I hope I'm proved wrong next season, but I don't think I'm alone in thinking we should have taken Dez Bryant at 24. I think it's more widely shared than is indicated by the posters in this forum.
This team passed on Jerry Rice. Traded out of the spot to get some extra guys. We joined a bunch of other teams in not drafting Randy Moss, which I thought at the time was a mistake. Jerry Jones came around to agree with this--and he never forgot his mistake.
Well, we did it again. And I say this hoping I lose this argument. I want what's best for the Patriots. I'd love to eat crow.
Dez Bryant is easily a top-ten talent available to us late in the first round. It's Vince Wolfork all over again! It should have been a slam-dunk no-brainer. And we had already traded down, which is usually a good strategy, as the best "buys" are in the second and third rounds.
But it's also a need position for us. I'm afraid my fellow Patriot fans are in denial that Randy Moss has lost a step or two--it wasn't just the shoulder injury--and Welker will have a very tough road to haul returning to form. I tend to doubt his ability to make those incredibly lightning quick cuts that we've become used to over the years after his knee reconstruction surgery.
Notwithstanding Welker's heroics, we appear to have had an average receiver corps last year.
Patriots Receivers: Hands Like Feet? What can be done to make it better? And some of these old guys we've brought in like old friend Patten and Holt are nothing more than bailing wire and chicken guts.
Brandon Tate is a big question mark. We all hope his maturity and health solidifies. Edelman is good at best. We need great, though, to complement Tom Brady.
But don't you just wish we had an explosive new guy, whom Rick Gosselin, the most respected writer covering the game today, predicts will be ROY? (He did the same thing last year with Percy Harvin.) Now the coaching staff knows more about Brandon Tate than I. I hope he makes the impact we know he is capable of. Maybe.
McCourty is a good, a solid pick for us. We hope he's a STer stud who will change games. By mid-season he likely starts for us. But I think we could have done a little better.
The Cowboys, after all, eagerly traded with us for. Either they're right or we are. Judging from fan reactions, people are excited about Bryant, who appears a superstar in the making:
Cowboys trade up, select Oklahoma State WR Dez Bryant
The deal may, in the end, hinge on compensatory third-rounder, the unknown receiver from an unknown school who has great physical assets to make the deal worth it for some of us. That's a lot of pressure on a guy most of us had heard little of before the draft. Time will tell.
