. Lest you forget WR/Returner Tate plays for the Bengals; and Dobson is entering his 3rd season and the usual breakout year for mature WRs.

You can stick your Davis Terrels, Corderelle Pattersons, Josh Gordons and Dorial Beckhams where the sun don't shine. They are ALL BUMS and waste of draft picks despite the high choices others invested in them.