Patriots biggest draft blunder in the last 5 years?

[jmt57]

It has been about two weeks, I knew we were overdue for another thread complaining about Patriots draft picks.

 

[Nehalem]

well, if character plays any part in it,

Aaron Hernandez, hands down!

Their biggest blunder was clearly giving Aaron Hernandez the deal they did. I know it is more of a hindsight is 20/20 thing, but his contract will hinder the Pats next year if they can't get some cap room in a grievance.

If you can count giving a player's 2nd contract (given after only 2 years) against them as a draft blunder. Then Hernandez is certainly up there

Picks like Dowling may be a costly blunder, in terms of wasted draft capital, but at least they don't cost millions in wasted cap space, which keep you from bringing in FAs to replace them.

The team was also planning for Hernandez to play a pivotal role in the offense, what with injured Gronk and rookie WRs and his loss really handicapped the offense in the early part of the season

 

[CelticPatriot]

As crazy as it sounds, Hernandez wasn't that bad a pick, considering we got him in the 4th.

Since 2007 we've picked Wilhite, Ohrnberger, Hernandez and Brown.... Hernandez has been the best of the lot.

 

[condon84]

With Hernandez, you can't predict someone is gonna go serial. I can't blame the Pats on that. You can't babysit your players 24/7.

With Ras-I, the talent was there but he just couldn't stay healthy. It was a risk they took.

With Cunningham pick, like people have posted, Dunlap was far and away a better player in college. I think Cunningham could have been there to be picked in the 3rd round and even in the 4th. He should not have been picked in the 2nd.

Worst pick is Tavon. There was nothing he did while he was in Illinois to warrant being picked that high. He could have been there in the 6th round. Just a mistake all around in evaluating a college player.

 

[PatsFan2]

Surprised nobody brought up Big and good fo nothing Ron Brace. Glass-IR Dowling takes the cake but lets hope Mr Hightower is not menition in a similar situation two years from now.

 

[JackBauer]

Hernandez wasn't a bad pick. Come on.

I'm tempted to say Tavon Wilson. Healthy and he still isn't very good. Though I don't know if he loses out to Cunningham or Brace because, at the very least, Wilson is a quality special teams player. Not exactly the ROI you want for that pick but at least he isn't completely useless.

Thankfully they appear to have redeemed themselves in the "spend a high pick on a no-name safety" department with Duron Harmon. Guy looks like a player.

 

[realtime]

Surprised nobody brought up Big and good fo nothing Ron Brace.

I mentioned him a couple of times. He didn't work out, obviously.

 

[TonyTucker]

Ras-I Dowling. At least with poor performers like Hightower, Brace, Chung, Wilson, etc, they made a play here or there that you can remember. Ras-I was basically a first round pick and contributed zero.

 

[Rob0729]

Hernandez wasn't a bad pick. Come on.

I'm tempted to say Tavon Wilson. Healthy and he still isn't very good. Though I don't know if he loses out to Cunningham or Brace because, at the very least, Wilson is a quality special teams player. Not exactly the ROI you want for that pick but at least he isn't completely useless.

Thankfully they appear to have redeemed themselves in the "spend a high pick on a no-name safety" department with Duron Harmon. Guy looks like a player.

I agree Hernandez wasn't a bad pick. I think his new deal was a bad deal with the red flags on him. Most of it was in hindsight though.

 

[Kontradiction]

Trading down and then selecting Patrick Chung was a pretty bad one and set the safety group back a few years. Thankfully, it looks like that may finally be fixed. Not sure why some are getting so defensive about this. Every team has draft blunders. This team is no exception.

 

[juny]

has to be tavon wilson. he would have easily been available in the 3rd day of the draft. he was on nobody's radar pre-draft. a total WTF moment when selected, i doubt anyone knew who he was. pats could have selected a better player at that slot or traded it for more picks and still drafted wilson at a later round.

 

[Brady6]

Taylor Price (followed by AH) instead of Jimmy Graham and Tavon Wilson over Lavonte David both bother me more than your example.

Imagine Gronk, and Graham on the same team?

Hernandez was a great player on the field who was just 23 years old when he made one of the worst decisions by a player in NFL history. It is a shame because in my opinion as well as most but I will say this about the guy he was an absolute beast on the football field and if he hadn’t made that mistake there is no doubt in my mind he would have had a superior career to Graham.

 

[Fencer]

Has to be a guy who was a bust for other than injury reasons. One shouldn't really condemn the choice of Glass Dowling without also condemning the choice of Glass Gronkowski. And it also shouldn't be a failure-to-draft; it has to be an actual choice.

By those rules, it's obviously Tavon Wilson.

 

[PatsFan2]

I now know why BB took Tavon Wilson as High as he did he's a Special Teams Beast like Matthew Slater. BB like Bill Parcells love exceptional guys on Special Teams. While oher Coaches are meh about ST's BB places very high Value on that areas of the game.

 

[JackBauer]

Trading down and then selecting Patrick Chung was a pretty bad one and set the safety group back a few years. Thankfully, it looks like that may finally be fixed. Not sure why some are getting so defensive about this. Every team has draft blunders. This team is no exception.

That draft was incredibly disappointing. Looked so promising but in hindsight having four picks in the first two rounds and ending up with only Vollmer (who is a beast, granted) was a huge letdown.

 

[Brady6]

The worst pick in the past 5 years was Ras-I Dowling and in my opinion it is not even close. He was the 33rd overall pick (1st pick in the 2nd round) that is a pick that offers tremendous return in trade value or if we had stayed put and selected we could have drafted any number of these players and had some level of value either immediately, or in the future.

2011 NFL Draft Results: Round 2

 

[PatsFan2]

The worst pick in the past 5 years was Ras-I Dowling and in my opinion it is not even close. He was the 33rd overall pick (1st pick in the 2nd round) that is a pick that offers tremendous return in trade value or if we had stayed put and selected we could have drafted any number of these players and had some level of value either immediately, or in the future.

2011 NFL Draft Results: Round 2

Imagined if we had Drafted Colin Kaepernick we coud just sit that Tom Brady down.:bricks:

 

[Brady6]

Surprised nobody brought up Big and good fo nothing Ron Brace. Glass-IR Dowling takes the cake but lets hope Mr Hightower is not menition in a similar situation two years from now.

Hightower has played solid football for the 25th overall pick in the 2012 draft in my opinion; is he the best player in his draft class? No not even close but compared to a lot of other players we’ve taken he has done just fine, don’t forget Devin McCourty was horrific in his second NFL season and he is not playing as well as any DB in the NFL 2 years later.

At the end of the day the good news is no matter what happens with Hightower he will never be the worst 25th overall selection in the draft: Broncos pick QB Tim Tebow at No. 25 in NFL draft - The Denver Post

 

[AzorianPats]

I'm seeing Dowling and Cunningham name pop up a lot, but what about Maroney and even Merriweather? Missing on a first is worse then a second

 

[Kontradiction]

That draft was incredibly disappointing. Looked so promising but in hindsight having four picks in the first two rounds and ending up with only Vollmer (who is a beast, granted) was a huge letdown.

Yeah. In that offseason it was apparent that Vollmer was going to be the only key contributer out of that group. I think a lot of people were in denial about Chung's coverage abilities until they simply couldn't be defended anymore. I said after the 2009 season that the 2010 draft absolutely, positively had to be a slam dunk in part because of the 2009 draft. Thankfully, it was.