Roster Evaluation

[Flash]

The only major area that needs significant upgrades is the D-Line. Flowers is our best DL and he might be leaving at the end of the season, depending on whether BB is willing to pay big money for him.

The rest are all average guys. Adrian Clayborn is decent. Lawrence Guy is okay. Malcom Brown is okay. Deatrich Wise is okay. Danny Shelton is below average. The rest are all JAGs. We need serious upgrades in this area. Since this year's QB class sucks I wouldn't mind if we invested our top two picks in DL. Supposedly this year's DL class is pretty good.

 

[supafly]

• Andrews is a matchup and effort player who often struggles against size and power. He's a poor man's Koppen.
• Mason is the team's best interior lineman, and is a high level NFL guard. He's got to stay healthy, though
  
• Thuney is someone who's often been the team's weakest OL, but he may be turning that around a bit.
• Brown is about what we expected. His size makes him formidable, but speed can give him a problem.
• Cannon is a quality RT when healthy. Unfortunately, the 'when healthy' part is a real problem.
• Waddle's been awful. He's going to get Brady killed if he keeps playing at this level.
  
• Gronk is a bit of an unknown at this point. How much of his apparent decline is due to temporary injury is the critical question.
• Allen has been a good blocker, and pretty much a disaster as a receiver.
• Hollister has become this year's version of H.G. Wells' Griffin.
  
• James White continues to be James White. He's a very effective 3dRB who you don't want toting the rock beyond a bare minimum number of times.
• Michel, to date, has been what we all feared. He's been a less than inspiring first round RB pick who can't stay healthy.
• Burkhead flashes quality play, then heads to the injury list. He's not useless, but he's completely unreliable. Unfortunately, the Bengals seem to have been right about him, at least in that sense.
  
• Develin is Develin. If you want blocking, he's your man. If you want anything else, you'd best make it a surprise, and a low level priority.
• Patterson is who most of us thought he was. He's a gimmick player who is best used as the WR5 in general, but with a specific package of plays that gets him involved as a higher slotted player.
• JE11 is a guy coming off of ACL surgery and is well into his recovery but not yet at 100%, and he looks it.
• Gordon is a high level talent who's missed a lot of time and came over late in the game, and he looks it. He needs to work on his hands, as he's missing out on too many catchable passes.
• Hogan has not had the success most of us had hoped and expected, and the question is how much of that is on Hogan, and how much is external to his game. It seems that he's not getting the separation he'd gotten prior to this season, but there have also been times when he's been open but not targeted.
• Dorsett is the biggest of mysteries to me. He gets open. He catches the ball. He's not getting the snaps or targets that would seem to be warranted. What's the reason for that, though, is the question.
• Brady is still Brady, though he hasn't been MVP level. Most of that seems to be due to external factors, but he has not overcome that in quite his usual fashion.

• Trey Flowers is arguably the best defender on the team. He's both an effort and a skill player, and he's the focal player on the line.
• Deatrich Wise has been a disappointment in year two. The hope is that he bounces back, but it's possible that we've already seen him at his best.
• Lawrence Guy is a solid player who goes largely unnoticed. If Brown and Shelton were playing well, he'd be far less important, but their disappointing play has made his health and level of play critical.
• Danny Shelton has been a Dolly Parton level bust. He can't move laterally and, oddly given his size, often struggles to hold the point of attack.
• Malcom Brown has continued to be Malcom Brown. He's a disappointing player who's not bad enough to label a bust. He's not what the team needs on the line, though.
• Adrian Clayborn has been another major disappointment. But the disappointment here isn't really that he's declined. It's that he's basically been the same player he's always been.
• Derek Rivers is a second year player coming off of a lost season. He's not really shown much to make me think he'll be much help this year, or a part of the team's long term plans.
• Dont'a Hightower looks like a shadow of himself. He's slow and has lost his explosion. There are still a lot of games remaining, so hope remains that he'll trend closer to the old Hightower.
• Elandon Roberts is Elandon Roberts, and that's not a good NFL linebacker.
• Kyle Van Noy has shown real improvement this year. He's still overslotted in this linebacker corps, but he's played like a legitimate LB3 level player rather than an LB4-LB5 kind of guy.
• Stephon Gilmore has been a lot more up than down. He's been the team's best, or second best, defensive player. But he's still prone to what seems like bad concentration games, and they can't afford any more of those this season, because the defense is designed around him with the expectation that he'll be playing at a very high level.
• Jonathan Jones has not recovered and developed in the way I'd hoped. Perhaps more time will be the answer, but he's taken a step back.
• Jason McCourty has been a mostly adequate starting corner, though he's had some disastrous moments.
• J.C. Jackson really needs to improve, or he's going to be unemployed.
• Patrick Chung seems to have lost something in his game, but part of that could be the general decline in the back 7.
• Devin McCourty definitely looks off when the team puts him down low and in man coverage. He still looks good when he's setting up deep and reading what's in front of him, though he's not been up to his usual standards there.
• Duron Harmon is Duron Harmon, which is a good backup/S3 who's overpaid and who's probably being used more than he should be because the team doesn't have a second safety who can press into the front 7.
• Stephen Gostkowski remains a top player at his position, but it seems to me that his kickoffs have been less consistently accurate with regards to placement this season.
• Ryan Allen - I haven't really focused on him much this year. My general sense is that he's not been as good as he's needed to be on too many occasions, but that could just be bad memory.

