To nobody in particular...
Donta Hightower is currently the only current Patriot who should be compared to Willie McGinest, and he has yet to show that kind of durability. Willie had the best short shuttle among defensive ends at the 1994 combine, 3rd best vertical, 4.7 forty, he only repped it 22 times on the bench but added another 20 pounds of mass as a pro. Willie added to an impressive combine workout by running a 4.46 and 4.48 40-yard dash in a private workout with USC teammate Jason Sehorn at Cerritos College in Norwalk, Calif. The only place Wise compared to Willie was bench; Willie's "weakness."
Willie is the all time sack leader in the NFL playoffs and also the single game playoff record holder with 4.5 sacks, he didn't have to get taken off the field on rushing downs because he could play linebacker... lets not be absurd with comparisons. He went third overall for a reason, and justified the pick. I just wanted to add Willie Mac only ballooned up to 270 when Pete Carroll became head coach and insisted on playing Wille strictly at End, which I think was detrimental to the player's health but also a narrow view. The guy was a really, really big linebacker, and you need mad athleticism to play LB at his size.
Defensive Tackles and Defensive Ends are very distinguishable if you use one barometer; who can play Nose Tackle. That leaves Shelton, Brown and Valentine at NT. Lawrence Guy can rush from the interior on third and long but was only called into starting duty at DT due to injury. Prior to that he and Trey Flowers were our starting defensive ends. We lost the Super Bowl right there, DT... not at Malcolm Butler, no offense to the headline makers and propagandists.
Wise and Butler don't have the mass to play early down tackles, they are substantially less strong then Flowers and Keionta Davis who are better in every way, hell linebacker Derek Rivers is stronger then both of them also. Flowers, Davis and Rivers can give you snaps at LB and DE, Wise and Butler can only be okay Ends. They're classic tweeners, Jarvis Green is a good comparison. It's no slight, he contributed to playoff teams. But if we can find some more speed and athleticism at End in the draft, I don't see why we don't improve if possible.
One could say we only play 2 linebackers because our LB unit was bad, but the truth is "injured" is a better descriptor. Also the league is a passing league now, 3 safeties is better then 3 linebackers... except on early downs or if you run a heavier front with lighter linebackers like Philly; we don't. We still run a 3/4 Over defense as our base, in a 3/2/5 package most of the time. The days of traditional 4/3 or 3/4 defenses are gone, you don't need 2 good starting corners anymore, you need at least three or more.
Brown, Shelton, Valentine if healthy are three stud DT's, Guy provides good speed rotational snaps.
Trey Flowers, Lawrence Guy give you two strong DE's, Keionta Davis has Trey Flowers type talent but is coming off serious injury. It's an injury Gronk came back from but others haven't, its a spine so its tricky. He's really strong and talented so we'll see. We can use some depth here IMO but Hightower and Rivers can give you snaps here also.
Hightower, Rivers, Van Noy, Roberts, Langi, is good linebacker depth and talent, but we can always improve, and we also have injury and developmental concerns.
In short, we need more speed. It's a commodity you can't have enough of, and I could see us going there in the draft.
I think that a further distinction can be made here between 4-3 DE (which seems to me more closely-related to 3-4 OLB, e.g., McGinest, Ninkovich) and then 3-4 DE (which, from my perspective, is more closely related to 4-3 "undertackle" DT).
The Pats current defensive front schemes (when at full-strength) situationally deploy a mix of both 3-4/2-gap principles/sets (that rely on having a solid NT) and 4-3/1-gap principles/sets (that rely on a solid NT-DT tandem).
In 2017, with no viable NT-type available (aside from Brown, who was "okay", but perhaps better suited as an "undertackle" working in tandem with a NT type), a lot of the 3-4 stuff seemed to go out the window. But this lack of a classic NT type didn't present itself until about four months after the draft - well after Butler and Wise (and Guy) had already been acquired and begun being trained for the projected defensive schemes.
I believe this timeline is worth thinking about because I see Butler and Guy (and Wise to some degree) as being potentially more 3-4 DE types than 4-3 DE types. So, if (in 2017) Wise/Butler failed to meet the standards we might set for 4-3 DE types, that perhaps should be no shock. And this also begs a couple of questions.
What was BB's original point of emphasis for the defensive front schemes for 2017?
And, with the acquisition of Shelton (combined with a returning Valentine), what might his direction be for 2018?
And, finally, what does BB think he needs to accomplish that - more "speed off the edge" at 4-3 DE (or OLB), or more strength with another 3-4 type DE? (or neither)
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BTW - WRT Davis' bulging disk (neck) ... He was apparently completely unaware that he even had the condition until it was discovered in the Combine medical check. He said himself that his neck had never bothered him.
A few years ago, I had a bulging disk in my neck and I sure AF knew that I had a serious problem. I couldn't move my head at all or even swallow without significant pain. I don't take part in any contact sports, so I asked the neurosurgeon what could have caused this. His recitation of the various possibilities in medical terms was essentially a shrug.
His prognosis was, "It'll go away on its own, sooner or later". His recommended treatment was, "Put some ice on it, start taking ibuprofen, and avoid activities like rugby and caber-tossing contests. And call me back in a week if you're still in pain."
This actually worked. Within about 10 days, I just had a little stiffness in my neck. After six months, there was no visible evidence of any bulging disk and I was cleared to return to banging my head against various hard surfaces.
So, the point is, if Davis didn't even know he had this thing when it was discovered, I have to wonder how "serious" it was - or is now.
