Patriots biggest draft blunder in the last 5 years?

[FreeTedWilliams]

Ras _IR Dowling by far, look we can all play the coulda woulda game with who went next or two spots down, that is all pure speculation. What wasn't speculation was that Dowling was injury prone! I remember writing on draft day what a horrible pick that was, and sure enough he played in exactly what one game in his time here. He was hurt through college, hell I think he even got hurt answering the phone on draft day, and of course he got hurt in the first game, then in training camp on subsequent years. He was the 34 pick in the draft and NOBODY even geave him a second look after he got cut. Hell even Cunningham has gotten a couple of extra chances with other teams. You can never 100% predict how someone is going to fit into the Pros or your system, BUT you could have easily predicted that Ras-IR was never going to be able to stay healthy!!!!!

The worst pick, hands down!!!!

 

[SVN]

Chad Jackson ? or was he before 5 yrs ?

 

[Huckleberry1]

Gotta love hindsight. More than a few people on this board were GUSHING over the Chung pick. They had him pegged as the next Rodney Harrison.

Who else could they have taken for SAFETY at that point in the 2009 draft? Delmas had just gone off the board to the Lions. Yes, they could have take Jarius Byrd, but many had looked at him as a CB and not a safety.

Has anyone bothered to actually LOOK at the 2nd round from 2009 and seen how bad it actually was. For the entire league?

The best two players in the 2nd round of that draft were Vollmer and McCoy. Followed by Connor Barwin and Jarius Byrd. The drop off in talent from there is HUGE with many of the players already gone from the team that drafted them.

The problem with all of these discussions is that they lack context, and looking at an entire leaguewide draft 4-5 years later is one of the only ways to create that context; no-one is willing to do that and the few that do are dismissed, as we saw when a 10 year analysis of draft's demonstrated that Baltimore and New England were the two best drafting teams in football. Not surprisingly those here who crap all over Belichick for his drafts are fine with Newsome being named as a GM great at drafting but go apoplectic when Belichick receives the same consideration. I hate it as much as anyone when they miss on valuable picks but the truth is that if you put it in context they are as good as any team and much better than most. The fact that they always draft at the end or every round is never taken into consideration and they are treated after the fact as if they should have taken JJ. Watt, Adrian Peterson, and Calvin Johnson and blew it when they didn't. Man, look at those Lions, they sure do draft well.......................

 

[Huckleberry1]

Chad Jackson ? or was he before 5 yrs ?

Patriot fans were orgasmic at the Jackson pick. He was the "superior athlete" they were screaming for. Same with Maroney. In fact, most of his big misses, Tavon Wilson aside, were choices Patriot fans loved at the time but hated later on, when it was clear he missed.

 

[Brady6]

HUH? Yeah. Patrick Chung was sure a bust. Only was a starter for the better part of 3 of the 4 years.

Pat Chung was here for 4 seasons and started a total of 29 games in that period. That’s an average of 7.25 games started per season.

People seriously are whacked on what constitutes a good draft and what doesn't. Was 2009 great? No. But it sure as hell wasn't their worst.

I do agree that Chung was nowhere near the worst pick of the last 5 seasons; he was actually very good in 2010 and 2011. I don’t fault Chung as much as other players, Chung fits best as an enforcer strong safety in a zone defense, when Belichick made the decision to move to a man coverage scheme and use more 2 deep safety looks he was no longer a good fit.

Saying the 2009 draft was the worst is the same as saying that the 2001 draft was bad because they only got Light and Seymour from it.

I can’t agree with you on this; the team made 12 draft selections, 4 in the second round and 2 in the third round; Vollmer and Edelman are the only players remaining out of that draft class and Edelman was selected in the seventh round so of 7 players they selected in the first 4 rounds of the draft 1 player (Vollmer) is still part of the current roster.

In 2001 we made 5 selections in the first 4 rounds of the draft, 2 of them were Light and Seymour. Seymour played 8 season and we have Nate Solder because of him.

People over-look the over-all contributions. Butler has since developed into a steady CB, btw. Pryor was pretty good until injuries (which he didn't have in college) curtailed his career.

I think the assessment is strictly in terms of what the player has done for the Patriots so what Butler does now is moot, and Myron Pryor has one career sack but is consistently the most overhyped player we’ve had in recent memory.

