OT: Bruce Allen going at Peter King RE: Patriots Draft

[Deus Irae]

Just a guess, but you've commented on Reiss's blog, am I right?

If you mean actually posting a comment on his blog site anytime in the recent past, the answer is "no". If you mean something else, please explain...

 

[VJCPatriot]

King deserved to be called out on it. Journalists often get fat heads. They should be reminded now and then that people are reading their articles with critical eyes and not just swallowing the fish whole so to speak.

 

[Zeus]

King's article reads as though the Eagles invented the whole trade down/accumulate more picks/still get your player strategy. The fact of the matter is the the Patriots have been doing this for years, as summarized in Chris Gaspar's excellent piece in the Globe just before the draft.

Had NE picked Darius Butler at #23, my guess is the King would have said "great move." Instead, they got Butler and several other picks. Maybe the biggest difference is that BB isn't beating his chest in public about it.

 

[maverick4]

Maybe the biggest difference is that BB isn't beating his chest in public about it.

Allen makes that point too, which is that King is biased by the fact that the Eagles GM talked to him, and that King is biased in general based on the access he gets.

 

[carolinatony]

"Peter King is a gossiping moron who adds zero value to sports journalism. He basically just flouts rumors, and is a barometer/parrot of mainstream mediots.

His disgraceful articles and complete lack of understanding and hypocrisy over the Video Witch Hunt were despicable. Even now the guy doesn't understand that any team can still videotape hand signals at dozens of other locations in the stadium, just not on the sideline."


Great comment~

 

[efin98]

Allen makes that point too, which is that King is biased by the fact that the Eagles GM talked to him, and that King is biased in general based on the access he gets.

It's the same point that has been made about the people who write about him in the Globe and Herald...aside from Mike Reiss.

They don't like his personality and the lack of information revealed so they find ways if insulting him and his actions- this was one of them. He got called on it, and he deserved to get called on it.

 

[upstater1]

Allen's not 100% wrong, and King's not 100% right, but King is more correct on this than Allen.

I don't think he is. Not a fan of the guys the Eagles ended up with. I was on record for thinking they were very very suspect before the draft. McCoy, IMO, is not going to cut it. Maclin is fast but let's see him do it in the NFL. I have my doubts.

 

[HEY BRO! WHAT UP?]

Who the f*** is Bruce Allen? And who the f*** cares about what King thinks? In my opinion, the Pats did the right thing by trading down, there wasn't anybody worthy on the board. This is the second year in a row where the draft has had little value.

 

[Fencer]

I've read multiple pages of commentary on Peter King's commentary, and it seems his essential point is being overlooked:

The Eagles got Jason Peters and the Pats did not get a comparable player.

I.e., the Eagles, along with future benefits, got a player with a high degree of likelihood of immediate success.

Since he didn't spell the point out well, he also hasn't been faced with challenges along the lines of "Apples to oranges -- consider the salary Peters (and for that matter Hobbs) will require."

 

[Wheelssps]

I've read multiple pages of commentary on Peter King's commentary, and it seems his essential point is being overlooked:

The Eagles got Jason Peters and the Pats did not get a comparable player.

I.e., the Eagles, along with future benefits, got a player with a high degree of likelihood of immediate success.

Since he didn't spell the point out well, he also hasn't been faced with challenges along the lines of "Apples to oranges -- consider the salary Peters (and for that matter Hobbs) will require."

Right. I don't think that King and Allen are really talking about the same points, though Allen has a right to his comment as King's point was actually quite muddled.

King liked what the Eagles did because they acquired multiple lower round picks and used them to draft players that King himself liked and considered to be high quality/great value. Throw in the Jason Peters pre-draft trade, and King likes the players and the number or players the Eagles have acquired.

His commentary gets muddled when he discredits what the Patriots have done by contradicting himself between the issue of trading down for more picks (which he obviously likes with the Eagles and therefore by definition must like with the Pats) and the actual drafting of the particular players with those picks.

As others have pointed out, I think that simply he just doesn't like the players the Pats acquired as well as the Eagles players. Fine. Everyone can have an opinion. But Allen and others in this thread are right to bring up to King when he's confusing the two steps of trading picks and drafting players and therefore appearing quite confused and dimwitted.

As others have pointed out, his liking of Eagles vs Pats players may come about from many different reasons, but again, that's already been covered.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

No, it shows that I'm talking about the general consensus of who the top 4 LTs were in the draft.

I'm starting to get a leetle bit worried that you have a major boner about young draftee LTs.

 

[Deus Irae]

I'm starting to get a leetle bit worried that you have a major boner about young draftee LTs.

The Patriots are a passing offense. The best pass rushers come at the left tackle more often than not. Light's contract isn't for a lifetime, and he's not getting any younger. As we saw last season, no Brady = no shot at a title.

If you can find a 27 year old elite left tackle who's both available and willing to come to the Patriots next year, I'm all for that avenue.

