Patriots Player Departure Stefon Diggs Cut.

[Ring 6]

Diggs convinced me that he wasn't a mistake last year. His leadership in that room was big. He's going to be missed.

Pierce is a 3rd/4th WR who catches 54% of the passes thrown to him. He's Donald Hayes 2.0.

Brown is a Diva who has shown he can't handle not being "THE" guy.

Come on. You can’t be serious. Pierce had 1000 receiving yards. He average 22 yards a catch. Donald Hayes could be the dumbest comp you could choose.
54% on the depth of his targets is very good. You will struggle to find anyone who isn’t being thrown to by Drake Maye to come close to that. That number, which is already very good, will go up with Maye throwing to him.

 

[Wozzy]

Sounds like he was being a clown… more than usual.

 

[Hugepatsfan]

I am with you on Pierce, but in his defense the Colts used him specifically as a downfield guy and those are low percentage throws. I do think he is able to do more, but the reason I am with you is because it is merely projection about him being able to do more.

He is 6-3 and 210, he is very athletic, so it is reasonable to think he can do more in the route department.

I would prefer a trade for DJ Moore

I don't think anyone should sign him and want him to do "more". That's how I think Pierce will end up a bad signing. I think he'll end up a good signing if you let him add value as he did last year. You don't try to turn him into a volume guy. Let him be the deep ball specialist who does it better than anyone in the league and let the volume come via the space he opens up underneath for others by doing that. That space opens up running lanes and underneath routes for others.

The market for him, from what I've read is about $25M/year which would be about the 15th highest paid WR in the league so in a 32 league team I think you can say that's mid #1 WR money. I think that's fair. He's a lower end #1 guy for sure because he is low volume, but play style wise he has an open things up for others kind of game compared to some other guys who don't move defenses. I think the way he can open up the field for others bumps him up from low end #1 to mid-tier #1 for me on the contract.

 

[Ross12]

One nice thing about Moore is that his contract is very affordable. It's ~$23M a year for another 4 years, with just the first year being a fully guaranteed salary. You can simply convert that first year into a signing bonus which makes the year 1 cash cost the same, but makes the cap hit in 2026 go from around $23M down to around $7M instead. So, you gain $16M in cap space basically out of thin air, pushing the remainder out across the next several years in equal parts.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Diggs convinced me that he wasn't a mistake last year. His leadership in that room was big. He's going to be missed.

Pierce is a 3rd/4th WR who catches 54% of the passes thrown to him. He's Donald Hayes 2.0.

Brown is a Diva who has shown he can't handle not being "THE" guy.

Agree with the above.

 

[Rob0729]

There's little chance this year.

They're not going to eat 9+ million and then pay him again.

If they wanted him at all this year, they would have guaranteed some money and lowered his cap number.

He might not have wanted to redo his contract thinking he could get as much or more on the open market. He may not and then come back to the Pats for less. They are not going to give him a contract remotely close to what he was making if they do end up bringing him back.

I think it is unlikely, but possible.

 

[patfanken]

Diggs was a KEY factor in Pats success last season. It is kind of a shame that his age and physical limitations made his contract too onerous to keep him this year, that was how much he helped create the culture that aided in that remarkable season. He caught over 80% of his targets. That's an amazing number. However that was last season, and I hope we will be able to upgrade the position.

AJ Brown is NOT the answer. If he were a FA, I'd be banging at his door, but he isn't and the demands the eagles have made clear, PLUS the cap space make him a non-factor. Pierce is a possibility, but I don't see him getting out of Indy. I AM excited about the continuing development of Williams, Boutte, Douglas, etc and how they will improve in their 2nd year in this offense and with Maye. I think we can replace Diggs' production with a FA addition no named Brown, or Pierce, but I don't see us adding anyone that will give the "cult" a hard on, like Brown would have done.

Remember with our "crumby" WR group we were a top 5 team in the NFL in passing yds last year. Adding even a B level FA like Moore or Thomas to go along with continuing improvement of Boutte and Williams we SHOULD be able to maintain that stature next season. We need to improve our 2nd TE with someone new Otten or a day one or 2 draft pick would be a good idea. Upgrade Hooper, and develop him to replace Henry in a few years and you've done a good job. I've seen a couple of names that might fit that bill at the end of the first round.

 

[Hugepatsfan]

I hope you're right. Boutte for example had a 72% catch rate on 17 yards per....nearly 20% higher.

Boutte was interesting last year. Highly proficient deep ball receiver on the stat sheet, but defenses didn't react to it at all. He didn't open anything up for anyone from what I saw. Defenses treated it as fluky he was so productive downfield and didn't overreact to it and lend extra coverage there.

