Dez Bryant vs Devin McCourty

[tonyto3690]

Nah. Elite WRs are overrated. It's McCourty by a comfortable margin.

No they're not. Calvin has carried an awful offense into mediocrity the past couple years.

Meanwhile Revis and the Jets were awful last year.

Give me the dynamic playmaker over the high end DB any day. They just are given more opportunities to win the game.

 

[Brady6]

3 years later...who would you rather have on our team? I remember screaming at the TV when we passed up on Dez in the 2010 NFL draft. I knew he would be a star.

Can you imagine if we had drafted Dez along with Gronk and Hernandez That would be one of the greatest offensive drafts of all time

As valuable as McCourty is to the Patriots, Dez is a rare breed in the NFL. He is a star, and would instantly make the patriots a much better team.

MCI Cedar Junction at Walpole is having a similar discussion; the question they’re asking is Dez Bryant vs. Aaron Hernandez.

I guess everyone second guess their decisions.

 

[tonyto3690]

Yep, you are a homer, McCourty is not a top 10 Safety. He can cover pretty well but is soft as hell (can't tackle) and is not physical enough to cover TEs.

He is absolutely a top 10 safety. He is closer to 5 than he is to 10.

Part of that is just lack of talent across the league, but he is 100%, without question, a top 10 safety.

Byrd, Thomas, Goldson, Weddle

William Moore?
Rahim Moore?
Kam Chancellor?
Eric Berry?
Ryan Clark?

That's all about I can think of, and even if you took all four of the questionables over him, that still puts him in the top 10. Maybe if you REALLY wanted to make a huge stretch, you could put Nelson, Whitner and Reed above him but that's pretty laughable.

 

[Banjo]

While I consider Dez right now to be a top 5 WR in the NFL, it took a long time for him to get to this point. A lot of ups and down for him. The current Dez is worth a top 10 draft pick. But the old Dez probably wasn't worth the trouble. He would have been cut by the Patriots... and flourishing somewhere else

 

[JPsPats]

No they're not. Calvin has carried an awful offense into mediocrity the past couple years.

Meanwhile Revis and the Jets were awful last year.

Give me the dynamic playmaker over the high end DB any day. They just are given more opportunities to win the game.

And uhm what was the lions record last year? Since lions have had stafford and Calvin they have had ONE a whopping ONE season over .500.

Truth is our secondary would be a massive joke without mccourty and our offence was number 1 last year w.o dez and will continue to be top 5 w.o dez.

DMC all day baby.

 

[Rob0729]

No they're not. Calvin has carried an awful offense into mediocrity the past couple years.

Meanwhile Revis and the Jets were awful last year.

Give me the dynamic playmaker over the high end DB any day. They just are given more opportunities to win the game.

Revis was on IR most of last year and the Lions went 4-12 last season. I don't know if you are making a strong argument. The Lions were one of the worst teams in the league last year.

 

[jsull87]

I believe he went from our first string CB in 2010 to a backup by week 10 in 2011, then moved to safety because he was giving up so many Tds and deep balls. Yes McCourty was being picked on a lot in 2011 and some of 2012.

Well that's some revisionist history for you.

PB CB as a rookie.

2nd year the secondary and pass rush was terrible and his play also took a step back.

3rd year One of the best FS in the game and was still under every metric a highly rated CB.

Yes Bryant is good but it's not a question of if one is good then the other is terrible. Fact remains Dez is a freak of nature who is an idiot and needed the playbook to be dumbed down for him. When you're making the pick with the history of WR's who got washed out for not getting the playbook. Who do you select?

Personally i wouldn't risk my 1st rounder on the WR who can't understand college plays.

 

[Rob0729]

Clearly you lack the ability to distinguish between critique of the team and criticism of the fan. At some point, try going deeper than "if that's how the Patriots do things, then it must be the right way." Like this discussion. At what point did McCourty achieve such lofty status in the league that he now gets judged an elite safety. I particularly enjoyed the stat some fan offered up regarding his high tackle numbers. Might have something to do with all those catches his WR responsibility made on his watch. The Pats have had one of the worst pass defenses in the league the past 3 years and McCourty has been on the field the entire time. Sorry again....but I just don't see an elite player making game changing plays. With Bryant, I do.
As far as the blind homerism you seek from me, well....sorry.....I just can't be that simplistic about NE or about anything. Would it make you feel all warm and cozy if occasionally I said something like...."Golly Gee Brady threw a really tight spiral that was just wicked awesome. Pats in the Bowl!" There you go. Lock it in your skull so I don't have to play Blind Homer more than necessary. Maybe I will just type: Refer to Rob0729's 26,000 posts for foam finger analysis.

