Reiss:Angelo's view on misguided Pats plan

[AzorianPats]

Always interesting to see when posters discuss how the draft could have been better than it was, after the first round.. while ignoring all of the successes.

The reality of what happened to this team is simple..

In 2012 the TE production was 116 catches and 16 TD's
In 2013 the TE production was 56 catches and 6 TD's

What was planned for in March/April was not on the field in September, and this put more focus on the rookie receivers and the offense had to reinvent itself several times throughout the season...

I listen to talk radio more often than I should, and hear the continual whine about what a great coach BB is, but what a terrible GM BB is.. all the while the hosts ignore these basic facts.

Not even march/April. The plan going into MINI camp, blew up in their face a week or 2 later when AH got arrested ...

The goal every year is to be champion, but considering the circumstances, we made it to the AFC championship literally on our last legs. Could BB have done a better job loading up the offense? Maybe, but that's all hindsight now. At the end, the offense was one of the best in football, with all those rookies, and DA with a bad groin out their, those 6 weeks Gronk was in. Easy to say now "we all knew he would end up on IR sooner or later"

Compare us and the injuries to Atlanta, a team with a star QB, and who loaded up their offense... Will how did they pan out? Not better then us.

 

[RhodyPatriot]

Thomas has had one injury, his foot injury. He was coming off of a full 16 game season.

Decker has played in 62 of 64 games, missing only 2 games in his rookie season.

Welker, as we know, had been a relative ironman at the time of his signing.


Denver wasn't leaving Manning saddled with a glass menagerie and a bunch of rookies. It's a world of difference.

100% right.

Honestly think Belichick believes his system and not the players in it are the reason for their success.
The Patriots won 3 SB's in 4 years with a great defense and the greatest clutch FG kicker in NFL history playing HUGE roles in that achievement.
If we look at the key players during those year how many were drafted by the prior regime??

As I've said before, the brilliance of Belichick the coach and Brady the future HOF QB have covered up for a ton of mistakes made by Belichick the GM.

 

[Rob0729]

Bill has had chances over the years to draft & develop WRs, and has failed miserably:

2008 - Maybe Brady could've worked with 3rd-rounders Early Doucet or fellow Michigan alum
Mario Manningham; instead he drafts the already-known crapfest of Chicken Legs Crable and
Kevin OConnell.

2009 - Brandon Tate ahead of Mike Wallace, Brian Hartline, Austin Collie or even Brandon Gibson? The same Brandon Tate who was recovering from a major knee injury, had hardly
played WR in college, and failed the peepee test at the combine?

2009 - Julian Edelman; about time.

2010 - 4th-round talent Jerry Cunnyham at 52nd overall instead of the top-40 talent, and
Charlie Weis-trained Golden Tate? Jaw-droppingly dumb.

2010 - No attempt to fill the depth chart in the 7th round with the still-available Blair White,
Urban Meyer-coached David Nelson, or Pat Hill-coached Seyi Ajirotutu; instead, we get the wastes of picks Zac Robinson & Kade Weston.

2012 - Another opportunity to fill the depth chart in the 7th round with a versatile size/speed athlete in Michigan alum Junior Hemingway; Bill instead chooses the miniscule, redundant
Jeremy Ebert.

2013 - Keenan Allen falls into his lap, and Bill chooses Aaron Dropson instead; nuff ced.

Several things:

• I don't get your obsession with Golden Tate. Im glad the Pats didn't get him. He showed this year he isn't the WR you claim he is. He was Russell Wilson's #1 receiver due to injuries and he got just under 900 yards and 5 TDs. Tate isn't anything special. If the Pats drafted Golden Tate, people would be killing them for taking him over Eric Decker.
• Are you seriously going to criticize Belichick for not taking someone in the seventh round?!? Players are drafted in the seventh round for a reason.
• Two years from now, we may look back and realize that Dobson was the better pick between him and Allen. Allen has a significant injury history that could come back to haunt him. Dobson didn't have a dropping problem as the year went on and looked like he was ready to explode before his injury (he was Brady's favorite target his last three games prior to his injury). If you look at the top 10 WRs this year, five of them had worse rookie seasons than Dobson (Antonio Brown, Demaryius Thomas, Alshon Jeffreys, Pierre Garcon, and Jordy Nelson).