Not about individual players, but you often hear people call for offensive coordinators to "take a shot" downfield to make the defense moves back and open things up. When you're talking about deep passes, you have to factor that in. We'll see how Boutte's career evolves and how defenses play him on a go-forward basis, but right now it doesn't seem like he has any gravitational pull on coverages. I think Pierce does, and would open things up underneath.

 

[Ring 6]

Because of Maye. Do you think Daniel Jones and Old Man Rivers are as accurate on deep throws as Maye?

Pierce avg depth of target 18.7 yards.
AJ Brown adot 9.4. Brown caught 64% of targets.
What’s better 53% completed at 18 yards downfield or 64 at 9.4?
Pierce had as many yards on 47 catches as Brown had in 78.

To illustrate if the colts threw Pierce 30 screens at zero yards down field, his stats would be 74 catches (let’s give him
3 drop) in 114 targets and 64.9 catch rate and still an adot of 13.8

 

[dliverey44]

I don't think anyone should sign him and want him to do "more". That's how I think Pierce will end up a bad signing. I think he'll end up a good signing if you let him add value as he did last year. You don't try to turn him into a volume guy. Let him be the deep ball specialist who does it better than anyone in the league and let the volume come via the space he opens up underneath for others by doing that. That space opens up running lanes and underneath routes for others.

The market for him, from what I've read is about $25M/year which would be about the 15th highest paid WR in the league so in a 32 league team I think you can say that's mid #1 WR money. I think that's fair. He's a lower end #1 guy for sure because he is low volume, but play style wise he has an open things up for others kind of game compared to some other guys who don't move defenses. I think the way he can open up the field for others bumps him up from low end #1 to mid-tier #1 for me on the contract.

Fair point, but the guys has good change of direction ability, so imo keeping him as a deep ball specialist is a disservice to Pierce. If you are paying a guy 25M AAV he needs to do more.

 

[Ring 6]

Boutte was interesting last year. Highly proficient deep ball receiver on the stat sheet, but defenses didn't react to it at all. He didn't open anything up for anyone from what I saw. Defenses treated it as fluky he was so productive downfield and didn't overreact to it and lend extra coverage there.

Not about individual players, but you often hear people call for offensive coordinators to "take a shot" downfield to make the defense moves back and open things up. When you're talking about deep passes, you have to factor that in. We'll see how Boutte's career evolves and how defenses play him on a go-forward basis, but right now it doesn't seem like he has any gravitational pull on coverages. I think Pierce does, and would open things up underneath.

I disagree. If defenses hadn’t accounted for Bouttes deep routes Maye would have thrown them all day.

 

[Steve102]

Better, younger, cheaper.

 

[StockingAnarchyNumber12]

Classy move. Thank you Diggs!

 

[Family]

He might not have wanted to redo his contract thinking he could get as much or more on the open market. He may not and then come back to the Pats for less. They are not going to give him a contract remotely close to what he was making if they do end up bringing him back.

I think it is unlikely, but possible.

I'm talking cap numbers.

How low do you think he will go? Look what Copper Kupp got. Diggs would have to command at least mid to high teens.

They won't pay him that PLUS take the cap hit.

 

[Toofy]

Can someone educate me how we land up DJ moore. Looks like bears want trade assets and we have to absorb his contract which is close to 25+ million a year .

Why will I even entertain that when I can get aj brown for similar cash and maybe expending a future second rounder.

Try to shoot for Alex pierce for 25 million a year .if he does not come in , let's just do a mid season trade when some team catapults it's way down.

Pierce should fancy his chances here more than colts . So I am thinking pats already got that hint from his agent.

 

[KCSVEN]

2 games into watching every Pierce pass play from last year (471 plays). Really like what I see so far. He's open and open deep a lot just nobody to get him the ball. Great hands. Way better than I expected. Seems like he was made for Drake Maye. Full write up when I'm more than 2 games in but starting to salivate at the idea...

 

[reflexblue]

i'm sad to see him go, he was a great teammate and made many incredible catches, the man was clutch.

 

[PatsFan2]

Better, younger, cheaper.

 

[jdlboot14]

This is easy. We need a young but experienced vet ready to blossom with the Pats in the Starting X role (WR1 designation is outdated)
Plan A - Pierce
Plan B - Doubs

 

[VJCPatriot]

It's the end of an era.

I like what Diggs brought in terms of his veteran leadership this past season. He really helped the young guys.

He even had a 1K yard regular season which was great.

Unfortunately his performance dropped off as the season went longer and he couldn't impact in the playoffs.

Best of wishes to Diggs and thanks for his service but we have moved on as a team.

I'm excited to see what the Patriots will do to reshape that WR position.