Yes, even Mike Reiss can't defend or explain BB's draft reaches

[Kontradiction]

No, what would be nice is if you went back, look at all the could of hads, and also list all of the coaches that also passed on them. 50/50 hindsight is a hell of a thing, what with you getting to sit in your comfortable recliner, beer in hand, talking **** about one of the best coach/gm in nfl history. a first ballot hall of famer, who constantly gets **** on by "fans" because he doesn't draft with a perfect record.

Show me 5 GMs who has done better over the last 10 years, then we can talk about how horrible he is.

1. I never made mention that I believe Belichick is horrible.

2. I was defending the guy's drafts on here for about six years before you signed up, so your ire is misplaced at best.

3. I'm fully willing to admit the brilliance of some of his drafts. Again, I've spent the better part of a decade defending him.

4. The biggest positional group whose drafting I cannot defend since 2008 are the DB's. Those selections, IMO, speak for themselves.

The good news is that I like the Ryan selection, Talib is here for another year, and Dennard was trending upward in 2012. So things look better back there. I still think safety will be a need next year, but I'm looking forward to see what the back end, as is currently constituted, can do.

 

[chasa]

I think the backend will have some issues if the pass rush doesn't improve, but i think overall we wont be ranked in the 30-32 for passing yards this year

...

fingers crossed.

 

[Patriotic Fervor]

The criticism is fair. We have had three straight seasons of an average defense at best that gets torched through the air. With two more top 100 picks spent on the secondary, isn't about time it's halfway decent?

2012:

25th total defense (373.2ypg)
9th points (20.7ppg)

2011:

31st total defense (411.1ypg)
15th points (21.4ppg)

2010:

25th total defense (366.5ypg)
8th points (19.6ppg)

Really though, it's about time this team has a great defense with all the picks spent on it. There won't be any rookies starting out there. Our CB trio is composed of two veterans and a 2nd year player, the safety duo are veterans, the LB core is composed of a 6th, 4th, and 2nd year player. The DL with have three veterans and a 2nd year player. The rebuilding process is over, its go time.

Well, I dunno...I don't have the proper stats in front of me, but I kinda wonder...

All those years, how many of these stats were produced as the result of garbage time offenses trying to claw their way back in to the game while the Pats laid back playing prevent defense?

Just wond'rin, that's all...

 

[Kontradiction]

The answer isn't really Tavon Wilson, the answer is why he was picked and why pundits and Kontradiction can't grasp things.

Pundits have to look at hundreds of players and balance with 32 team needs. This volume of work means that the evaluation would be dictated by a players ability to "jump out on film".

The general development of football today is toward having "players".

Offense is moving from RB/FB/TE/WR to "skill positions".

This trend is happening of defense with LB/CB/SF morphing toward "playing in space".

BB is now the forefront of this. At Illinois, Wilson was exactly this type in the secondary. This is why he would be targeted.

It's also a role that would least likely "jump out on film". Therefore, one would expect him to not be noticed.

Before 2010, BB was notorious for not being able to draft TE's despite repeated attempts. Why did he do this?

Now the two TE concept is the rage of the league.

Absent certain "contributors" here, the answers are obvious to a three year old.

The Rutgers picks are also obvious. Schiano and Belichick are close football collaborators. Why it's so hard to grasp that close collaboration organizations wouldn't align on talent is amazing.

You cannot possibly be serious with this. At no point during this entire, incoherent thought of a post did you consider the fact that CB's and safeties have literally been "playing in space" since the advent of football?

Further, please detail to me what Harmon does differently then, let's say: Bacarri Rambo that made jump out on film enough to go from being a projected UDFA to a third round pick. Tell me about his hip fluidity, his instincts, how he plays in the box (since that is a requirement in this defense), how he plays in space, and what were his primary assignments in college? If you could go into detail about what you saw, maybe we can finally have an intelligent convseration for once. Because, based on what I saw, I'm not sure anything jumped out enough to me in order to reach for him where we did.

