I view the situations much, much differently than you do.
CORNERBACK
1) We have all of last year's corners back: starters, nickel back, and dime back. If Talib and Dennard can have more starts than last year, we are way ahead of the game.
2) Cole is our carry-over dime back and backup. He will likely be supplanted by Dowling, who is better than Cole when healthy.
3) We've also used a relatively high draft pick for Ryan. He may or may not be a dime back this year. In any case, he will be a better backup than street free agents we might pick up as we did last year.
4) The additions of A. WIlson, Armstead, Kelly and Collins should all help the overall pass defense, make the secondary look better.
5) The BOTTOM LINE at cornerback is ALL positive. ALL factors point to improvement. Of course, we might have been able to do even better, but overall Belichick improved the pass defense considerably, and the corner position a bit with the addition of Ryan.
RUNNING BACK
I agree that among Blount, Washington and Vereen, Belichick will scheme to make up for the production of Woodhead. However, I think it instructive to see that Belichick is sill looking for improvement at running back as witnessed by the Felix Jones coming in. I suspect that Belichick has less confidence than posters her. So, BOTTOM LINE, we are in fine shape. After all, we are only losing a backup, and have 3 or more options to replace his production.
WIDE RECEIVER
There is ABSOLUTELY no reason to believe that Amendola, Dobson, Boyce and whoever will be as productive as the corps that we had last year. We have four hopes and more if you count all who are competing for the backup position. The only player we can be reasonably sure of is the oft-injured punter and current #4 emergency receiver.
I'm not saying that this can't work out as it did more than a decade ago with Branch and Givens. I just have no reason to believe that it will, other than the skills of Brady, Josh and Bill. Brady is doing all he can to develop a new go-to man in Amendola. If everyone stays healthy, he should be fine with Gronk, Hernandez, Amendola and Edelman. The rest is gravy. So, we must hope for health and for one rookie or JAG free agent to step up, or a normal health and for two rookies or JAGs to step up. IMHO, that's a lot to hope for.
Consider this another way. Compare our wide receivers to those of other passing teams. Whose set of receivers would take instead of ours; I'll bet that you have a long list. And yes, the question is whether the loss of the one of the best receivers in the league means that much. IMHO, it does.
Brady will make do. He always does. If a player doesn't get open, he won't get thrown to. If a player makes mistakes, Brady will tolerate it for awhile and then not throw to that player. Highly drafted rookies have ridden the pine before.
HOWEVER, if Brady does not have enough players who can get open regularly, then beating top defenses will be difficult.
So, we starting free agency with WR, DE, DT and CB as our major weaknesses. DT and CB were well-addressed. As for the weakness at DE, we will try to compensate. IMHO, WR is by far the biggest question mark other than health with regard to the 2013 patriots.
I tend to look at the WR position as a whole, players 1-5--much like I do the CB position. That is why I am not concerned. You, on the other hand tend to look at trying to replace individual performances. In my opinion as long as the depth and talent of the positional grouping is potentially improved down the line, we are always in position to compete at a high rate.
Our RB's have consistently received catches in the rate between 55-70 in the Belichick era, with the exception of the 2011 season with BJGE. That makes me not worry about losing Woodhead's 40 catches nearly as much. History points to replacing that aspect just fine, maybe not all in one player, but as a RB corps altogether.
I also see Amendola/Edelman/Moe (whomever) continuing to receive the quick timing passes off of the LOS, so again...I'm not nearly as worried about the loss of Welker either. Much like Woodhead, we may not necessarily see one player take over the full bulk of the numeric production, but the purpose of the quick timing routes/short offensive attack will continue to go through someone. The offense is just designed that way. It may be lessened, but it's not going to full-out change. Welker had what, 174 looks last season? If Amendola receives 140 looks, are we not to assume that he'll be a very key contributor?
It all comes down to trying to replace Llyod's production then, and although he may have been consistent in being "okay," he also had many glaring weaknesses like failure to beat man coverage + a lack of speed and any contribution with YAC's. His 50% catch rate also wasn't exactly something to write home about. Any WR in the NFL level should be able to catch 50% of their looks, especially the higher percentage passes thrown in this offense.
Once again, even if we don't have one player who produces 74 catches as Llyod did, that doesn't mean that the WR2 position won't be improved in terms of speed, stretching the defense a bit, and drawing attention from the opposing safety at times. Our shorter pass completion rate was exceptional last year--once again. It was the longer sideline and longer middle passes that were outright pathetic completion rates, and much of that can be attributed to Brandon Llyod's weaknesses. All of those traits needed to be improved on this offense, as these were the weakness that kept us from moving forward. If Belichick did not address changes in the WR position, I'd have thought he lost his mind....