 

[IcyPatriot]

Thomas has had one injury, his foot injury. He was coming off of a full 16 game season.

Decker has played in 62 of 64 games, missing only 2 games in his rookie season.

Welker, as we know, had been a relative ironman at the time of his signing.


Denver wasn't leaving Manning saddled with a glass menagerie and a bunch of rookies. It's a world of difference.

Yet you fail to mention that the Denver front office based their entire season on a QB who is one hit away from being retired. Yes ... that applies to every NFL player but a normal hit to most players is one that could knock Manning out if it affects his neck. Just pointing out that every team in the NFL gambles with their roster ... Patriots and Belichick made it further than most and unfortunately they were on the wrong side of their gambles.

 

[Rob0729]

Thomas has had one injury, his foot injury. He was coming off of a full 16 game season.

Decker has played in 62 of 64 games, missing only 2 games in his rookie season.

Welker, as we know, had been a relative ironman at the time of his signing.


Denver wasn't leaving Manning saddled with a glass menagerie and a bunch of rookies. It's a world of difference.

But every significant receiver that Manning has this year was on the Broncos before Manning except Welker. It isn't like Elway built a receiving corp around Manning. The receiving corp was there prior to Manning and, for the most part, Elway himself.

Next year will be a truer test for Elway and his staff in this area. I don't see them keeping Welker with a $6 million salary (assuming Welker doesn't retire as rumored) and Decker could leave in free agency. They have 16 free agents this offseason and some are fairly significant including Decker, Knowsean Moreno, Wesley Woodyard, Rober Ayers, Shawn Phillips, Dominque Rodgers-Cromartie, and Winston Justice.

Let's see what Elway puts around Manning next year. So far, he was lucky to have a very good receiving corp that he inherited and only had to put in complimentary pieces around them.

 

[Don_the_patfan]

It is easy to look back and say you could predict the injuries given injury history etc., trust me anyone can do it. But if I take you back prior to Ahern arrest and told you Gronk, Ahearn, Vereen, Ridley, Amendola, Edelman AND rookies in training Dobson, Thompkins you couldn't tell me with a straight face that it wasn't sufficient. At the very least at the time we thought Edelman and Amendola would give us a Welker in addition to the rest. So lets be honest with ourselves at that time it was enough.

You can easily make arguments now for and against it but it doesn't matter. The only relevant thing now is what BB will do this off-season to give Brady the weapons he needs. We know that we have a window still and this off-season will be interesting although not sure BB will change the script much.

 

[Ochmed Jones]

But if I take you back prior to Ahern arrest and told you Gronk, Ahearn, Vereen, Ridley, Amendola, Edelman AND rookies in training Dobson, Thompkins you couldn't tell me with a straight face that it wasn't sufficient. At the very least at the time we thought Edelman and Amendola would give us a Welker in addition to the rest. So lets be honest with ourselves at that time it was enough.

Clearly before the season started BB was caught off guard by the whole Hernandez fiasco and a lot of what BB planned to do on offense ran through Hernandez and the match up nightmare he was on the field.

So this offseason BB will again adjust the offense to whatever skill set of new players he brings in.

However I think BB accidentally tripped into something with the power running game and I expect to see it back in 2014 complemented by a vertical WR threat and a move TE/HB type.

With a couple of quality pieces BB's offense could be scary good in 2014.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

We've been wanting a legitimate deep threat for quite some time and BB hasn't delivered. Is that an issue on him, I would think it is. But, there was not a single good threat out there that could be acquired vi free agency that didn't involve breaking the bank/plan. could we have done this, yes but BB believes in having solid depth.

Depth...
QB - We had Mallet and that was good enough.