Claiming that a particular draft set the team back when, 2 years after that draft, the team found itself in the SB doesn't make any sense at all.

Not really sure where them going to the super bowl in 2011 comes into play, the teams starters that year are listed below and just 2 of them are out of the draft class in 2009.

Offense
Wes Welker
Matt Light
Logan Mankins
Dan Connolly
Brian Waters
Sebastian Vollmer
Rob Gronkowski
Deion Branch
Tom Brady
Aaron Hernandez
BenJarvus Green-Ellis

Defense
Tracy White
Vince Wilfork
Kyle Love
Brandon Deaderick
Rob Ninkovich
Jerod Mayo
Brandon Spikes
Devin McCourty
Kyle Arrington
James Ihedigbo
Patrick Chung

 

[Huckleberry1]

Chad Jackson ? or was he before 5 yrs ?

he wasn't in that window.

 

[IndianPat]

Have you guys checked out the draft videos from 4-5 years past on youtube?
If you haven't, you should. As the names of players selected in various rounds scrolls by at the bottom(esp. the earlier rounds), try to recall if any of them are still in the league. You will realize that large percentage of these guys are not in the league anymore because they are busts, are injured or what not. That's the nature of this business. Its an inexact science. Who were the wide receivers on this team last week? Edelman, Thompkins, Amendola and Boyce. Everybody on this board knows where they went in the draft.

That said, the drafting of Tavon Wilson has been a head scratcher. Pats gave the impression to everybody that he was a "diamond in the mud" by selecting him high. Nothing he has done so far has proven that to be the case.

 

[Huckleberry1]

And in the greatest of ironies there is nowhere that "rose colored glasses" come into play more than remembering how people viewed draft choices when they were made. Of all of the areas where a long term archive is needed none would be better than the draft and the process leading up to it. I guarantee everyone would look much much worse than Belichick ever could, yet somehow their hit percentage is hovering around 99%----go figure?

 

[Brady6]

Patriot fans were orgasmic at the Jackson pick. He was the "superior athlete" they were screaming for. Same with Maroney. In fact, most of his big misses, Tavon Wilson aside, were choices Patriot fans loved at the time but hated later on, when it was clear he missed.

You know who got a raw deal? Josh Boyce, he should have been a top 10 pick.

Johnson
Combine Invite: yes
Height: 5110
Weight: 201
40 Yrd Dash: 4.38
20 Yrd Dash: 2.60
10 Yrd Dash: 1.55
225 Lb. Bench Reps: 17
Vertical Jump: 38 1/2
Broad Jump: 10'07"
20 Yrd Shuttle:
3-Cone Drill:

Boyce
Combine Invite: Yes
Height: 5111
Weight: 206
40 Yrd Dash: 4.34
20 Yrd Dash: 2.51
10 Yrd Dash: 1.54
225 Lb. Bench Reps: 22
Vertical Jump: 34
Broad Jump: 10'11"
20 Yrd Shuttle: 4.10
3-Cone Drill: 6.68

 

[tasmlab]

If you count Hernandez' three years of production, he was superb pick given other 4th rounders or the pics sent for the likes of Ochocinco or Doug Gabriel or Haynesworth.

 

[IllegalContact]

ron brace when you could have had:

Connor Barwin
Lesean Mccoy

tavon wilson when you could have had
lavonte david
kendall reyes

and I hate missing out on muhammad wilkerson though I understand they got vereen with the pick in return.....but it should have been
Solder
Wilkerson
Vereen

ate the top of that draft for the pats

 

[Crononaut]

Let's re-position this question. Suppose I told you, as coach/GM of the Patriots that this draft you have to choose one of the following options:

1) Use a borderline first round draft pick on a player that will essentially yield zero contribution to your team and be a complete bust.

2) Use your third round draft pick on a player who, after exceeding expectations and signing a big contract with your team, spends his free time taking human life.

Obviously they had no way of knowing (red flags don't equal murder), but we are going into this discussion with hindsight. I don't think it's even debatable.

Of course, I suspect the OP's intent was with regards to talent, so I'll simply concede that AHerns need not apply to the discussion and move on. Good discussion in this thread.

 

[BradyFTW!]

HUH? Yeah. Patrick Chung was sure a bust. Only was a starter for the better part of 3 of the 4 years.

