Better, younger, cheaper

SlowGettingUp said:

Which was basically a good WR2 with upside to develop into a lowish-end WR1.

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The thing that isn't getting talked about as much is Kyle Williams.. His year 2 jump would be immense for the offense.. Vrabel seems very high and expecting big things from him the way he talked about him this off season.. and offense with K. Williams, Doubs, Boutte as your primary guys and Hollins and Pop also in the mix wouldn't be a bad thing..

SlowGettingUp said:

Exactly. In the Super Bowl we couldn't run against a light nickel front. Everything problematic on offense flowed from that.

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And they couldn't protect Maye. As much as I wanted Lindebaum and Pierce they did the smart think and brought in hard nosed team players to make their offense much tougher. Great job by Vrabel and Co.

captain stone said:

That shouldn't excuse them for the...uninspiring... offseason they've had so far.

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They had the most wins in the NFL last season. They didn’t have to make dramatic moves or spend a ton of free agent dollars to improve.

captain stone said:

That shouldn't excuse them for the...uninspiring... offseason they've had so far.

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There have not been any big named guys but to imply this has not been a productive offseason is not accurate, imo

captain stone said:

That shouldn't excuse them for the...uninspiring... offseason they've had so far.

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You said the same thing last offseason.
And the offseason before.
And every offseason you've been here.

TommyD4207 said:

You said the same thing last offseason.
And the offseason before.
And every offseason you've been here.

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I didn't realize he suffered from chronic skepticism.

They didn’t hit any home runs in free agency, but they hit a bunch of triples and doubles in Byard, Gilliam, Dremont, Doubs, Vera-Tucker, with a couple singles in Vildor and Hill.

It doesn’t take big name, high ticket signings alone to build a 53 man roster, you have to find contributors. That’s at least four starters above with a 5th who could start if you needed him to and a couple role players who contribute heavily on special teams.

They have 11 draft picks. If the season started tomorrow this is already a playoff team assuming health. 11 draft picks and UDFA could make this team really really good. Draft well…

dliverey44 said:

I didn't realize he suffered from chronic skepticism.

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What these guys unfortunately don't realize is that kind of constant negativity actually brings on depression. Although there's a potential chicken/ egg question.

Real fan 02 said:

The thing that isn't getting talked about as much is Kyle Williams.. His year 2 jump would be immense for the offense.. Vrabel seems very high and expecting big things from him the way he talked about him this off season.. and offense with K. Williams, Doubs, Boutte as your primary guys and Hollins and Pop also in the mix wouldn't be a bad thing..

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Great point. Where does he fit in the offense if the Pats trade for Brown or take a WR high in the draft?

"Better, younger, cheaper" is a nice slogan, but hard to find in actual practice outside the draft. Not sure if any of our signings hit on all three - many hit on two though, and some only on one. Brown would be "better, much older, much more expensive" and so definitely well outside this metric. A lot of the discussion centers around if he is just "better" or is in fact still "much better."

The big picture is we have three more years of a cost-controlled Maye. He has shown we can win against most teams without high-end WR talent. But last year we had mostly weak or injured opponents and we had great injury luck. We are going to need to pay up to keep Gonzalez. If I had to guess, Vrabel is thinking that next year would be our real Super Bowl push, and so maybe he's going to hold off on a WR1 this year and mostly focus on better, younger, cheaper for this year.

Water Boy said:

Great point. Where does he fit in the offense if the Pats trade for Brown or take a WR high in the draft?

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Agreed.. personally I think they are gonna take a WR somewhere in the draft anyway..but i don't believe high.. say first 3 rounds I'd say rounds 3-5...

Wozzy said:

They didn’t hit any home runs in free agency, but they hit a bunch of triples and doubles in Byard, Gilliam, Dremont, Doubs, Vera-Tucker, with a couple singles in Vildor and Hill.

It doesn’t take big name, high ticket signings alone to build a 53 man roster, you have to find contributors. That’s at least four starters above with a 5th who could start if you needed him to and a couple role players who contribute heavily on special teams.

They have 11 draft picks. If the season started tomorrow this is already a playoff team assuming health. 11 draft picks and UDFA could make this team really really good. Draft well…

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I really dont think FA as a whole was all that to really brag about for any team this off season.. I don't however like the moves that we made because they were intentional.. for a team with and elite QB and heach coach of the year for 2025 they didn't as in Vrabel's own words tear down the house.. they are remodeling..

I love the fact they brought in a real FB and also at FS there aren't many all pros available in FA so they sure up those areas. 11 draft picks and UDFA as well as other guys the will bring in to fill a 90 man roster.. I think they are positioning themselves to make another deep playoff run..

Wozzy said:

They didn’t hit any home runs in free agency, but they hit a bunch of triples and doubles in Byard, Gilliam, Dremont, Doubs, Vera-Tucker, with a couple singles in Vildor and Hill.

It doesn’t take big name, high ticket signings alone to build a 53 man roster, you have to find contributors. That’s at least four starters above with a 5th who could start if you needed him to and a couple role players who contribute heavily on special teams.

