Patriots Training Camp- Monday August 15th

[Zuma]

He’s saying that a lot of ppl are talking **** on the patriots, and warning folks against buying into it.

To me this does not say that ..."Lots of Patriots doubt being peddled this offseason", but you might be right...I am clueless per usual. Thanks.

 

[JMC00]

They usually seem to be corners. Their was another one that played for Seattle we lost.

Kenny Moore was signed as an UDFA after the '17 draft. He's probably the best example.

 

[Water Boy]

An understandable concept. Can you give several examples of Belichick cutting potential future starters in favor of ST only players?

Kamu Gugier-Hill comes to mind. Not saying he's an all pro or would have been a good scheme fit but he eventually worked his way into a starting role with the Texans.

 

[Water Boy]

You keep saying this, but how many of those players that have been cut, that you wanted to keep, ended up doing anything anyplace else? We have a tendency to overvalue our rookies and undervalue our starters.

Are there any position playing rookies on the team that you'd sacrifice Bethel or Cody Davis for?

Would you be ok if Roberts, Ray, Bledsoe, K.Harris all got claimed off of waivers?

 

[moosekill]

Are there any position playing rookies on the team that you'd sacrifice Bethel or Cody Davis for?

Would you be ok if Roberts, Ray, Bledsoe, K.Harris all got claimed off of waivers?

Ask a stupid question. Since we have no idea how good they really are, I don’t give a crap if they all are on the team or not. Of course with all your inner knowledge of watching the practices and seeing the film in slow mo from all angles and being an astute nfl talent evaluator, as I am sure you are, I am sure you and Zumba will be devastated if they all aren’t in the team while Bill, who knows nothing keeps players who he thinks will help the team win.

 

[Ochmed Jones]

After rewatching the giants game, does anybody think butler has lost a step or two?

 

[Ring 6]

They have to make a lot of cuts to get to 53 but he has no clue what the players are thinking. Lots of players SHOULD be concerned.

He isn’t talking about players, he is saying a lot of people are “peddling doubt” in Belichick

 

[captain stone]

Are there any position playing rookies on the team that you'd sacrifice Bethel or Cody Davis for?

Would you be ok if Roberts, Ray, Bledsoe, K.Harris all got claimed off of waivers?

It's not even retaining Justin Bethel & Cody Davis as STs-Only with Slater that bugs me; I understand that a couple of those guys are needed to help show the others, especially the new guys, how it's done here... It's also making otherwise useless crap like Schooler, Tavai, Monty etc part of the 53 at the expense of somebody who still might have a future as a position player, such as Shaun Wade, Raekwon McMillian etc...

 

[rochrist]

They have to make a lot of cuts to get to 53 but he has no clue what the players are thinking. Lots of players SHOULD be concerned.

I don't think what he's talking about has the slightest bit to do with what players are thinking or saying.

 

[Kasmir]

Special Teams take about 20% of the snaps in a game, about that in DVOA as well, and produces 35% of the points. Keeping a marginal offensive or defensive player over an excellent special team player is trading off maximizing the present value of that 20% for a chance at future maximization of the value in 40% of the game (offense or defense). So it's a bird in the hand (20%) vs a two birds in the bush (40%). Almost certainly, an excellent specialist is going to be worth more than the hope that the worst non-starter at the bottom of the roster eventually becomes worth twice as much as the excellent specialist is today.

 

[DaBruinz]

There was a time a few years ago that we did lose a lot of our young players.

One year we lost two NFL corners to the Jets and Bears, and a solid special teams linebacker to the Eagles.

The Jets current punt returner was a forum binky.

Darryl Roberts to the Jets, Cre'von Leblanc to the Bears. Kamu Grugier-Hill to the Eagles. End of Camp 2016.

 

[DaBruinz]

It's not even retaining Justin Bethel & Cody Davis as STs-Only with Slater that bugs me; I understand that a couple of those guys are needed to help show the others, especially the new guys, how it's done here... It's also making otherwise useless crap like Schooler, Tavai, Monty etc part of the 53 at the expense of somebody who still might have a future as a position player, such as Shaun Wade, Raekwon McMillian etc...

Yeah. Schooler is such crap. Guy hasn't taken an NFL snap, but you know all, right? How many SB rings you have again?

Seriously. A bad penny comes up right more than you do.
McMillan isn't going anywhere. I guarantee you that he's ahead of Langi on the Depth chart. McMillan can play special teams. He did that A LOT with Miami and LV.

I'd suggest you sit down and enjoy for a change, but I don't think you're capable. I honestly think you enjoy the negative attention from posting crap.