It would be difficult, if not impossible to argue with any of this. While the 2018 version certainly has plenty of talent and ability to compete at a high level, there’s no denying that there are some glaring, obvious weaknesses. I don’t know if it just seems that way due to recency bias or if there’s a perfect storm of limited draft gains, injuries/aging, and some poor roster management that point to 2018 being a bit of a down year in terms of the usual and expected AFC title game appearance, but I expect a better team in 2019.

 

[Brewskies]

My takes (this is all about where the players are to date, often made with the understanding that there's fluidity in the analysis) not a claim of permanence for every single player) for the offense. I've left off some of the backups:

• Andrews is a matchup and effort player who often struggles against size and power. He's a poor man's Koppen.
• Mason is the team's best interior lineman, and is a high level NFL guard. He's got to stay healthy, though
  
• Thuney is someone who's often been the team's weakest OL, but he may be turning that around a bit.
• Brown is about what we expected. His size makes him formidable, but speed can give him a problem.
• Cannon is a quality RT when healthy. Unfortunately, the 'when healthy' part is a real problem.
• Waddle's been awful. He's going to get Brady killed if he keeps playing at this level.
  
• Gronk is a bit of an unknown at this point. How much of his apparent decline is due to temporary injury is the critical question.
• Allen has been a good blocker, and pretty much a disaster as a receiver.
• Hollister has become this year's version of H.G. Wells' Griffin.
  
• James White continues to be James White. He's a very effective 3dRB who you don't want toting the rock beyond a bare minimum number of times.
• Michel, to date, has been what we all feared. He's been a less than inspiring first round RB pick who can't stay healthy.
• Burkhead flashes quality play, then heads to the injury list. He's not useless, but he's completely unreliable. Unfortunately, the Bengals seem to have been right about him, at least in that sense.
  
• Develin is Develin. If you want blocking, he's your man. If you want anything else, you'd best make it a surprise, and a low level priority.
• Patterson is who most of us thought he was. He's a gimmick player who is best used as the WR5 in general, but with a specific package of plays that gets him involved as a higher slotted player.
• JE11 is a guy coming off of ACL surgery and is well into his recovery but not yet at 100%, and he looks it.
• Gordon is a high level talent who's missed a lot of time and came over late in the game, and he looks it. He needs to work on his hands, as he's missing out on too many catchable passes.
• Hogan has not had the success most of us had hoped and expected, and the question is how much of that is on Hogan, and how much is external to his game. It seems that he's not getting the separation he'd gotten prior to this season, but there have also been times when he's been open but not targeted.
• Dorsett is the biggest of mysteries to me. He gets open. He catches the ball. He's not getting the snaps or targets that would seem to be warranted. What's the reason for that, though, is the question.
• Brady is still Brady, though he hasn't been MVP level. Most of that seems to be due to external factors, but he has not overcome that in quite his usual fashion.

An awful lot of thought and work went into your evaluation. Thank you. I can't say I disagree with much of what you wrote. I might have been a little more negative on some stars but not by much.

My summary of your evaluation is we have a weaker team this season than last and as of this posting and is not a Superbowl level team nor one that is deep into the playoffs. But on the positive side we have 6 games to improve.

Go Pats