Retain Donald Thomas

[Joey007]

Thomas is 27 years old and was dominate at times last year. He likely still has his best football infront of him too.

If we retained him we could do a number of things.

Option 1 - Trade Mankins (cap hit $10m) and have him agree to restructure to clear his cap number from our space. He is a superior player to Thomas but is also 5 years older and coming off back to back injury filled seasons.

Option 2 - Cut Dan Connolly and his $3.33m cap hit, it would clear $1.2m in immediate savings and $2.2m in dead money. IMO Thomas is a superior player to Connolly at this point and is also 4.5 years younger.

Option 3 - Keep all 3 spend the extra money. Mankins and Connolly both missed games last year and protecting Brady should be priority #1.

Either way IMO Thomas should be someone we bring back. He has value

I just want to say I'd be intrigued with option 2. Cutting Connolly, who is 30, would save some $$. As for Thomas getting starting money- well in this case he'd be a starter for us, so as long as it's not way out of the ballpark he'd be worth it.

At the end of the day really we could be improving our starting O-line, no disrespect to Connolly.

 

[Deus Irae]

...I know you're just out to contradict everything I said after the couple times I proved you wrong in the span of ten minutes the other day, but please stop stalking my posts looking for any opportunity to jump and harass.

You seem to have me confused with someone else, since there was no "other day" situation, so you can relax about my motivation. Your post was just ridiculously bad. Given that Sciz commented on part of it, it's not as if I was the only one to notice.

 

[tonyto3690]

You seem to have me confused with someone else, since there was no "other day" situation, so you can relax about my motivation. Your post was just ridiculously bad. Given that Sciz commented on part of it, it's not as if I was the only one to notice.

Sciz is usually pretty good, but piggybacking off others for credibility is pretty funny.

 

[VJCPatriot]

I don't see Connolly being worth his salary. Unfortunately he has declined as of late and we have other guards/centers who are outperforming him for less money. Pats should certainly look to infuse the OL with more youth in the draft so that Dante can work his magic. I'm not sure what happens with Vollmer because of his back but Cannon should be ready to play starting minutes quite soon.

 

[DaBruinz]

So our Oline is pretty old I just realized

Hmm.. Not sure how you can call the O-line old when you have Solder who turns 25 in April, Cannon who turns 25 in May, Nick McDonald at 26 in June, Wendell at 27 and Zusevics who turns 24 in April.

Yes, you have Mankins who will be 31 in a few days and Connolly who will be 31 towards the end of September.

Figure that there will be several more players added. A couple to the main roster and a few to the practice squad..

All in all, the O-line is pretty YOUNG..

 

[DaBruinz]

Please explain to me where I was wrong. Mankins was better as a pass blocker. Thomas was a better run blocker.

Thomas was a good run blocker. Mankins was significantly BETTER as a run blocker than Thomas. You offer nothing to support your claim to the contrary. Now, I don't know how long you've been following the Pats, but Belichick has benched a $10M QB in favor of a 2nd year guy when the 2nd year guy clearly outplayed him. If Thomas had been as good as you stated, Thomas would be on the field, regardless of the contract that Mankins had.

 

[DaBruinz]

Sciz is usually pretty good, but piggybacking off others for credibility is pretty funny.

He wasn't piggybacking off of anyone. He was pointing out that he wasn't the only one to say your statement was moronic. Do yourself a favor and stop trying to look better than Deus. He'll just outclass you.

 

[shmessy]

Retain him at what price? If he gets starting guard money, do you pay him that to be your backup?

Look at our current two starting guards.

A backup guard will start at least 10 games this year at either L or R.

Thomas is hitting his prime and was a better roadgrader than Mankins (who, yes, did play hurt) last year.

The other option is to just give up trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the Canon-to-RT campaign. He is far better or more natural at guard.

 

[bagwell368]

Look at our current two starting guards.

A backup guard will start at least 10 games this year at either L or R.

Thomas is hitting his prime and was a better roadgrader than Mankins (who, yes, did play hurt) last year.

The other option is to just give up trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with the Canon-to-RT campaign. He is far better or more natural at guard.

Cannon seemed from day 1 to be a RG in the making. I'd rather have a 9/10 Cannon at RG in his prime, then a 7.5/10 RT in his prime. The reps are helpful for his development, but, yeah, time to get him back home.

 

[tonyto3690]

Thomas was a good run blocker. Mankins was significantly BETTER as a run blocker than Thomas. You offer nothing to support your claim to the contrary. Now, I don't know how long you've been following the Pats, but Belichick has benched a $10M QB in favor of a 2nd year guy when the 2nd year guy clearly outplayed him. If Thomas had been as good as you stated, Thomas would be on the field, regardless of the contract that Mankins had.

No, you are wrong. I'm not going to waste my time going through the numbers, but our running game had greater success between the tackles with Thomas as opposed to Mankins. Suggesting Mankins was significantly better is just flat out wrong.

Brady had out played Bledsoe all of training camp and Bledsoe had internal bleeding. That is a wee bit different. Watching an ESPN documentary on it doesn't mean you were a fan then or have any idea what the situation was actually like. They are completely different scenarios and the injury forced Belichick's hand. It worked out, so he stuck with it.

Besides, like I said, Mankins was better as a pass protector , I'm not denying that; and we are a pass first team. Mankins is so hilariously overrated by casual fans that don't actually watch and just point to his contract/probowls. He's a good guard and teammate, but the talk of him as an elite guard is just flat out wrong.

 

[JackBauer]

No, you are wrong. I'm not going to waste my time going through the numbers, but our running game had greater success between the tackles with Thomas as opposed to Mankins. Suggesting Mankins was significantly better is just flat out wrong.

Please waste your time, as I'd love to see the numbers.

He's a good guard and teammate, but the talk of him as an elite guard is just flat out wrong.

When healthy, Mankins is absolutely an elite guard. No question about it.

 

[Deus Irae]

Please waste your time, as I'd love to see the numbers...

Since they can't give a good adjustment index for SOS, it really is a waste of time. The teams Donald started against:

BUF (#30)
NYJ *2 (#21)
STL (#19)
IND (#31)
MIA (#10)


There's not enough quality to even out the garbage opponents. He faced the inferior teams/defenses almost exclusively. Out of 6 games, only Miami's defense was really any good against the run, being 10th in the league in Y/A.