What's your least favorite transaction of the BB era?

[NG Pats Fan]

I will never get over the patriots selecting Florida Gator DE Jermaine Cunningham over his far better teammate Carlos Dunlap. Of course Dunlap went the next pick and he's one of the best pass rushers in the NFL right now while Cunningham is out of the league

Anyone who watched the Florida Gators knew Dunlap was the far superior player to Cunningham.

Had the patriots selected Dunlap over Cunningham our first 3 picks in the 2010 draft would have been

Devin Mccourty
Rob Gronkowski
Carlos Dunlap


That's an all time great draft

 

[Nehalem]

For me it's a tie:

- entering the 2011 season with no free safeties (they cut Meriweather and others and ended up playing guys like Josh Barrett as starters that year).

Cutting your top 2 safeties (Meriweather and Sanders) never really seemed like a good plan to me.

Also from the 2011 season signing Chad Ochocinco. Paid big money and never got the offense.

Really without those 2 moves maybe Edelman is on the field instead as a WR and we win the Super Bowl

 

[chasa]

cutting underwood the day before the superbowl

 

[SHOWTIME15]

I will never get over the patriots selecting Florida Gator DE Jermaine Cunningham over his far better teammate Carlos Dunlap. Of course Dunlap went the next pick and he's one of the best pass rushers in the NFL right now while Cunningham is out of the league

Anyone who watched the Florida Gators knew Dunlap was the far superior player to Cunningham.

Had the patriots selected Dunlap over Cunningham our first 3 picks in the 2010 draft would have been

Devin Mccourty
Rob Gronkowski
Carlos Dunlap


That's an all time great draft

Yes, BB relied on stupid urban meyer's recommendation if I recall.

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Trading Deion Branch. The Lombardi count is likely at 6 were it not for that move.

Branch was being unreasonable in his contract demands, wasn't he?

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Signing reche caldwell

 

[borisman]

Hiring (or keeping if he was already here) Matt Walsh.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Donald Hayes, Steve Martin and Monty Beisel. Good times...

Someone's forgetting Duane Starks. Pretty good one to forget, though ...

 

[realtime]

Pick your favorite head-scratching second round pick (except for maybe Bethel Johnson -- he made a ton of big plays in a season that ended in a SB title, so I'm OK with that) -- Jordan Richards, Jermaine Cunningham or Tavon Wilson are all good choices.

But I'm going to go with whatever move, or set of moves, resulted in Steve Martin getting any playing time in a Patriots uniform. That wild and crazy guy may have been the single weakest starter in BB's entire Patriots tenure.

 

[sb1]

cutting underwood the day before the superbowl

Eh... I think he was to be cut anyway, he had no chance of playing and the reason for the timing becomes kind of obvious when you think about it.

 

[jah]

Signing Tebow.

Trading for Ocho.

Completely mismanaging the safeties in 2011 (cutting Sanders and Meriweather with no replacements).

Starting Devey in the beginning of 2014 (luckily that one was addressed swiftly).

 

[Joey007]

I will never get over the patriots selecting Florida Gator DE Jermaine Cunningham over his far better teammate Carlos Dunlap. Of course Dunlap went the next pick and he's one of the best pass rushers in the NFL right now while Cunningham is out of the league

Anyone who watched the Florida Gators knew Dunlap was the far superior player to Cunningham.

Had the patriots selected Dunlap over Cunningham our first 3 picks in the 2010 draft would have been

Devin Mccourty
Rob Gronkowski
Carlos Dunlap


That's an all time great draft

Yes. I forgot about this one. Probably my least favorite draft move, since Dunlap was from the same school, played the same position, AND was the very next pick.

Urban Meyer must have given Bill some really bad advice. Maybe he had a bad grudge over something and wanted to get him back.

 

[chasa]

Eh... I think he was to be cut anyway, he had no chance of playing and the reason for the timing becomes kind of obvious when you think about it.

Still i doubt the person added provided any impact.

imo the move didn't provide anything to the team, but may have at least caused a little bit of a distraction.

