New Patriots starters?

[JMarr]

Would Maulauga have more of an impact than Chung and Vollmer have had? Doubtful is an understatement.

Definitely more of an impact than Chung. You're probably right on Vollmer, but that's talking apples and oranges (and I'm not going to annoint Vollmer as the best OL taken in the draft just yet). So far it looks like the draft class was solid, but I would argue that we could have done much better at the top and landed a high impact LB plus Butler Chung and Vollmer (or equivalent talent at their positions).

Hindsight is 20/20 and we'll never know exactly why they passed on LB early in the draft, but speaking as an armchair GM, the Pats ignoring Maulauga looks criminal, especially if back in April Bill was already looking at transitioning to more 4-3. Anyway, our window is closing and I don't care if it's worked out well for the Pats in the past--trading down and stockpiling future draft picks isn't always the smartest thing to do.

 

[The_Riddler]

Probably pretty good. Given the need to re-make our defense into something remotely dominating ever again (and the LB situation), I have no idea what factored into our decision to pass up on this guy. He's a monster and already a leader in his rookie season.

People here will give you every rationalization in the book--supposed lack smarts/low wonderlick, doesn't fit our scheme, USC product, "we are already set at ILB with Mayo and Guyton", blah blah blah blah blah. Others will say "we got better value with McKenzie," to whom my response is, if McKenzie were healthy, who would be making more of an impact for us right now--he or Maulauga?

Just a mind boggling decision to pass on Maulauga twice (or was it 3times?) in the draft.

I couldn't have said it any better myself. I heard the excuses. He's dumb as a bag or rocks, would be a "ball in tall grass" in our complex defense, he's not a fit, he's this and he's that. A total bunch of crap. If Rey-Rey were inserted next to Mayo in a 3-4, those two would be animals inside. You can blitz Rey-Rey and drop Mayo into coverage and talk about 2 run stuffers, you would have your gap shooter in Rey-Rey and the hole plugger in Mayo. BB passed twice in the draft on Rey-Rey. I went absolutely bananas when he passed on him the first and second time. My buddy had to calm me down I went ballistic. Now I see Rey-Rey tearing it up and I just scratch my head and wonder why BB missed the boat.