GENERAL STRATEGY
I believe that Belichick is more likely to draft or sign players with injuries (and other issues) than other coaches. Do you disagree?
DEPTH
I agree that Belichick is the best in the league with regard to depth.
OFFENSIVE TACKLE
I agree that Cannon and Svitek are important reserves. I want to extend Cannon. I think that he is NEEDED as a backup OT because of the injury history to Vollmer. But for me, this is a fine example of Belichick's successful strategy.
TIGHT END
OK, we entered June with four players with injury histories, Hooman and an UDFA. Most here understood that Gronk needed time and would likely not be ready for the start of the season. Belichick knew even more about all the injuries than any of us (by far).
Most of us thought that we needed two starting tight ends and two backups (of course, one could ahve been an h-back). Hooman was fine as one of the backups. If the tight end position was truly critical to the team, it SEEMS that we could have done better after July 1.
Maybe there were ZERO appropriate options from July 1 on, when it was clear that Hernandez was gone and the rest were iffy. I don't think that it reasonable to blame injuries to all our tight ends when these were well known issues before July 1. Maybe there were ZERO better options at wide receiver. We know what happened. The season for the offense was truly amazing, given what Brady had to throw to.
So, as of now in JANUARY, we have an oft-injured Gronkowski, a great player. For the rest, we are building from scratch. Do we want to be a team that relies on the tight end position or not. For me, we need to use major resources at tight end, probably two draft choices.
DEFENSIVE LINE
We were indeed very unlucky to have both Wilfork and Kelly injured (Wilfork in camp). It was extremely impressive to see what we did with street free agents and UDFA's like Siliga, Jones and Vellano. Belichick added potential help with Sopoaga.
And how prepared were we (are we) at DE? Ninkovich and Jones played over 90% of the reps. Are we really supposed to think that we were well prepared with Bequette and Buchanan ready to step in? This is our SECOND greatest backup need this year (along with TE)
Was our DL depth really great?
CORNERBACK
I guess it is my imagination. What I saw in Dennard this year was a fine player who was often injured, and played through his injuries at diminished capacity. Did you see something different?
My point is that if we are to have Talib, Dennard and Arrington as our starters at CB and nickel, then we better have TWO backups who can step in when the inevitable injuries happen.
OTHER TEAMS
You must understand by now that I watch little of other teams. In any case, when I watched the playoffs, I saw teams have a rotation in the defensive front seven even in base formations. IMHO, top defenses don't expect players to play over 90% of the reps.
BOTTOM LINE
I do not expect all-pro backups. I am simply noting that when we have injury prone players, backups are more important.
Can you explain the bold? It sounds like you expect allpro backups to our allpros.
Vollmer was replaced by Cannon, who turned out to be one of the best reserve OTs in the NFL. Note we also had a capable veteran as the 4th OT.
Not sure how Dennard is considered a part time player.
As far as TE what more would you have wanted BB to do than have the following TEs signed for this season: Gronk, Hernandez, Ballard, Fells, Hooman? What approach would you like him to have? Trying to sign 5 starters at every position?
Please show us all of the teams that have more depth and an 'approach' that does a better job of dealing with injuries compared to your characterization of BB ignoring depth and hoping no one gets hurt.