If you ever gave one objective criticism, I would not say anything. You are just a hater who only pop up when things go bad and in threads that are negative towards the Patriots. I have never seen you say one remotely positive thing about the Patriots and you are always criticizing the defense, Belichick's personnel decisions, individual players.

You are not a fan of this team even if you think you are. You don't need to be a pompom waver, but to fan you actually have to like team you root for which you clearly don't.

Personally, I kinda wish you were a Jets fan posing as a Pats fan because I think it is rather pathetic to be a fan of a team that is mostly successful yet cannot find any redeeming quality in the team and have to manufacture reasons to trash the team. It's rather sad really.

 

[NG Pats Fan]

Bump. Dez Bryant is tearing it up once again this season five touchdowns already And he's made some ridiculous catches. Devon McCourty is a good player but dez is a game changer. I stand by my original assessment I would rather have Bryant easily

4-0 go pats!

 

[ausbacker]

Bump. Dez Bryant is tearing it up once again this season five touchdowns already And he's made some ridiculous catches. Devon McCourty is a good player but dez is a game changer. I stand by my original assessment I would rather have Bryant easily

4-0 go pats!

Devin McCourty isn't a good player, Devin McCourty is a great player. This is right up there with the people who were saying Mayo was just a good player. Some people...

I'm happily in the McCourty camp.

 

[JackBauer]

Yep. I'm good with McCourty.

 

[VrabelJr]

Wow for a fan base that is supposed to understand football better than most others it is sad how much some of you under value McCourty.

 

[Big-T]

Still McCourty for me.

There have been reports of teams game planning to avoid him - how often do you hear of teams trying to avoid a SAFETY? I can only think of 2 others from recent history.

That hit on Julio Jones that should have been an incompletion shows he can hit too.

On top of that - who really, honestly thinks a moron like Dez Bryant would be able to learn the Patriots offense? It would be like Ochocinco with much more of a headache for the team - doesn't he have 2 babysitters employed by the Cowboys just to make sure he doesn't do anything else dumb?

 

[patchick]

Bump. Dez Bryant is tearing it up once again this season five touchdowns already And he's made some ridiculous catches. Devon McCourty is a good player but dez is a game changer. I stand by my original assessment I would rather have Bryant easily

4-0 go pats!

If you're looking for highlight-reel plays and fantasy value*, then no safety (especially playing single high) will ever be able to compete with a wideout. But if you look at overall value to the team, McCourty is a huge part of the 4-0 record. He's the qb of the secondary and covers an extraordinary amount of ground.


*if you're looking for receptions and yardage instead, bryant isn't "tearing it up" -- julian edelman is.

 

[Nunchucks]

Dallas sure is winning a lot of games with that high flying offense...

Patriots sure are winning games with solid defense and a well-balanced offense.

 

[slam]

Bryant also has to be managed off the field like Hannibal Lector on holiday. McCourty seems able to exist without a nanny. Of course, after Hernandez, we can't say that 100% about anybody, but point in McCourty's favor so far.

 

[JJDChE]

People who post 'draft hindsight' threads should be banned immediately.

 

[zydecochris]

I had endzone seats at the Atlanta game, so I had a great view of McCourty. I can't say that he looked like the best player on the field (that would be Julio Jones), but he was close and he looked like the clear best player on the defense from my vantage point.

He covers a tremendous amount of ground, he just swoops in from across the field and clobbers people, and he is clearly the quarterback of the secondary.

Wasn't this the secondary that gave up so many long plays (particularly at safety) not so long ago? Funny, I haven't noticed too many of those lately.

 

[TruthSeeker]

On top of that - who really, honestly thinks a moron like Dez Bryant would be able to learn the Patriots offense?

Lots of reasons to prefer McCourty but this one seals the deal.

This isn't fantasy football. It isn't plug and play. Teams are built around particular skill sets - physical, mental, emotional. Dez Bryant fails on 2 out of the 3 while McCourty aces all areas.

 

[JMC00]

*if you're looking for receptions and yardage instead, bryant isn't "tearing it up" -- julian edelman is.

I would also argue Thompkins is having as good as season as Bryant given the circumstances, he's actually very comparable stats wise to Bryant

Thompkins 15 rec, 257 yards, 3 TD

Bryant 23 rec, 292 yards, 4 TD


Also if you look it up Cowboys have lost a good amount of Bryant's best games, I believe they were 3-5 last year in games were he had 100+ yards and 4 of the losses were by 2, 3, 5, and 7 points and 4 of the loses were at home.

Real gamechanger.