TE
We tried to get some guys to be the TE#3 for Gronk and Ahern that would be able to fill in if 1 went down for injury. Ballard didn't work and we had a cast of misfits to work with. But, you can't really expect us to have 3 quality starters because no matter how much we paid them, someone would have paid them more. Getting Jimmy Graham is less of a fantasy than having 3 top TEs on a single team. I say you have to give BB a Mulligan on this one with how it all worked out.

WR
Deep threat - Dobson if only it worked. But, some of the same people complaining we don;t have a good deep threat are the probably the people saying Brady can't throw deep?
EDIT: Meant this as really outside WR with deep threat potential.

Slot - Amedola looked great that first game, then the injury. Never seemed to live up to expectations, but Edleman was there. I'd say BB replaced Welker's effectiveness enough to not complain.

Receiving Games Missed - I'd be curious how many games in total this would be.

RBs - You can't complain about our RBs. You're a troll if you do.

O-line - Had some solid/experienced depth here. I think we can all complain about our starting Center. But you can't have all pros at every position and I'm not sure who was available that would have been better.

Talent Evaluation - We can all point to BB's mistakes and few successes. We can point to some of McDaniels mistakes and all his successes were the starting receiving core for the Broncos...how's that for injustice.

On defense
how many aall-pro backups do teams possess. It was bad news for this year and our starting defense looked like it would be dominant as we're our SB winning teams. Injuries killed it and the offense was getting comfortable at the time the defense was seeing the doctors. we kept on winning...imagine the complaining if had lost 3 in a row

The good news is if the starters come back, we'll have excellent depth and need to address the DB situation. not sure Talib is worth more than 6m per year.

Summation
BB did an excellent job providing quality starters and depth. With the exception being a deep threat and possibly starting Center...but that would be nitpicking too much. This team wasn''t going to win the SB and if you are complaining about here they finished, then your expectations were out of whack with reality. People don't really point this out, but we've been bottom feeders of the draft for nearly 13 years running. The talent readily available at that point doesn't typically scream super-star or the single player you can build a team around. So you have to get lucky in your evaluation or overpay to acquire that talent. BB won't overpay, though it would be wonderful to see Brady with an all-pro offense, but at what price?

 

[ivanvamp]

I don't have any problem with how the Patriots are constructed. No team can have stars at every position, not with a salary cap. Just cannot happen. As I see it, here's how the Patriots are built:

- Excellent ownership.
- Tremendous coach who has a superb track record not only of coaching players, but accumulating talent as well.
- HOF quarterback.
- Huge mismatch TEs (Gronk and Hernandez), a position that BB loves to utilize.
- Young, versatile WRs.
- Deep, versatile RB corps.
- Solid, steady offensive line. Some high draft picks on it (Solder, Mankins), and some guys they've coached to get to a high level.
- Versatile defensive line. Two first round picks (Wilfork, Chandler Jones), a couple of really solid veterans (Ninkovich, Kelly), everyone does different things.
- Punishing linebacking corps (Mayo, Spikes, Hightower, Collins).
- Spent lots of resources on a defensive backfield that was the deepest this team has had in years.
- Money is generally spread out so that the team has quality depth all throughout the roster, instead of being top heavy.

That is a really, really good blueprint for success. The weakest part of the team, on paper, is the WR group. But obviously they've won super bowls with that basic philosophy. Again, you can't have stars everywhere, but the Pats sure have their share of them (Brady, Hernandez, Gronk, Mankins, Solder, Wilfork, Jones, Mayo, Talib, McCourty, etc.).

The biggest problem was that they lost six pro-bowl caliber players by the time the 2nd quarter of the AFCCG came around: Hernandez, Gronk, Vollmer, Wilfork, Mayo, and Talib. Spikes may not be a pro-bowl caliber LB, but he was still very solid when healthy. Kelly, same thing. At times this year the Pats were starting 5 rookies on defense, due to the injuries.