 

[mayoclinic]

King's article reads as though the Eagles invented the whole trade down/accumulate more picks/still get your player strategy. The fact of the matter is the the Patriots have been doing this for years, as summarized in Chris Gaspar's excellent piece in the Globe just before the draft.

Had NE picked Darius Butler at #23, my guess is the King would have said "great move." Instead, they got Butler and several other picks. Maybe the biggest difference is that BB isn't beating his chest in public about it.

I would agree with this.

I think that King's original discussion was rather annoying with it's conclusion that the Pats got "power hungry" about moving around and trading down. He may not have agreed with all of BB's moves, but the fact is that the Pats had enough picks for BB to do whatever he wanted in this draft. You can either conclude that he ended up getting the values that he liked (and didn't like the values elsewhere, including a lot of players highly regarded by draftniks and many members of this board, including myself), or that he didn't know what he was doing and got carried away with moving around and trading down. History says that BB knows exactly what he is doing and is less likely to get carried away than anyone. IBBWT. To say that all of this was a power hungry ego trip is a major disrespect to BB.

The Eagles did a great job with what they had, which was a lot to begin with. They got one established pro bowl player (albeit with motivation issues last year), one established CB complement to Asante Samuel (albeit in a contract year and with a high opinion of himself), and several nice draft picks. They moved around in the draft shrewdly and effectively. They also had some like (such as Ingram lasting till the 5th round). But to say that they are near unique in their approach to the draft and to laud them while dissing the Pats is ridiculous. I'm glad King was called on it. It's fine if he disagrees with some of the Pats picks. But he clearly went out on a limb with his comments about the Pats FO getting power hungry.

 

[PatsDparty]

If a writer disses the Patriots, or doesn't applaud them, people get upset here and complain.
If a writer gives the Patriots respect and applauds them, people get upset b/c they're not being disrespected, and thus not underdogs.

Who the hell cares what these media writers say. Most people here complain about them, yet they keep going back to read them. Just focus on objective factual news surrounding the Patriots, and you'll probably be able to enjoy football a lot more rather than complain about it every 2 seconds.

 

[VJCPatriot]

The Patriots are a passing offense. The best pass rushers come at the left tackle more often than not. Light's contract isn't for a lifetime, and he's not getting any younger. As we saw last season, no Brady = no shot at a title.

Isn't that why the Pats drafted Vollmer? Granted, he doesn't have the credentials of a Clady, but the dude is a man mountain at 6'8 315 lbs. The Pats must think they can use him to expend a 2nd round pick.

 

[Pats726]

Peter King and Deus went to the Ron Borges school of draft analysis.

That makes my day....

 

[Dragda]

I stopped reading the linked article where they say Peter King could get good coffee in Boston. There is no good coffee in Boston. Peter King therefore has no credibility.

 

[mmasterkillah]

Most of the media are obsessive about pick #'s. I believe that if we chose Butler at #23, King would probably think he was a better player than he currently does; but because he "slid all the way to 41, he must not be all that great". Analysts get so hyped up about the sexy, big-name, 1st round picks, that they can't possibly understand packaging them for 2nds and 3rds, where this draft was seemingly deepest (picks 20-50 seem pretty relative in talent).

While I believe that the Eagles did a great job, I tend to believe that the Patriots used a very similar strategy with "less sexy" results. The Eagles took all relatively well-known players whether they were hyped up skill players WR Maclin, HB McCoy, a big-name TE from a national championship team (Ingram), Ellis Hobbs or a supposedly stud LT in Jason Peters. I'm sure KING had heard all about everyone of these players from every media outlet, scout and fan.

The fact that King grades the Patriots draft like this after years of being taught otherwise, all while league officials are giving the Patriots draft a "shrug", means we still have some free-thinking talent evaluators who aren't afraid to follow their own analysis and not the usually flawed consensus.

Not that it matters, but I had Butler as my #1 CB (I believe Jenkins is FS), Chung as a top 2 SS, and Brace as my #2 NT. While these players may or not be worth 1st round picks to other teams, they all seem to translate very valuably for us.

We draft for us, not to please the casual football fan who wants immediate results, or big-mouth commentators who just want every team to draft all the players they are familiar with.

 

[Leave No Doubt]

I hope Bruce Allen continues to comment on his collegues' work; lord knows someone has to People may or may not always agree with his position but that's not what matters imho. What matters is that he's one of the very,very few who cares enough about not only the endless crap that gets passed around, disguised as actual info, but also he obviously cares about the integrity of his profession.

It's all taken a back seat to getting ticks and publicity.

 

[BradyFTW!]

I'm not sure how you figure that Oher wasn't a higher ranked player. He clearly was. He was considered one of the 4 top tackles. What BB has on his board doesn't matter. This is a draft evaluation and the reporters/analysts/columnists base everything off of their baselines, not the baselines of specific teams.

Credibility = gone.

I'm amazed that there are still Pats fans out there, especially ones who are typically as informed as you, who don't get that there is no objective measure of talent. Different systems value different types of players.

And since the Pats traded out of the spot where Oher was picked, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that they weren't thrilled about his prospects.