 

[TommyD4207]

There was a time a few years ago that we did lose a lot of our young players.

One year we lost two NFL corners to the Jets and Bears, and a solid special teams linebacker to the Eagles.

The Jets current punt returner was a forum binky.

Still is, to some, for some reason.

 

[Ring 6]

Darryl Roberts to the Jets, Cre'von Leblanc to the Bears. Kamu Grugier-Hill to the Eagles. End of Camp 2016.

Roberts sucked. Leblanc bounced around and never did much. They didn’t make the team because they were beaten out by better corners.
Grugier-hill was a special teams candidate and a journeyman who last year played more than 328 defensive snaps for the first time because he landed on a team that sucked.
These were not guys who developed into good players. They were backups not as good as the backups we kept.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

Roberts sucked. Leblanc bounced around and never did much. They didn’t make the team because they were beaten out by better corners.
Grugier-hill was a special teams candidate and a journeyman who last year played more than 328 defensive snaps for the first time because he landed on a team that sucked.
These were not guys who developed into good players. They were backups not as good as the backups we kept.

Agreed, but I do like what I have seen from Roberts and Bledsoe. Ray might be good too if he has another year to grow and we have an extra spot with Ekuale's 2 game suspension (plus I expect Ekuale and Ray would both clear waivers). Bledsoe is a borderline starter to backup, but with another year I am high on Roberts and think he might be great next to Godchaux and Barmore. Still hope we find a real run-stuffing fatty too. Roberts beat Neal easily with 2 weeks of camp after coming from a Division II school. Impressive.

 

[slam]

I've come to believe that this widespread belief that Belichick has an idiosyncratic fetish for special teams players that no other team has is an almost complete misconception. Go to the Pro Football Reference's snap count for any team and look at who takes the Special Teams snaps. Most every team has 3 or so non-kicker/LS players who take the bulk of special teams snaps and very few offensive/defensive snaps. This Special Teams class of player moves from team to team. Patriots have picked up core Special Teamers from other teams, and vice versa. That's because every team has them, more often than not. It's not Belichick being different.

As one example, I give you old friend Jordan Richards. Remember him? Sorry for the flashbacks. We traded him away in 2017 to Atlanta, where he played his career high in defensive snaps. Atlanta discarded him after that season, Richards played three games back in New England but got released. And then... He got picked up and spent the next few seasons in Baltimore as a pure Special Teamer. In 2020 Richards played in all 16 games taking 79% of Special Teams snaps... and only15 total defensive snaps. Surely no one was thinking of Richards as a contributing safety at that point in his career. For that matter, his fellow 2020 Raven Special teamer Anthony Levine, another supposed safety, who played 30 total defensive snaps at the age of 33 but 70% of ST snaps. The third Special Teams guy on the team was a young UDFA LB, Kristian Welch, who played 173 ST snaps and 8 defensive snaps.

Baltimore, of course, is regularly fellated for it's smart roster construction, and yet three no-hopers took up roster spaces simply so that they could run down and cover kicks. And that's just one randomly chosen team. Most teams, I think you'll find, are constructed this way.

 

[Family]

Roberts sucked. Leblanc bounced around and never did much. They didn’t make the team because they were beaten out by better corners.
Grugier-hill was a special teams candidate and a journeyman who last year played more than 328 defensive snaps for the first time because he landed on a team that sucked.
These were not guys who developed into good players. They were backups not as good as the backups we kept.

Do you think Roberts and Ray will someday be All Pros because that was the origin of the discussion.

 

[moosekill]

I said "with training and practice they might excel on ST as well."

And they might suck and cost us a game or two.

 

[Water Boy]

Ask a stupid question. Since we have no idea how good they really are, I don’t give a crap if they all are on the team or not. Of course with all your inner knowledge of watching the practices and seeing the film in slow mo from all angles and being an astute nfl talent evaluator, as I am sure you are, I am sure you and Zumba will be devastated if they all aren’t in the team while Bill, who knows nothing keeps players who he thinks will help

I love the snark. Sorry for trying to engage in opinion based discussion. From my armchair it seems like we have a number of rookies with starter potential. Say for example the Team projects a raw prospect like Roberts as having starter potential 2 years out, would it always be the right move to default to the core special teamer when building the current year's roster? Just trying to explore BB's thought process in this scenario which played out before when BB opted to keep a 4th string QB.

And no I'm not equating any rookie as being the next TB.

 

[Patsgofor4]

Kenny Moore was signed as an UDFA after the '17 draft. He's probably the best example.

Cut in order to keep the safety from Stanford whom shall not be named.

Then again, Moore has been very publicly vocal about the fact that he hated his time with the Patriots.