Is There Too Much Roster Turnover in New England?

[PatsFans.com Article]

Is There Too Much Roster Turnover in New England?
By: Derek Havens

With 16 new faces on the Patriots roster since last season, I am left question if there is too much roster turnover in New England. ...

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[bagwell368]

Well, I know one thing - the author needs a copy editor.

FA Vets might be new to the Pats, but not the NFL.

Rookies that won't play a lot until they are ready/needed can't be seen as a major problem.

So, somehow the author would be happier if we had 5 more drafted players left. Well we would if BB hadn't managed the cap so well, and had such a stuffed roster.

Yawn....

 

[Urgent]

15 new players is pretty normal.

2011 - 15
2010 - 15
2009 - 25
2008 - 15
2007 - 11
2006 - 14

Nothing strange going on.

 

[BlueThunder]

The new CBA negotiations resulted in no mini camps for the rookies.....that along with BB's new Defensive philosophy ( he denies it, but it's pretty obvious) resulted in signing vets that could be plugged into the D without alot of babysitting....

The rookies he did pick won't take as long to integrate ...Vereen and Ridley ie.......

Dowling may or may not be thrown into the fire early depending on his progress as seen by BB and the coaches.....

There is nothing that indicates BB is out of whack with his moves......some were unexpected, but not knowing the internal workings...only the staff knows the true reasons players were let go.....

In BB we Trust :rocker:

 

[Patriot_in_NY]

15 new players is pretty normal.

2011 - 15
2010 - 15
2009 - 25
2008 - 15
2007 - 11
2006 - 14

Nothing strange going on.

:yeahthat:

Yeah......... it would really help if the authors of these articles did a little research beyond "eyeball mathematics" before putting out this stuff. This year is fairly typical, with our customary surprise cuts, but nothing out of the ordinary. It doesn't seem out of the ordinary and the above stats bare that out.

In fact, if you pay attention, the moves seem to make sense in a larger picture. There were some obvious deficiencies last year on defense, and BB understood the changes he needed to make and then went about collecting the players he needed to implement it. That is CLASSIC Bill Belichick.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Is There Too Much Roster Turnover in New England?
By: Derek Havens

With 16 new faces on the Patriots roster since last season, I am left question if there is too much roster turnover in New England. ...

CLICK HERE TO READ THIS STORY​

It's an interesting question - especially since last year was a "rebuilding season" in many of our eyes and of course following a 14-2 rebuilding season Belichick added just as many faces as last season.

The numbers shown by Urgent actually show that 2009 was the "true" rebuilding season, but overall I think Belichick is just always shaking the tree of free agents and rookies to see which apples might fall out of the tree and be a better match for the team and his scheme.

Ultimately there's so many variables to find the "right" players, to shore up positions of injury, retirement, depth etc that Belichick is always tinkering. Each of the players lost requires a case by case analysis of how long they were here to adjust before Belichick gave up on them.

Although Urgent's stats are helpful, it would be more helpful to know how the Pats compare to other players roster turnover. My guess is it would be higher than other teams - primarily because Belichick doesn't think twice about cutting a 1st round pick and keeping a rookie UFA if he thinks the rookie is a better match.

 

[Lowercaseg]

Mike Reiss says that other teams have similar roster turnover -
Counting new faces on Patriots - New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston

 

[MrNathanDrake]

Pats won the SuperBowl in 2001 with a lot of waiver wire players.

 

[patsfaninpittsburgh]

We were too young last year.

The 14-2 record was the product of playing the best. That's very odd for such a young team. The problem with youth is when you don't play your best, it tends to be worse than it is with an older team.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Mike Reiss says that other teams have similar roster turnover -
Counting new faces on Patriots - New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston

Good to know - I'm sure it varies between 10-20 for just about every team

You have to think that about you're going to have about 10 drafted or undrafted rookies make any roster each season alone.

Such guys all made the cut for the roster but all have proven nothing on the field, and are there based largely on youth, and potential (as well as cost savings). There's always going to be a revolving door.

The bottom line is stats aside, the best 53 players make the squad, with some turnover always needed for youth alone. 16 is not a shocking amount.

 

[Husse]

On offense I say no, and defense gets a maybe. Ideally, I'd say you want 4-6 core players on each side of the football that you can build around. These players gives you stability in the fundamentals of play-calling and the rest of the players on the roster are more movable parts to adapt to specific situations.

Following up on that I'd say that the Pats definitely have that on the offensive side but not as much on the defensive.

 

[JoeSixPat]

Most of the 16 players are young players with potential and upside.

They've largely replaced other young players who had potential and upside who Belichick apparently felt he'd seen enough of.

In terms of the overall starting roster there's not huge changes - we've only improved depth and taken some new flyers on some new young players

 

[mgteich]

Unless you're a rebuilding team or Seattle, 10-20 is indeed quie normal. BTW, I think Seattle has 10 returnees from last year's team that won a playoff game.

 

[Ron Sellers]

Not that it matters but I believe the amount of roster turnover is pretty much in line with other NFL teams, even teams coming off a winning season. With age, injuries, free agency, the availability of drafted players, this amount of turnover seems to be about right.

Bill Belichick often says 'I don't care about the 31 other teams, I care about the Patriots', so even if the amount of turnover in Foxboro is not the norm it's a moot point.

But consider the roster changes made; are any of these questionable? In my opinion they are all upgrades or at least necessary changes to remain at the same level.

http://www.patsfans.com/new-england.../10/803865-roster-comparison-2010-2011-a.html

1. Added Ryan Mallett
2. RB - Ridley and Vereen replace Taylor and Morris
3. T - Solder replaces LeVoir
4. G - Waters replaces Neal
5. DL - Haynesworth and Ellis replace Ty Warren and Brace
6. DE/OLB - Andre Carter and Mark Anderson replace TBC and Eric Moore
7. LB/ST - Tarpinian replaces Marques Murrell
8. CB - Dowling, Molden and Bodden (off IR) replace Butler, Wilhite and Wheatley
9. Change at LS

In my opinion the only questionable roster changes are at TE with the loss of Crumpler, and some loss in continuity and experience at S with the departure of Meriweather and Sanders - and even those changes are not exactly clear cut downgrades or bad decisions. You might be able to make a case of too much year-to-year turnover among one specific unit (defensive backs, or more specifically at safety), but I don't see how someone can make a valid argument that the team as a whole has "too much roster turnover".