AzPatsFan
Veteran Starter w/Big Long Term Deal
- Joined
- Sep 15, 2004
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It is the annual Winter of our Discontent. It is ... The Day After.
The first round of the draft and the Annual & Usual, Wrist Slashing ritual has started to run its course, along with the bewildered expressions of "Who...?" and "What the .... ?"
I used to invest a lot in picking, from the outside, the players the Pats would take, only to be totally befuddled... The Day After.
After you get a chance to look at the answers, analogous to looking in the back of the book, so to speak, the answer becomes more obvious, always.
Belichick is still actively re-building the Team,while still winning. Pieces he put into place, he patiently waits for them to bloom, recognizing that sometime it takes a year or three for the results to really show. Impatient fans are we.
Starting with the Meriwether pick, BB set ought to totally transform the Pats secondary, with a new generation. The Lawyer, Ty, Hitman, generation was drawing to an end, and a new secondary generation needed to be planted, groomed, trained and prepared. The early parts are there now, Sanders and Meriwether are just entering their prime. The new corners are still being fed and watered; meanwhile the older annual vet patches, like Springs are imported to temporarily suffice.
Before the secondary he had done that very thing, with the Offensive line, harvesting players from his early years like Light, Koppen and Neal, but adding other new foundations like, Mankins, Volmer, Levoir, and a bundle of others that have a year or two of grooming before they will be fully ready. Asamoah anyone?
Everybody is bemoaning the lack of pass rush, but sometimes when you look at the answers, you see that battle is/was actually pretty much over, last year. We just haven't seen it yet. We are like armchair generals, fighting the Last War.
At rush LB, we have three fairly good ones, Burgess, Adalius, TBC with a couple of other still being groomed. At DL, we have moved to a newer generation, with Warren, Wilfork, Wright, Brace, Pryor and the usual vet patch, Damione Lewis. (maybe not so usual)
I didn't like letting a "Foundation Lineman" like Richard Seymour go, but there was apparently, no way to reconcile his already Haynesworth salary, with other pay needs. I like to say, you never trade a Reggie White, Merlin Olsen, Alan Page or Dan Hampton, the very definition of a Foundation Lineman. They make others around them into stars, and you find that you can't find a substitute.
For 'My Pick', I was resigned to Oldrick, but I had a feeling he was just a routine First Round replacement, good but not a great one.
Looking a the back-of-the-book answers, If you had added Seymour's usual 8 or so interior sacks to the quantity supplied by the outside guys, the pass rush numbers were back in championship number areas. Its obvious NOW, why Damione Lewis, a former First Rounder, a 300# penetrating pass rush interior lineman, so untypical of a the usual 3-4 Read-and-React lineman, was the first FA imported signing. He was meant ot supply the INTERIOR pass rush that BB diagnosed, correctly, as missing.
The ILBs have three formidable youngsters too. The offside SOLB, seems to have some candidate players too, but I wouldn't mind an investment there. But you need a bigger guy, with less pass rush ability but still some. Greg Hardy, perhaps?
Let round Two of the annual Blood-letting begin.
The first round of the draft and the Annual & Usual, Wrist Slashing ritual has started to run its course, along with the bewildered expressions of "Who...?" and "What the .... ?"
I used to invest a lot in picking, from the outside, the players the Pats would take, only to be totally befuddled... The Day After.
After you get a chance to look at the answers, analogous to looking in the back of the book, so to speak, the answer becomes more obvious, always.
Belichick is still actively re-building the Team,while still winning. Pieces he put into place, he patiently waits for them to bloom, recognizing that sometime it takes a year or three for the results to really show. Impatient fans are we.
Starting with the Meriwether pick, BB set ought to totally transform the Pats secondary, with a new generation. The Lawyer, Ty, Hitman, generation was drawing to an end, and a new secondary generation needed to be planted, groomed, trained and prepared. The early parts are there now, Sanders and Meriwether are just entering their prime. The new corners are still being fed and watered; meanwhile the older annual vet patches, like Springs are imported to temporarily suffice.
Before the secondary he had done that very thing, with the Offensive line, harvesting players from his early years like Light, Koppen and Neal, but adding other new foundations like, Mankins, Volmer, Levoir, and a bundle of others that have a year or two of grooming before they will be fully ready. Asamoah anyone?
Everybody is bemoaning the lack of pass rush, but sometimes when you look at the answers, you see that battle is/was actually pretty much over, last year. We just haven't seen it yet. We are like armchair generals, fighting the Last War.
At rush LB, we have three fairly good ones, Burgess, Adalius, TBC with a couple of other still being groomed. At DL, we have moved to a newer generation, with Warren, Wilfork, Wright, Brace, Pryor and the usual vet patch, Damione Lewis. (maybe not so usual)
I didn't like letting a "Foundation Lineman" like Richard Seymour go, but there was apparently, no way to reconcile his already Haynesworth salary, with other pay needs. I like to say, you never trade a Reggie White, Merlin Olsen, Alan Page or Dan Hampton, the very definition of a Foundation Lineman. They make others around them into stars, and you find that you can't find a substitute.
For 'My Pick', I was resigned to Oldrick, but I had a feeling he was just a routine First Round replacement, good but not a great one.
Looking a the back-of-the-book answers, If you had added Seymour's usual 8 or so interior sacks to the quantity supplied by the outside guys, the pass rush numbers were back in championship number areas. Its obvious NOW, why Damione Lewis, a former First Rounder, a 300# penetrating pass rush interior lineman, so untypical of a the usual 3-4 Read-and-React lineman, was the first FA imported signing. He was meant ot supply the INTERIOR pass rush that BB diagnosed, correctly, as missing.
The ILBs have three formidable youngsters too. The offside SOLB, seems to have some candidate players too, but I wouldn't mind an investment there. But you need a bigger guy, with less pass rush ability but still some. Greg Hardy, perhaps?
Let round Two of the annual Blood-letting begin.
