- Joined
- Oct 10, 2006
- Messages
- 76,883
- Reaction score
- 66,866
My point about Cyrus Jones and Brandon Tate is that in the grand scheme of things there are only 1700 jobs in the NFL, and I have admiration for guys who can carve out a career at this level.
.
My other reaction to your post is that special teams is a critically important piece of the game. It's great these guys have found their niche, but more to the point regarding this thread, BB the GM and BB the coach have always placed a premium on having excellent special teams. I like this year's biggest special teams move drafting the punter Bailey who is a clear upgrade. He needs to keep working on holding for the place kicker, however.
By the way, did you hear Christian Fauria talking about being a backup placekick holder last week? It terrified him that he might be called on. It was interesting to hear him talk about how hard it is, particularly in poor conditions.
Not to disrespect special teams play, even in this era of diminished importance for it, but neither Jones nor Tate was drafted to be a special teams player. They were drafted to be positional players, and they busted out on that, which is at least part of why neither stayed with Patriots for his full rookie deal. Whether or not they can play special teams is irrelevant to whether or not they were busts, unless ST is the only thing they were drafted for. A guy like Nate Ebner would be different. He was drafted to be a ST guy, and he's been an excellent pick.
And I did not hear Fauria talk about that. He and Merloni have gotten a bit ridiculous with their schtick over the course of time, so I'm finding myself listening to a lot more music from 2-6 these days.