 

[Ivan]

Yards don't matter much, points against, red zone, and 3rd down do. Any team that scores a ton of points is going to have bad yard rankings because opposing teams have to air it out to try and keep up with them, and the garbage yards are usually big. Belichick has made some bad choices at DB, no question about it, and they have suffered because of it, but he has also overhauled the defense completely and is really within a couple of pieces of having a great defense, if he isn't there already, and that we will find out this season.

 

[patsfanincleveland]

You cannot possibly be serious with this. At no point during this entire, incoherent thought of a post did you consider the fact that CB's and safeties have literally been "playing in space" since the advent of football?

Further, please detail to me what Harmon does differently then, let's say: Bacarri Rambo that made jump out on film enough to go from being a projected UDFA to a third round pick. Tell me about his hip fluidity, his instincts, how he plays in the box (since that is a requirement in this defense), how he plays in space, and what were his primary assignments in college? If you could go into detail about what you saw, maybe we can finally have an intelligent convseration for once. Because, based on what I saw, I'm not sure anything jumped out enough to me in order to reach for him where we did.

Yeah, that about sums it up on why the obvious doesn't become obvious.

 

[Kontradiction]

Yeah, that about sums it up on why the obvious doesn't become obvious.

So you can't defend why it was a reach. Further, you can't defend the numerous misses on DB selections either. Instead, you peddle this. Par for the course, I guess.

 

[patfanken]

IIRC the superbowl winning teams of 2001 and 2003 had total yards ranking of 26th and 24th respectively. Its a totally meaningless stat. Look to the scoring defense and 3rd down defense as defensive stats that actually have some meaning.....and BTW - how about wins and losses.

 

[patfanken]

As for the draft as a whole, I think it is a solid B with some upside. I especially like what we did in the 7th round, where we picked up 2 picks that I think will make the roster. I find it ironic that what the mediots will say was a great value getting a proven RB for a 7th and a guy who wasn't going to play for you anyway; was BB WORST move of the draft. Given the decent players that were still available in the draft at that point, I don't think we got much value.

If the pick didn't mean much, I would have much rather taken a shot at the Okoye kid and then if I felt the need to pick up a short yardage back, I would have looked at Starks or Benson, NOT a kid who is reported to be a poor blocker and short yardage back.

 

[Metaphors]

If you could go into detail about what you saw, maybe we can finally have an intelligent convseration for once. Because, based on what I saw, I'm not sure anything jumped out enough to me in order to reach for him where we did.

Agree with the approach but you are asking the wrong question. We are limited in that we have a limited film sample size and no direct contact with the player. We also don't know what the Pats were specifically looking for at safety in this draft. So it is difficult to say if Harmon "jumped out enough" for his draft position.

A better question is in the limited information we all have on Harmon, does anything we know disqualify him from being selected at #91 in this draft class? Physical, mental, fit, intangibles, off the field, etc. You can compare him to Rambo but I think a better comparison would be Phillip Thomas.

If Harmon compares favorably to players that are considered reasonable at #91, then Harmon should be considered reasonable at #91 (apart from the "we could have gotten him later" discussion that has become tiresome). My contention is that Harmon fell between the cracks in the scouting process and group-think took over.

If someone can point to areas of his game or makeup that are lacking, then as you say, maybe we can have an intelligent conversation about drafting Harmon. I can't defend picking Harmon at #91 but I also can't point to anything that indicates it was a bad decision. More information would be appreciated.

 

[BelichickFan]

A better question is in the limited information we all have on Harmon, does anything we know disqualify him from being selected at #91 in this draft class? Physical, mental, fit, intangibles, off the field, etc. You can compare him to Rambo but I think a better comparison would be Phillip Thomas.

There's a good article here :

New England Patriots: Duron Harmon Was Actually Good Value for the Pats | Bleacher Report

(don't ignore it because it's Bleacher Report, it's worth reading).

As far as I can tell the only "disqualifiers" are he wasn't invited to the combine and he wasn't supposed to go that high. Vollmer should have been disqualified from the 2nd round for the same reason.