They have 11 draft picks. If the season started tomorrow this is already a playoff team assuming health. 11 draft picks and UDFA could make this team really good. Draft well…

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Hey, we only signed ONE big name player last season. The rest were no name grinders, who played hard physical football. Diggs was the 2nd biggest names and coming into last season he had as many physical question marks as ATV has coming into this season. Christ, few thought Diggs was going to be on the roster to start the season, let alone do a full camp and only miss a game when he was signed coming off a late season ACL. Who was jumping up and down because Spillane was signed?

The point being, we have HOPE for the guys we signed this year, just like last year. But that's all it was last year. They only guy we had huge expectations for was Williams and luckily, they all were met. So not hitting any "homers" is OK, and it seemed like we hit on 90% of LAST year's draft picks, given how low our draft position is and how many of our 11 picks come in the 6th and 7th rounds, I'd be happy to wind up with 6 rookies making the final roster and 3 getting any snaps on a regular basis..

More important this year (to me, at least) will be how many of our last year's rookie class IMPROVE in their 2nd season. We will all be watching closely to see how well Campbell anchors against bull rushes, how Wilson plays at C, if Hederson will ever make a cut that makes a defender miss, if Williams runs his routes better, can Swinson become a contributor on D, can Farmer get regular snaps on the DL, etc These are the things that is going to have more impact on the 26 team's success that who we draft

SlowGettingUp said:

"Better, younger, cheaper" is a nice slogan, but hard to find in actual practice outside the draft. Not sure if any of our signings hit on all three - many hit on two though, and some only on one. Brown would be "better, much older, much more expensive" and so definitely well outside this metric. A lot of the discussion centers around if he is just "better" or is in fact still "much better."

The big picture is we have three more years of a cost-controlled Maye. He has shown we can win against most teams without high-end WR talent. But last year we had mostly weak or injured opponents and we had great injury luck. We are going to need to pay up to keep Gonzalez. If I had to guess, Vrabel is thinking that next year would be our real Super Bowl push, and so maybe he's going to hold off on a WR1 this year and mostly focus on better, younger, cheaper for this year.

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I feel like any time there is a "slogan" giving 3 things you need to pick 2. Pretty rare to hit all 3.

SlowGettingUp said:

"Better, younger, cheaper" is a nice slogan, but hard to find in actual practice outside the draft. Not sure if any of our signings hit on all three - many hit on two though, and some only on one. Brown would be "better, much older, much more expensive" and so definitely well outside this metric. A lot of the discussion centers around if he is just "better" or is in fact still "much better."

The big picture is we have three more years of a cost-controlled Maye. He has shown we can win against most teams without high-end WR talent. But last year we had mostly weak or injured opponents and we had great injury luck. We are going to need to pay up to keep Gonzalez. If I had to guess, Vrabel is thinking that next year would be our real Super Bowl push, and so maybe he's going to hold off on a WR1 this year and mostly focus on better, younger, cheaper for this year.

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I took his comment differently. I think what he was saying was more generic than the way it's being portrayed. I think he was saying that their goal every offseason is to get younger, cheaper , and better, not that they were going to accomplish all of it in one offseason, but that it's part of a yearly process every team goes through. Every year you bring in younger players to replace older more expensive players, and every year you are trying to get better. Every year they have to shed bigger contracts and find replacements who cost less, that's just life in the NFL. I don't think he was implying that they were going to replace all of their older more expensive players with younger cheaper ones,

dliverey44 said:

I feel like any time there is a "slogan" giving 3 things you need to pick 2. Pretty rare to hit all 3.

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The most famous example I know is about drug development:
"Safe, efficacious and cheap. Pick two."

In a "win now" strategy you care most about "better." In a "win sometime in the next few years" strategy you care a lot more about "younger" and "cheaper."

All we can do from the outside is read the tea leaves about which of those two strategies they are focused on. So far we can't tell - they got younger and cheaper with the Diggs replacement, but better, older and more expensive with the Hawkins replacement. We'll learn a lot more if there is or isn't a trade for Brown.

Real fan 02 said:

Agreed.. personally I think they are gonna take a WR somewhere in the draft anyway..but i don't believe high.. say first 3 rounds I'd say rounds 3-5...

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If a WR isn't taken before the 5th round, then we can all ass-ume that the AJ Brown trade is Real...

Real fan 02 said:

The thing that isn't getting talked about as much is Kyle Williams.. His year 2 jump would be immense for the offense.. Vrabel seems very high and expecting big things from him the way he talked about him this off season.. and offense with K. Williams, Doubs, Boutte as your primary guys and Hollins and Pop also in the mix wouldn't be a bad thing..

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I have battered fan syndrome with Williams.

My heart tells me to hope for a jump in year two. My head knows I’ve seen this movie before.

Joey007 said:

I have battered fan syndrome with Williams.

My heart tells me to hope for a jump in year two. My head knows I’ve seen this movie before.

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I can absolutely understand how you feel.. I thought the curse would have ended with Tyquan Thornton however the curse remained. I feel like it has to end at some point. K. Williams feels like he could become a special player. He's getting top notch coaching so it's all on him to evolve into the player we hope cand become.

Joey007 said:

I have battered fan syndrome with Williams.

My heart tells me to hope for a jump in year two. My head knows I’ve seen this movie before.

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Only say that cap is because we have so many other pressing needs.. primarily edge and OL.. we took K. Williams high last year.. I'm thinking could be rounds 3-5 we take a wr.. I truly believe they are taking the best available edge rusher at 31 provided they stay put.