Name me a team that loses six pro-bowl players, plus two other regular solid starters, and wins the Super Bowl.

It's not a perfect team. Nobody can have a perfect team in the league these days. Denver and Seattle each have their weaknesses that have been exposed at times this year. The Patriots had them too. But the biggest thing they faced was an insurmountable amount of injuries. I don't know how you can lose the number of high-quality players they did and win it all, without a ton of luck. That they got as far as they did was amazing.

 

[Rob0729]

We've been wanting a legitimate deep threat for quite some time and BB hasn't delivered. Is that an issue on him, I would think it is. But, there was not a single good threat out there that could be acquired vi free agency that didn't involve breaking the bank/plan. could we have done this, yes but BB believes in having solid depth.

Depth...
QB - We had Mallet and that was good enough.

TE
We tried to get some guys to be the TE#3 for Gronk and Ahern that would be able to fill in if 1 went down for injury. Ballard didn't work and we had a cast of misfits to work with. But, you can't really expect us to have 3 quality starters because no matter how much we paid them, someone would have paid them more. Getting Jimmy Graham is less of a fantasy than having 3 top TEs on a single team. I say you have to give BB a Mulligan on this one with how it all worked out.

WR
Deep threat - Dobson if only it worked. But, some of the same people complaining we don;t have a good deep threat are the probably the people saying Brady can't throw deep?

Slot - Amedola looked great that first game, then the injury. Never seemed to live up to expectations, but Edleman was there. I'd say BB replaced Welker's effectiveness enough to not complain.

Receiving Games Missed - I'd be curious how many games in total this would be.

RBs - You can't complain about our RBs. You're a troll if you do.

O-line - Had some solid/experienced depth here. I think we can all complain about our starting Center. But you can't have all pros at every position and I'm not sure who was available that would have been better.

Talent Evaluation - We can all point to BB's mistakes and few successes. We can point to some of McDaniels mistakes and all his successes were the starting receiving core for the Broncos...how's that for injustice.

On defense
how many aall-pro backups do teams possess. It was bad news for this year and our starting defense looked like it would be dominant as we're our SB winning teams. Injuries killed it and the offense was getting comfortable at the time the defense was seeing the doctors. we kept on winning...imagine the complaining if had lost 3 in a row

The good news is if the starters come back, we'll have excellent depth and need to address the DB situation. not sure Talib is worth more than 6m per year.

Summation
BB did an excellent job providing quality starters and depth. With the exception being a deep threat and possibly starting Center...but that would be nitpicking too much. This team wasn''t going to win the SB and if you are complaining about here they finished, then your expectations were out of whack with reality. People don't really point this out, but we've been bottom feeders of the draft for nearly 13 years running. The talent readily available at that point doesn't typically scream super-star or the single player you can build a team around. So you have to get lucky in your evaluation or overpay to acquire that talent. BB won't overpay, though it would be wonderful to see Brady with an all-pro offense, but at what price?

I think a deep threat is one of the most overrated thing in football. Unless you have an elite deep threat, they are overrated.

Neither team in the Super Bowl this year has a true deep threat. Demaryius Thomas is capable of being a deep threat, but Manning's arm makes him a non-deep threat. In fact, I don't know if most of the teams in the playoffs this year had much of a deep threat. The Pats, Broncos, Seahawks, Panthers, 49ers, and Colts didn't have a true deep threat.

What the Pats need is more outside receivers or at least one more. That is what is really missing. Having three slot receivers on the field at the same time is what hurt them in the AFCCG.

I think people fall in love with deep threats because they are flashy, but outside threats are far more needed and valuable. That has been one of the biggest thing missing in all of the playoff losses in recent years. Without an outside presence, opposing defenses have been flooding the center of the field and taking away all the inside routes.