 

[DaBruinz]

You're pretty much making things up now. There have been quite a bit more than 5-8 good back end players selected. The team, for instance, could have had Tyvon Branch in the 4th round in 2008 (again, off the top of my head) instead of Wheatley in the second. I believe Terrell Thomas went right after Wheatley. He would have made more of an immediate impact than Wheatley did, although he has had some horrific luck with injuries since. Would it really be necessary for me to go year by year listing the "could have had's" with the players we chose in the back end, or do you get the point?

The only problem with your "Could have hads" BS is that you have absolutely no idea how those players would have responded on the Pats. It is a complete assumption on your part that Thomas or Branch would have done anything. See, the problem with people doing that is you gloss over the biggest part of the drafting process that we don't get to see. That is the interviewing, film study, etc. You know, the team private things. Things that don't ever get allowed into the public except on the rare occasion you get a book by Michael Holley. And even then it is just extremely small snippets. And this is nothing new. This has been pointed out to people like yourself on numerous occasions over the past 10 years and you continue to act like it has no impact when it does.

 

[DaBruinz]

You cannot possibly be serious with this. At no point during this entire, incoherent thought of a post did you consider the fact that CB's and safeties have literally been "playing in space" since the advent of football?

Further, please detail to me what Harmon does differently then, let's say: Bacarri Rambo that made jump out on film enough to go from being a projected UDFA to a third round pick. Tell me about his hip fluidity, his instincts, how he plays in the box (since that is a requirement in this defense), how he plays in space, and what were his primary assignments in college? If you could go into detail about what you saw, maybe we can finally have an intelligent convseration for once. Because, based on what I saw, I'm not sure anything jumped out enough to me in order to reach for him where we did.

Bacarri Rambo? You mean the guy who benefitted from having a ton of talent around him?? You mean the guy who 32 GMs passed over 5-6 times? Come on, Kontra, you're grasping at straws. I mean, the "highly" touted Robert Lester (who was supposed to be a 1st round pick last year) fell to the 7th round.

BTW, WHO said that Harmon was supposed to be a UDFA? Mel Kiper? Mike Mayock? NFLDraftscout.com? Here are some names for you. Ryan Leaf. JaMarcus Russell. Charlie Ward. Tony Mandarich. Ernest Shazor. You know what they all had in common? They all were highly touted by the "EXPERTS" we talk about. They were all supposed to be "STARS". The point is that going by what the "experts" claim isn't smart. For one, they don't get the end of year BLESTO and NATIONAL scouting reports. They don't get the scouting reports from the 7 teams that have their own scouting departments. And, the "experts" aren't truly predicting how players will turn out in the Pros. They are predicting what teams think. Which is why they almost all get the Patriots wrong in their mock drafts. It's also why we get drafts like 2007 where a ridiculous number of 1st, 2nd and 3rd rounders were gone from the league by 2011.

 

[DaBruinz]

Agree with the approach but you are asking the wrong question. We are limited in that we have a limited film sample size and no direct contact with the player. We also don't know what the Pats were specifically looking for at safety in this draft. So it is difficult to say if Harmon "jumped out enough" for his draft position.

A better question is in the limited information we all have on Harmon, does anything we know disqualify him from being selected at #91 in this draft class? Physical, mental, fit, intangibles, off the field, etc. You can compare him to Rambo but I think a better comparison would be Phillip Thomas.

If Harmon compares favorably to players that are considered reasonable at #91, then Harmon should be considered reasonable at #91 (apart from the "we could have gotten him later" discussion that has become tiresome). My contention is that Harmon fell between the cracks in the scouting process and group-think took over.

If someone can point to areas of his game or makeup that are lacking, then as you say, maybe we can have an intelligent conversation about drafting Harmon. I can't defend picking Harmon at #91 but I also can't point to anything that indicates it was a bad decision. More information would be appreciated.

Looking at Harmons numbers, this is what we get:

Height:6'0 2/8"
Weight: 196
40 - 4.51
20 - 2.67
10 - 1.60
Bench - 15
Vertical- 36"
BroadJump - 10' 5"
20 Yard Shuttle - 4.40
3-Cone - 7.02

Intangibles: Team Leader. Excellent communicator in the secondary. Excels on Special Teams. Extremely intelligent, both football and otherwise.