 

[jah]

What's really sad is we won the Super Bowl the year before Mankins, won the Super Bowl the year after Mankins and never won it the entire time in between when he was here. Not suggesting a causal relationship but I wish he'd been there for one of those so he could have won it once.

Let's consider the fact that he also played in 2 SB losses and both losses were by a very thin margin and OL play (with Mankins as a main culprit) was highly suspect in both. Mankins was very good for a long time, but he wasn't clutch. He tried too hard to be tough and play through injuries, but often was no better than his backup while very injured (i.e. playing on a torn ACL in the SB).

 

[tasmlab]

From a storybook perspective, I would've much preferred Welker finished his career in NE. Was disappointed at the time when the Pats failed to retain him.

But, things turned out pretty well after that. And it may have ******ed the ascension of JE11, who is pretty awesome.

 

[sb1]

Still i doubt the person added provided any impact.

imo the move didn't provide anything to the team, but may have at least caused a little bit of a distraction.

It might have, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't planned and communicated well ahead of when it actually happened and wasn't as much of a surprise to the team as it was to us...

 

[Ring 6]

I'm not going to go down the road some are starting to veer towards in this thread regarding Mankins, and bash his play in big games. He was the consummate professional and our best OLineman for many years.

But it's hard to look at that move now and think it was a bad move. We won the super bowl that same year, and using the pick drafted a player that was a big part of winning another one two years later. You say we could have had him at 97, but that's not how the draft works. If they had (at the time) thought Flowers was better than Grissom, they would have drafted him first. The extra pick allowed them that second kick at the can, and it paid off.

Sad as it is that Mankins didn't get one with us, I have a hard time bashing the move in hindsight.

SBs won since trading mankins. 2 in 3 years.

SBs won with mankins 0 in 9 years.

Hard to argue it was a bad trade.

 

[Ring 6]

I'm not going to go down the road some are starting to veer towards in this thread regarding Mankins, and bash his play in big games. He was the consummate professional and our best OLineman for many years.

But it's hard to look at that move now and think it was a bad move. We won the super bowl that same year, and using the pick drafted a player that was a big part of winning another one two years later. You say we could have had him at 97, but that's not how the draft works. If they had (at the time) thought Flowers was better than Grissom, they would have drafted him first. The extra pick allowed them that second kick at the can, and it paid off.

Sad as it is that Mankins didn't get one with us, I have a hard time bashing the move in hindsight.

Not that it is fair, reasonable or cause and effect but interesting.

Tom Brady has won 5 SBs in 7 years without mankins on the team and 0 in 9 years with him.

 

[slam]

But does Mankins not retire so soon if he stays in New England? Remember, when he retired he was still playing at a high level. Very debatable.

A. Who cares? Maybe if he gets a ring he hangs it up immediately because he's checked all the boxes and was tired of getting his brains bashed in for a living.
B. Every single season ending playoff loss in his tenure featured the offensive line getting overwhelmed to a surprising extent. I'm not saying he was the cause, but he wasn't a panacea. The Pats weren't losing 38-35 in all those games. The 2015 AFC Championship loss at Denver had the team face the best defense in a decade at their home with them knowing the Pats snap count while fielding an incredibly injured offense and the Pats STILL scored more points that game than either of the Giants Super Bowls, or the 2012 or 2013 AFCC losses.
C. In reality, Bill sent him packing and then won 2 out of 3 Super Bowls. His no name replacements were able to overcome adverse circumstances in 2 of 3 Super Bowl runs. Flowers already played a major role in a Super Bowl. If he were still trying to play today his play would be very diminished from his peak. The move was great.

 

[Actual Pats Fan]

Someone's forgetting Duane Starks. Pretty good one to forget, though ...

Bledsoe's Record Deal: 10 Years, $103 Million

Among the comments by Kraft:

Bledsoe has a chance to be remembered in Boston like Ted Williams, Bill Russell and Larry Bird, each having played his entire career in the city. "I remember feeling sad when Bobby Orr left...I saw this as an opportunity to sign one of the great Patriots for the rest of his career.''

"This is a very happy day in the life of the New England Patriots.''

"Sometimes, our friends in the media like to stir the pot. To help circulation, I guess.''