It still wasn't worse than trading ellis hobbs. Despite the hate he received he could actually play as long as it wasn't against the monster wrs out there. That year we lost our best kick returner maybe of all time and was left with deltha oneal and scrub rookie cb all because we wanted the useless rich orhnberger.
I don't know which is worse, the inaccurate timeline or the revisionist history.
2008: Hobbs starts 16 games, O'Neal starts 10 and plays in 16.
2009 offseason: O'Neal's contract expires, Pats sign Leigh Bodden and Shawn Springs, draft Darius Butler, and trade Hobbs
2009: Bodden starts 16 games, Springs 8, Wilhite 8, and Butler 5; Hobbs plays in 8 games with 0 starts, 0 PD or INT, 11 tackles, and returns 20 kicks which tie his career low in KR average
2010 offseason: Hobbs is a free agent, re-signs with the Eagles
2010: Hobbs averages a new career low (by two and a half yards) on his kick returns and starts 7 games at CB before suffering a career ending neck injury.
It's also worth noting that Hobbs was in the final year of his contract and that trading him saved about $2M against the cap. So essentially, they traded one year of Hobbs (in which he played 8 games, returned 20 kicks far below 2006-2008 Hobbs standards, and had 11 tackles) for Ohrnberger and $2M in cap room.
In 2009, The Pats averaged 22.7 yards per kick return and Hobbs averaged 24.1 over his 20 returns, making the net difference by trading Hobbs very roughly 28 yards over 8 games. So yeah, I'm going to say that Hobbs would not have been anywhere near the answer, and that they didn't really lose anything by trading him.