Some of those numbers are excellent (Broadjump, Vertical), others are about average. Only the Short Shuttle seems kinda slow.

 

[Kontradiction]

Agree with the approach but you are asking the wrong question. We are limited in that we have a limited film sample size and no direct contact with the player. We also don't know what the Pats were specifically looking for at safety in this draft. So it is difficult to say if Harmon "jumped out enough" for his draft position.

A better question is in the limited information we all have on Harmon, does anything we know disqualify him from being selected at #91 in this draft class? Physical, mental, fit, intangibles, off the field, etc. You can compare him to Rambo but I think a better comparison would be Phillip Thomas.

If Harmon compares favorably to players that are considered reasonable at #91, then Harmon should be considered reasonable at #91 (apart from the "we could have gotten him later" discussion that has become tiresome). My contention is that Harmon fell between the cracks in the scouting process and group-think took over.

If someone can point to areas of his game or makeup that are lacking, then as you say, maybe we can have an intelligent conversation about drafting Harmon. I can't defend picking Harmon at #91 but I also can't point to anything that indicates it was a bad decision. More information would be appreciated.

Again, I don't have a basic problem with Harmon himself. Go back to my posts as early as after the AFCCG and you'll note that I had safety as a need. Now, if I were doing the draft, I would have kicked safety back to next year after Swearinger went off the board and would have just went with the pick we have. But I do realize that safety was a need and that the team was probably going to select one regardless.

From what I've seen of Harmon, he has good length and good range. My issue is that he projects, currently, to be McCourty's back-up. To me, a 3rd is too high to look for a back-up safety especially with other positions and players being on the board that could have offered better value and could potentially start. I also have a feeling that I'm not just speaking for myself on that one. The way the draft fell for other S candidates, most of whom were more well known to the college football scouting universe, it tells me that there was a pretty good chance that another team wasn't going to make a similar reach for Harmon. Most guys went where they were expected to go, or after. The only other pre-draft consensus UDFA safety that went prior to round 7 went the round right before it.

In the end, though, I think Reiss has the right to question it (as does anybody else). Unless Harmon was an absolute "can't miss" selection to where the coaching staff couldn't take a chance of losing him, you would think that he would then become more of a "value" selection in the 6th or 7th rounds (the type of selection that this team loves). It's a head scratcher, for sure and doesn't seem to bode well for what the coaching staff took away from it's last "big reach" in 2012: Wilson.

 

[Synovia]

any team picking 48th overall wants to land a starter at that spot,

If this is the premise that Reiss is writing his article on, then the article is starting with a false premise.


The average 2nd rounder is not a starter. The average 2nd rounder is lucky if he gets a 2nd nfl contract.


The 48th pick of the draft has a CAV (Career average value ) of about 23-27.

Laurence Maroney had a career AV of 27. Brandon Meriweather has a career AV of 26 at this point.

Tavon Wilson had an AV of 4 last year. Thats not too bad for a 2nd round pick. Not everyone is Gronkowski (37 so far)

 

[Metaphors]

Looking at Harmons numbers, this is what we get:

Height:6'0 2/8"
Weight: 196
40 - 4.51
20 - 2.67
10 - 1.60
Bench - 15
Vertical- 36"
BroadJump - 10' 5"
20 Yard Shuttle - 4.40
3-Cone - 7.02

Intangibles: Team Leader. Excellent communicator in the secondary. Excels on Special Teams. Extremely intelligent, both football and otherwise.

Some of those numbers are excellent (Broadjump, Vertical), others are about average. Only the Short Shuttle seems kinda slow.

Yep, I've got all of that. Have even seen those numbers translate to production on the field in the limited snapshots I've seen. What I'm looking for is that downside. What did someone see to make him ranked 254+ overall and the 24th+ safety in this draft class? Someone had to put him on a list somewhere. All I'm hearing is people refer to someone else's list which refers to someone else's list... What if the original ranking was made by a guy who had his Crackerjacks prize stolen by Harmon as a kid? I want to believe that there is enough redundancy in the system that at least 2 different sets of respected eyes saw something that made Harmon an UDFA. My fear is that every source of information for the major scouting services failed to evaluate him and he ended up at the backend of a spreadsheet as a result. They went to the combine (25 safeties) and the Senior Bowl and didn't go to the Rutger's pro day...so Harmon had no chance to move up.