People seriously are whacked on what constitutes a good draft and what doesn't. Was 2009 great? No. But it sure as hell wasn't their worst.

Saying the 2009 draft was the worst is the same as saying that the 2001 draft was bad because they only got Light and Seymour from it.

People over-look the over-all contributions. Butler has since developed into a steady CB, btw. Pryor was pretty good until injuries (which he didn't have in college) curtailed his career. Jake Ingram was a solid long snapper for a year until he lost his mojo. Which is something that happens to long snappers on occasion.

Claiming that a particular draft set the team back when, 2 years after that draft, the team found itself in the SB doesn't make any sense at all.

And a very bad starter for all of that time. No matter how you slice it, the Chung pick was pretty much a whiff. I don't even really see how that can be debated at this point. I agree with your general point that people are overly critical of the Pats drafting. Isolating individual picks without context completely ignores the Pats' draft strategy, which is to stockpile as many picks as possible so that the inevitable misses won't tank the entire draft class. It's more sensible to look at the resources that were invested into a draft class as a whole and then compare that to the output, and when you do that the Pats generally do a very good job. Not great in 2009, but in general, yeah.

But if we're going to go ahead and talk about Chung as an individual pick, then yeah, he was a whiff. He isn't good and never has been. Safeties who can't cover at all are basically useless in today's NFL.

 

[Kontradiction]

Gotta love hindsight. More than a few people on this board were GUSHING over the Chung pick. They had him pegged as the next Rodney Harrison.

It wasn't hindsight. I said the same things about him at the time. And people GUSH over most draft picks the Pats take before they even take a snap. The Chuck Norris threads and how much people wanted to believe that he would somehow morph into an elite coverage safety were part of the problem with people finally admitting around here that he simply wasn't that good.

Who else could they have taken for SAFETY at that point in the 2009 draft? Delmas had just gone off the board to the Lions. Yes, they could have take Jarius Byrd,

Bingo.

but many had looked at him as a CB and not a safety.

1. You don't know that.

2. Even if they did, they looked at McCourty as a CB first and he's since become one of the better safeties in the AFC. Eventually, Byrd would have been moved there out of need anyway.

Has anyone bothered to actually LOOK at the 2nd round from 2009 and seen how bad it actually was. For the entire league?

That's cool and everything, but it doesn't change the fact that taking Chung was a blunder.

 

[Brady6]

It really doesn't. Look back at the last few years. No one has gotten good trade value for that pick recently.

That’s fine all we needed to do was receive more than 10 combined tackles, 1 tackle for a loss and 1 pass defend and we would have been better off…

Hindsight is always 20/20 but Richard Sherman was drafted 121 selections after the Dowling selection. A lot of people missed that so it is what it is, we still would have been better off with Aaron Williams who went 34th overall.

 

[coolguy]

I have no problem with most of the players the patriots have drafted....My issue is when bill trades talented picks that fills needs.

Dez bryant is the one that truly got away.

 

[Brady6]

If you count Hernandez' three years of production, he was superb pick given other 4th rounders or the pics sent for the likes of Ochocinco or Doug Gabriel or Haynesworth.

We actually gave up fifth round picks for the circus acts. Hernandez was an excellent draft pick, and if he is found not guilty this summer I would bet a hefty sum he will be on a football field by 2015.

 

[varjao]

Are the Pats going to play with the throwback red jersey this season?

 

[BradyFTW!]

And in the greatest of ironies there is nowhere that "rose colored glasses" come into play more than remembering how people viewed draft choices when they were made. Of all of the areas where a long term archive is needed none would be better than the draft and the process leading up to it. I guarantee everyone would look much much worse than Belichick ever could, yet somehow their hit percentage is hovering around 99%----go figure?

One of my favorite examples is that one longtime, prolific poster here was going nuts one day talking about how the Pats suck at drafting pass rushers (this was pre-Chandler Jones). It caught me attention because I distinctly remember being on the draft forum before the 2009 draft, and this guy was absolutely convinced that Aaron Maybin was going to be the next superstar pass rusher in the NFL. If he'd had his way, the Pats would have solved their pass rushing woes by trading up into the high first round for Maybin.

 

[Brady6]

How? He'd be just as big a question mark as Mallett right now.

You don’t know that he could have shown more in preseason games, etc. I am sure if Belichick saw value in marketing the value he would handle things differently.