 

[SalemPats]

I think BB has done a pehnomenol job of rebuilding the defense. I truly believe we will have a top 5 defense next year. No one forcasted losing Vince, Mayo and Kelly (perhaps 3 of our top leaders on defense). Not too mention a ton of other injuries. We finally got a pass rush, our LB corps is mobile and finally our secondary can compete against elite offenses. In this salary cap era it's tough when most of the money is on one side. It's weird that on offense we need to rebuild, but no one foresaw losses to Gronk/Aaron/Vollmer. We need to upgrade at WR, but i see us being the top team next year

 

[ivanvamp]

I think BB has done a pehnomenol job of rebuilding the defense. I truly believe we will have a top 5 defense next year. No one forcasted losing Vince, Mayo and Kelly (perhaps 3 of our top leaders on defense). Not too mention a ton of other injuries. We finally got a pass rush, our LB corps is mobile and finally our secondary can compete against elite offenses. In this salary cap era it's tough when most of the money is on one side. It's weird that on offense we need to rebuild, but no one foresaw losses to Gronk/Aaron/Vollmer. We need to upgrade at WR, but i see us being the top team next year

I think, barring more catastrophic injuries, that the Patriots will once again be an elite team in the NFL next year. They are just really, really good. Period. They do a lot of things really well, and it certainly helps having Belichick and Brady. But they do have a lot of talented players on both sides of the ball. They had the NFL's youngest roster this season, and as they gain experience, they'll continue to improve.

Without even looking at the schedule, 12-4, #2 seed in the AFC, playing in the AFCCG again. From there, who knows.

 

[RelocatedPatFan]

I think a deep threat is one of the most overrated thing in football. Unless you have an elite deep threat, they are overrated.

Neither team in the Super Bowl this year has a true deep threat. Demaryius Thomas is capable of being a deep threat, but Manning's arm makes him a non-deep threat. In fact, I don't know if most of the teams in the playoffs this year had much of a deep threat. The Pats, Broncos, Seahawks, Panthers, 49ers, and Colts didn't have a true deep threat.

What the Pats need is more outside receivers or at least one more. That is what is really missing. Having three slot receivers on the field at the same time is what hurt them in the AFCCG.

I think people fall in love with deep threats because they are flashy, but outside threats are far more needed and valuable. That has been one of the biggest thing missing in all of the playoff losses in recent years. Without an outside presence, opposing defenses have been flooding the center of the field and taking away all the inside routes.

good point, but in my mind I think of ourside WR as a deep threat. but, to your point they are different. I guess i really mean a WR capable of attacking Zone 2/3 of the field and not just a burner.

Though you didn't need to quote my wall of text either (general apologies to everyone, but sometimes I get wordy). Though, it might be a good discussion on the possible effect of constantly being near the bottom of the draft pick every year.

 

[Ring 6]

Didn't somebody predict him to get 1200 yards lol?

Give up, people complaining about camp fodder that got zero signing bonus as an indication of poor personnel decisions are just flaunting an agenda.

 

[ivanvamp]

Though you didn't need to quote my wall of text either (general apologies to everyone, but sometimes I get wordy). Though, it might be a good discussion on the possible effect of constantly being near the bottom of the draft pick every year.

To that last point:

2000-2012 Patriots Draft Analysis atriots Coverage With John Vampatella

 

[JackBauer]

Bill has had chances over the years to draft & develop WRs, and has failed miserably:

2008 - Maybe Brady could've worked with 3rd-rounders Early Doucet or fellow Michigan alum
Mario Manningham; instead he drafts the already-known crapfest of Chicken Legs Crable and
Kevin OConnell.

2009 - Brandon Tate ahead of Mike Wallace, Brian Hartline, Austin Collie or even Brandon Gibson? The same Brandon Tate who was recovering from a major knee injury, had hardly
played WR in college, and failed the peepee test at the combine?

2009 - Julian Edelman; about time.

2010 - 4th-round talent Jerry Cunnyham at 52nd overall instead of the top-40 talent, and
Charlie Weis-trained Golden Tate? Jaw-droppingly dumb.