 

[Kontradiction]

The only problem with your "Could have hads" BS is that you have absolutely no idea how those players would have responded on the Pats. It is a complete assumption on your part that Thomas or Branch would have done anything.

Not really. I see plenty of use for a speedy, talented safety. And I think it's pretty safe to assume that Thomas has been a more productive pro than Wheatley.

See, the problem with people doing that is you gloss over the biggest part of the drafting process that we don't get to see. That is the interviewing, film study, etc. You know, the team private things. Things that don't ever get allowed into the public except on the rare occasion you get a book by Michael Holley. And even then it is just extremely small snippets. And this is nothing new. This has been pointed out to people like yourself on numerous occasions over the past 10 years and you continue to act like it has no impact when it does.

And this somehow changes the fact that the Pats whiffed on pretty much all but one DB selection from 2008 to 2011... how, exactly?

Bacarri Rambo? You mean the guy who benefitted from having a ton of talent around him?? You mean the guy who 32 GMs passed over 5-6 times? Come on, Kontra, you're grasping at straws. I mean, the "highly" touted Robert Lester (who was supposed to be a 1st round pick last year) fell to the 7th round.

I actually don't like Rambo. I saw enough of him at Florida to know his 2011 was an anomoly. He was just a name that I pulled out for the purposes of a comparison.

BTW, WHO said that Harmon was supposed to be a UDFA? Mel Kiper? Mike Mayock? NFLDraftscout.com?

Pretty much everyone that covers the draft had him listed as a 7th rounder at best and a UDFA at worst. Considering the way the draft fell for the other safety candidates after Harmon went, it's probably safe to assume that he could have been had later. If not, so what? Was he such a can't miss product that the team couldn't have gone for better value?

Here are some names for you. Ryan Leaf. JaMarcus Russell. Charlie Ward. Tony Mandarich. Ernest Shazor. You know what they all had in common? They all were highly touted by the "EXPERTS" we talk about. They were all supposed to be "STARS". The point is that going by what the "experts" claim isn't smart.

All of this is relevant to the topic at hand how?

 

[Synovia]

The criticism is fair. We have had three straight seasons of an average defense at best that gets torched through the air. With two more top 100 picks spent on the secondary, isn't about time it's halfway decent?

2012:

25th total defense (373.2ypg)
9th points (20.7ppg)

2011:

31st total defense (411.1ypg)
15th points (21.4ppg)

2010:

25th total defense (366.5ypg)
8th points (19.6ppg)
.

Judging defences by total yards is stupid. It ignores context, it ignores field position, and it ignores the fact that when you have a prolific offense, letting the other team have a 12 play drive that takes 8 minutes is a good thing when you have a 25 point lead.

Average defense is just fine when you have a prolific offense, and also spend the majority of your cap on the offense.

(The Patriots currently have 55M alotted to offensive players, 42M to defensive players. Offensive spending is roughly 31% higher than defensive for them)

 

[Synovia]

And this somehow changes the fact that the Pats whiffed on pretty much all but one DB selection from 2008 to 2011... how, exactly?

How exactly did they whif on all but one?

McCourty is an outright homerun for a late 1st rounder. Chung was pretty much what you expect out of a 2nd rounder. Darius Butler is an NFL starter. Wilhite was about what you expect from a 4th rounder. Malcolm Williams was a 7th rounder and is on the practice squad. Thats a success. Arrington was a UDFA and is an NFL starter.

That leaves Wheatley and Dowling. Wheatley was a kid with a ton of talent who kept getting hurt. The only reason he was available in the 2nd was the injury issues. They took a risk, it didn't work out. Dowling has shown flashes but keeps getting hurt. Same deal.

Frankly, thats a pretty damn good return overall on the resources spent. It sucks that Butler had to get cut before he got his **** together, but thats got nothing to do with the draft.