Kareem Brown to Jets

[captain stone]

1) Your point now is that stiffs who didn't pan out would have panned out, players who are finished (Hartwell) would somehow not be finished, and Thomas would somehow be a Patriot. Well, 2) Thomas IS a Patriot, which kills that portion of the argument, and there's not a single other player on your list besides Dansby who's even a quality linebacker. So, your linebacking gripe essentially boils down to taking Dansby over Watson. That's your only remotely sensible point in all of this, and it's STILL a ridiculously weak point since the team needed to improve at tight end far more more than at linebacker at the time. The argument is further weakened by the taking of Wilfork earlier in round one to make the front seven even stronger. Here is the 2004 linebacking corps:

Vrabel
Bruschi
Colvin - coming off a major hip injury
Johnson
McGinest
Pfifer - could have been replaced by Dansby
Banta-Cain
Klecko - not being trained as a LB at that time

There is no rational argument that LB was a significant enough need that season that they should have gone with Dansby over Watson. New England had one of the deepest linebacking corps in recent NFL history that season. Even hindsight can't make Dansby the better pick over Watson in 2004.

1) I wrote that "perhaps" they would have panned-out, or remained injury-free.

2) My argument is that he should have been drafted by the NEP in the first place.

It's obvious that neither side is going to convince the other of the merits of its arguments, so I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed, and leave it at that.

 

[Deus Irae]

1) I wrote that "perhaps" they would have panned-out, or remained injury-free.

Do you understand that this argument makes all debate useless, as I can say things like "Well, maybe Jabiri would have worked out if he hadn't gotten sick that time...." or some equivalent for every player drafted? Or, conversely, I could say "Dansby might have been a bust had he been drafted by the Patriots". When you start playing the "your players stay the same, but mine can become gods" game, you change this from a debate/discussion to a useless round of "What I say goes". Banta-Cain is a perfect example of that, conveniently overlooked.

2) My argument is that he should have been drafted by the NEP in the first place.

And my argument is that you were clearly wrong given the depth that the team had a linebacker at the time and the lack thereof at tight end.