WRs: Every team but one

[patchick]

Every NFL team but one has drafted a wide receiver in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft since 2015. In most cases, more than one.

The Patriots haven't done so since 2013.

IMO it's pretty clear at this point that it was a deliberate strategic decision. New England gave up on stocking their receiving corps through the draft and turned exclusively to veterans. But last year, it really didn't work. (Yes, before you ask, I did notice that they won the Superbowl. But surely it was despite the Hogan/Gordon/Dorsett crew, not because of them.)

Moving forward, most of the top FA and trade targets are off the market. Surprise trades, RFA signings, bargain shopping and the draft remain. Starting right now, what would your plan be for the WR corps?

 

[signbabybrady]

My hope right now is to double up on TE. Gronk coming back and sign Cook or trade for someone. Then double dip WR in the draft in the top 3 RDS.

 

[PatsFan2]

Every NFL team but one has drafted a wide receiver in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft since 2015. In most cases, more than one.

The Patriots haven't done so since 2013.

IMO it's pretty clear at this point that it was a deliberate strategic decision. New England gave up on stocking their receiving corps through the draft and turned exclusively to veterans. But last year, it really didn't work. (Yes, before you ask, I did notice that they won the Superbowl. But surely it was despite the Hogan/Gordon/Dorsett crew, not because of them.)

Moving forward, most of the top FA and trade targets are off the market. Surprise trades, RFA signings, bargain shopping and the draft remain. Starting right now, what would your plan be for the WR corps?

2013 was probably the worse year to double dipped at WR and they came away with jack $h!t they should have double dipped in 2014. Some of the better WR's in the league were Drafted in 2014.

 

[Ring 6]

Every NFL team but one has drafted a wide receiver in the first 3 rounds of the NFL draft since 2015. In most cases, more than one.

The Patriots haven't done so since 2013.

IMO it's pretty clear at this point that it was a deliberate strategic decision. New England gave up on stocking their receiving corps through the draft and turned exclusively to veterans. But last year, it really didn't work. (Yes, before you ask, I did notice that they won the Superbowl. But surely it was despite the Hogan/Gordon/Dorsett crew, not because of them.)

Moving forward, most of the top FA and trade targets are off the market. Surprise trades, RFA signings, bargain shopping and the draft remain. Starting right now, what would your plan be for the WR corps?

We had the 8th ranked passing game and 4th best scoring offense in the nfl and threw for 944 yards in the playoffs, putting up over 30 ppg.
The passing game is brady plus his receivers (and the ol) we win largely because it out passing game. If you want to bag on who the receivers are then you have to accept having what you consider to be good WRs isn’t that important to winning when you have brady as the other half of the equation.

 

[RobertWeathers]

I am so done with this fanbase overrating the importance of the WR position in this offense.

Saying we won despite the WR position is crap.

Before the SB, Hogan had good games. So did Jules and Dorsett.

As we have seen, Bill and JMc like playmaking WRs (Branch, Randy, Flash, Lloyd, Cooks) but we don't need them to win. They know it.

All we need are players who can get open and represent legitimate threats in the passing game. Beating man coverage is a plus.

 

[patchick]

We had the 8th ranked passing game and 4th best scoring offense in the nfl and threw for 944 yards in the playoffs, putting up over 30 ppg.
The passing game is brady plus his receivers (and the ol) we win largely because it out passing game. If you want to bag on who the receivers are then you have to accept having what you consider to be good WRs isn’t that important to winning when you have brady as the other half of the equation.

Yes, we had the 8th-ranked passing game in the NFL in 2018. I would suggest that we had significantly better than the 8th-best quarterback, 8th-best offensive line, and 8th-best receivers out of the backfield. Leaving the WRs and TEs as significantly worse than 8th-best.

 

[Simpelton]

Moving forward, most of the top FA and trade targets are off the market. