Where do the Pats WR's rank relative to the NFL?

[makewayhomer]

Former lurker, now poster. Sorry for another WR thread, but this one is a new topic.

With all the recent additions to the WR addition, where do the Patriots WR's rank relative to the league? Are they an average unit? Above average? Below?

Is our 3 WR set better (relative to the NFL) than our 2 receiver set? I think so.

For the sake of argument, lets use these as our units:

2 WR's: Stallworth and Caldwell
3 WR's: Stallworth, Caldwell, and Welker
4 WR's: Stallworth, Caldwell, Welker, and Gaffney

I think the most important of the above are the 2/3 WR sets, just b/c we don't figure to go 4 wide very often.

 

[danny88]

Former lurker, now poster. Sorry for another WR thread, but this one is a new topic.

With all the recent additions to the WR addition, where do the Patriots WR's rank relative to the league? Are they an average unit? Above average? Below?

Is our 3 WR set better (relative to the NFL) than our 2 receiver set? I think so.

For the sake of argument, lets use these as our units:

2 WR's: Stallworth and Caldwell
3 WR's: Stallworth, Caldwell, and Welker
4 WR's: Stallworth, Caldwell, Welker, and Gaffney

I think the most important of the above are the 2/3 WR sets, just b/c we don't figure to go 4 wide very often.

Washington is going to be a good player

 

[Boston Boxer]

i say they are an average unit...alot better than last year, but still average as a whole

 

[Bobs My Uncle]

i say they are an average unit...alot better than last year, but still average as a whole

Ditto for me as well.

 

[37Harrison]

Ditto for me as well.

yep, just average.

 

[VJCPatriot]

Dunno about just average. Stallworth is an excellent deep threat. I think how well Stallworth works out for us will go a long way to determining how good this unit is. Also if Washington can step up he could claim a starting job. And Wes Welker is a great underneath option imo. The Pats for the first time are going to be able to work a lot of mismatches, deep, underneath, and middle range. I expect to see a completely different unit on the field next season. And with Brady pulling the trigger, I can easily see 4,000 yards and 30+ TDs from Tommy in 2007.

 

[pciamp24]

I think that this group could be above average and one of the better groups in the NFL if healthy.

That is a big IF!

 

[borg]

The way that Brady spreads the seed around....

 

[PatsFanSince74]

measured by what? receptions? yards gained? TD's? big game impact? spreading the field to open up the running game to succeed? I don't think you can rank this group since (a) it's never played together and (b) some of its main components have never played with TB. We don't know how Stallworth and Brady will click on the field. If the pieces all fit together and work together really well, it could be the best unit in the NFL. If they don't or if people start to complain that they're not seeing enough balls, then this time next year we'll see a dozen threads like "What were they thinking?" It's hard to think of Jerry Rice without thinking of Joe Montana. Rice was great, but he was the greatest because of how he worked with Joe.

 

[Coog548]

Not one single reciever will put up HUGE numbers. I think they will do alot better than last year but i don't even know if Washington will even make the team. He sign a small contract and i believe will be gone before the season starts.

 

[Fixit]

As a unit, top to bottom, better than average.

 

[patchick]

Right now, Caldwell's the one and only receiver who has a full season of experience playing with Brady in the Patriots' system. Given that, I think I'll predict that the WR corps will be worse than average for the first handful of games, but better than average by the end of the season.

 

[patriotsdynasty12189]

If you want depth, we probably have the best with all our WR could be average starters. Most teams have 2 or 3 good to great WR while we have 6 average receivers and one good WR.

 

[Fixit]

If you want depth, we probably have the best with all our WR could be average starters. Most teams have 2 or 3 good to great WR while we have 6 average receivers and one good WR.

Most teams have 2 or 3 good to great receivers? I beg to differ.

 

[makewayhomer]

Most teams have 2 or 3 good to great receivers? I beg to differ.

this is the best tandems in the league, as ranked by DPAR. I don't know if you guys visit footballoutsiders.com but they do some awesome stuff there. it's basically SABR metrics for football. Now, this analysis is much newer for football than it is for baseball, so you need to take some stuff with a grain of salt.

maybe I'll start another thread to discuss their work. anywho, here is their list of teams with 2 WR's who were each top 30 last year


11-L.Fitzgerald ARI 7
81-A.Boldin ARI 21

84-T.Houshmandzadeh CIN 4
85-C.Johnson CIN 5

81-T.Owens DAL 8
83-T.Glenn DAL 9

11-Ro.Williams DET 6
87-M.Furrey DET 10

87-R.Wayne IND 1
88-M.Harrison IND 2

12-M.Colston NO 11
19-D.Henderson NO 17
87-J.Horn NO 18

10-S.Holmes PIT 19
86-H.Ward PIT 30

18-D.Hackett SEA 15
82-D.Jackson SEA 24

80-I.Bruce STL 12
83-K.Curtis STL 29

that's 9 teams

 

[T-ShirtDynasty]

Pulling out DPAR on your second post? Ahhhh.... the force is strong with this one. Welcome to the board.

 

[DarrylS]

So is our trio in the top 10?? They are pretty close on paper, but difficult to tell without performance numbers with this QB and in this system, Kelly Washington may be a very good fine. His height and ability to go over the middle may be beneficial.

 

[makewayhomer]

So is our trio in the top 10?? They are pretty close on paper, but difficult to tell without performance numbers with this QB and in this system, Kelly Washington may be a very good fine. His height and ability to go over the middle may be beneficial.

I don't think our unit is top 10.

I think our 2 WR set is just about average. Remember Caldwell was JAG on the Chargers, who themselves don't have great WR's. Stallworth is very good, probably a top 25 WR.



keep in mind I am ignoring Brady in all of this, and assuming that all NFL teams have the same robot QB.

 

[TealSox]

Pats WR corp 2007: deep with average talent and significant upside.

Pats WR corp 2006: Lacks depth, bellow average talent with very little upside. (since Branch left, despite drafting Jackson).

Compare with the Colts, I think the Pats have a deeper corp with more talent. If I had to measure their top two with the Pats top two, it wouldn't be favorable to the Patriots. I would toss a ton of teams out there who I think have a better WR corp such as Seattle, Arizona, St. Louis and Cincy. But then there are teams like San Fran, San Diego, Baltimore, Philly and Tampa that the Patriots would measure favorably against.

In the end, this group matches the offense. And that is all you really need. Especially when your playing the Broncos and they have two pro bowl corners, you just toss in four wide receivers.

 

[Krazy Koz]

11-L.Fitzgerald ARI 7
81-A.Boldin ARI 21

84-T.Houshmandzadeh CIN 4
85-C.Johnson CIN 5

81-T.Owens DAL 8
83-T.Glenn DAL 9

11-Ro.Williams DET 6
87-M.Furrey DET 10

87-R.Wayne IND 1
88-M.Harrison IND 2

12-M.Colston NO 11
19-D.Henderson NO 17
87-J.Horn NO 18

10-S.Holmes PIT 19
86-H.Ward PIT 30

18-D.Hackett SEA 15
82-D.Jackson SEA 24

80-I.Bruce STL 12
83-K.Curtis STL 29

that's 9 teams

Would you mind explaining what the numbers mean to some extent. From someone on the outside, it seems like you just listed 9 groups of player/team with some numbers on the end with no perameters or other information to form our own opinion. It sounds like this info could be helpful. thanks for posting.