The final cut at RB was tough, but I left Brown out on the basis that, if White gets hurt before Lewis comes back, Bolden can step in as the receiving RB. He was pretty effective in that role last year.
The last WR cut was also pretty tough. With his loss of preseason time, I figure Mitchell will probably be WR5 this year, so the competition between Washington, Dobson and Martin is for WR4. I gave Washington the nod because I think he's simply a better player than the other two, and his lack of value in ST doesn't really hurt him in this competition. Dobson doesn't offer anything in ST either, and Martin's value in the return game should suffer from a) kick returns mattering less than ever, and b) Cyrus Jones presumably taking over the PR job. With question marks surrounding the health of Edelman, Amendola, and Mitchell, I think this spot goes to the best pure WR of the group, and that's Washington.
At tackle, I wouldn't be surprised if we only go three deep, but I figure that's a position where we'll want to keep our options open. Wouldn't surprise me if the Pats grab someone else's tackle in roster cutdowns, and if so that pickup will take Fleming's place. I also went a bit heavy on the interior of the line, on account of Stork, Mason and Cooper all dealing with injuries that could nag them through the early part of the season.
DT was another tough one, as I'd really like to keep one of Johnson/Kuhn. But going 5 deep at DT would probably preclude going 5 deep at DE, which is a non-starter since we go 5+ deep in real talent at DE, plus our top 2 guys are nursing injuries and Ninkovich, in particular, is going to miss significant time at the start of the season.
LB is a weird one; I carried 5, but I wouldn't be all that surprised if we only carry 4. In prior years I wouldn't be shocked if we'd only carried 3, but since we don't have a safety who's as well-suited to play pseudo-LB as in years past (Ebner lost weight for the Olympics), that might be pushing it this year.
QB (2) J.Garoppolo, J.Brissett
RB (5) L.Blount, B.Bolden, J.Develin, J.White, T.Gaffney
WR (5) J.Edelman, C.Hogan, D.Amendola, M.Mitchell, N.Washington
TE (3) R.Gronkowski, M.Bennett, A.Derby
C (2) D.Andrews, B.Stork
G (4) S.Mason, J.Thuney, T.Jackson, J.Cooper
T (4) N.Solder, M.Cannon, L.Waddle, C.Fleming
DE (5) R.Ninkovich, J.Sheard, C.Long, G.Grissom, T.Flowers
DT (4) M.Brown, A.Branch, T.Knighton, V.Valentine
ILB(2) D.Hightower, J.Freeny
OLB(3) J.Collins, S.McClellin, K.Grugier-Hill
CB (5) M.Butler, L.Ryan, D.Roberts, C.Jones, J.Jones
SS (3) P.Chung, J.Richards, N.Ebner
FS (2) D.McCourty, D.Harmon
ST (4) S.Gostkowski, R.Allen, J.Cardona, M. Slater
PUP/IR/SUSP: T. Brady, S. Vollmer, D. Lewis
Total players: 53
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Pats Picker 2015