2010 - No attempt to fill the depth chart in the 7th round with the still-available Blair White,
Urban Meyer-coached David Nelson, or Pat Hill-coached Seyi Ajirotutu; instead, we get the wastes of picks Zac Robinson & Kade Weston.

2012 - Another opportunity to fill the depth chart in the 7th round with a versatile size/speed athlete in Michigan alum Junior Hemingway; Bill instead chooses the miniscule, redundant
Jeremy Ebert.

2013 - Keenan Allen falls into his lap, and Bill chooses Aaron Dropson instead; nuff ced.

I knew it'd only be a matter of time before captain_hindsight would make his presence known in this thread.

I guess my question would be, in your haste to show where you'd have made better decisions than BB after the fact, why are you listing wide receivers who aren't even any good? Seyi Ajirotutu? The guy who had 64 yards receiving this season and has a whopping 262 yards in four years? Early Doucet? The guy who was out of football this year and has averaged 298 yards receiving/year in his five year career? Mike Wallace the prohibitively expensive one-trick pony? Blair White, the guy who played one season (355 yards!) and is now out of football? Junior Hemingway with his whopping 125 yards receiving?

Seriously, your posting often sucks, but it's quite another thing to come here and insult people's intelligence as you have with this WOAT submission.

 

[DarrylS]

For all of the BB haters out there, pretty nice words from Jim Schwartz.

New England Patriots Blog - ESPN Boston

"I would say I got a bachelor's degree from Georgetown, but I got a Ph.D. in football-ology from Bill Belichick," he recalled in a recent interview on "The John Murphy Show" on the Bills' official website. "And that's the thing that's probably guided my career the most, is the time I spent with him in Cleveland."

 

[Ivan]

I knew it'd only be a matter of time before captain_hindsight would make his presence known in this thread.

I guess my question would be, in your haste to show where you'd have made better decisions than BB after the fact, why are you listing wide receivers who aren't even any good? Seyi Ajirotutu? The guy who had 64 yards receiving this season and has a whopping 262 yards in four years? Early Doucet? The guy who was out of football this year and has averaged 298 yards receiving/year in his five year career? Mike Wallace the prohibitively expensive one-trick pony? Blair White, the guy who played one season (355 yards!) and is now out of football? Junior Hemingway with his whopping 125 yards receiving?

Seriously, your posting often sucks, but it's quite another thing to come here and insult people's intelligence as you have with this WOAT submission.

I have to admit, if Captain Stone was doing the drafting for the Patriots they would be loaded with talent, it's much easier to acquire it when you pick first every time.

 

[TonyTucker]

Early Doucet? I'd much rather they drafted Late, his brother.

 

[State]

Thomas has had one injury, his foot injury. He was coming off of a full 16 game season. Decker has played in 62 of 64 games, missing only 2 games in his rookie season. Welker, as we know, had been a relative ironman at the time of his signing.

Denver wasn't leaving Manning saddled with a glass menagerie and a bunch of rookies. It's a world of difference.

You mean we should look at players like Denver does? That would be a pleasant switch.

Maybe after the Glass IR-Dowling fiasco--guy hadn't made it through a full season since sophomore of high school for Crissy Evert sakes--we can start drafting with durability in mind, also?

In 2011 we could have easily drafted Torrey Smith instead of Glass IR. Maybe we could have traded down, since we had the first pick in the second that year, and reportedly several teams were in earnest to trade with us, and had still gotten him later that second round. (With Smith we win that second SB against the Giants, IMHO.)

Belichick needs more criticism over that "gutsy" pick. Mel Kiper was right on that one--along with a majority of NFL GMs who, while acknowledging Dowling's physical skills and passion for the game, justifiably questioned his ability to make it through a season. Past is prologue as they say.

I trusted Bill at the time. No more. He's soured me with that pick and threw me under the buss with the head scratcher of Tavon Wilson. Funny guy Bill thought it was hilarious to draft a guy that early in the draft who hadn't even been invited with the other 300 compadres to the Combine. Ha ha. He's a decent STer, though.