Okay, first of all,
@BaconGrundleCandy, if you picked all those guys to be Pats picks, I'm awed. I don't know what you mean though when you say you had 7 prospects on your board, seriously, what is the definition of that? But whatever that means, I echo your last line. There are lots of paths to the promised land.
Public service announcement/cliche: Every time I see a QB-loaded predicted draft, I think of that 1999 draft when Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Daunte Culpeper, Cade McNown, and Donovan McNabb were the can't-miss prospects. Absolutely loaded at 1st round QB talent. 40% of them were worthy of starting QB spots, if you're generous to Culpeper. I did like the language education possibilities if McNown came to anything... you know, he could do Sesame Street spots with muppets named McVerb, McAdjective, and McParticiple... I could also have enjoyed seeing McNabb and McNown face off in a fortuitously located Super Bowl, allowing the network to do a parody of "Nobody's gettin fat except Mama Cass," featuring the line "McNabb and McNown are just gettin down in LA, you know where that's at..."
But I digress.
My point started out being a very simple reminder of what we all know, the crap shoot nature of the draft. Fast forward exactly 1 year from this "loaded" QB draft class, predicted to rival the 83 Kelly/Marino/Elway/O'brien/Eason/draft.... to the much "weaker" class of 2000, specifically pick 199... right?
It's kind of nice not to have the League hovering around trying to steal picks, not to have to pick 32nd, to have lots of cap room going in, etc. What have been largely headwinds in the past become tailwinds this year, comparatively. But the paradox is, it's the worst of 20 that (by definition) provides us the most room for improvement. It's the "rebound wave" after being post-Brady and cash-strapped. We're still post-Brady, but now we know what the floor is. I'm fairly serious about this. In the passing game last year, we had 8 TDs and 10 INTs.
Its logical to predict greatest improvement where the bar is lowest, and for us, that is at the most important position on the field. Improving the QB passing game means things like double-digit passing TDs and single-digit interceptions. We went from a still nearly statistically elite QB to a statistical trainwreck in the passing game and still won 7 games.
That's the beauty part of this off-season. There are a
lot of ways to improve on our 2020 QB situation, by a lot. There are a
lot of QB prospects who can throw more TDs than interceptions, even if we
don't draft an elite prospect.
Let's say that--relatively recent history aside--the Pats can count on 11 games being a definite ticket to the playoffs. That's 4 more wins. For the moment, let's lock the remainder of the roster as a "wash" - i.e., it won't gain or lose us any games on its own. Obviously this is super-simple-minded. Let's also say that there are guys who, with our line play, could perform well at QB. Let's say our OL is average - the 16-th best unit out of 32.
There's room to grow by 10 TDs with a journeyman (18 passing TDs), by 20 TDs with a slightly above average guy, and by 40 if we somehow get a Brady 07 type jackpot season out of somebody. In fact, Brady improved 26 passing TDs (24 to 50) year over year in his 2007 season. An improvement of 26 passing TDs only demands that we get 34 TDs out of our QB next year. That's high-ish, but not historically high.
Do we really need elite numbers to get back in the playoffs--preferably, to go deep in the playoffs--after winning 7 games on 8 TD throws in 2020, almost 1 per touchdown thrown? The simple-minded approach would be to say that a number of TDs in the teens -- all else being equal -- gets you to 11 wins. That's perhaps too simple to even use in analogy-land, but I hope the point isn't totally without relevance.
Point being, we went from a guy who has been, in his time, record-setting good, to nearly record-setting bad. A
lot of guys get us multiple additional wins over 2020. I'm not even dead-set against Cam coming back, if there are injury recovery questions I don't understand and it's reasonable to think he'll put up 20 passing TDs instead of 8... though on the butterfly scale, that one ranks at top-of-roller-coaster-and-descending. Make him play 2nd chair if we see him again.
As for replacing running TDs from the QB position? Not a need unless your QB can't pass. It's a wannahave, not a gottahave. There are guys called running backs. They run the ball for a living. If you're really an RPO type guy/athletic freak, fine. Very on-trend. But between the two, give me an immobile QB who can pass, not a mobile QB who can't.
And get us a journeyman who can get the job done, if drafting the next "franchise" is not in the cards. Competence is the bar, not excellence, and probably puts us back in the playoffs, given the 2020 floor of 8 passing TDs.
And to the point of what BB might think? He might think that to get somebody really special, you have to keep fishing for a long time... and that meanwhile, you want excellence across the roster, all things taken together -- the value proposition, not the need-ism it's so tempting to go with. Just don't have a weakness of that enormity to try to make up for.
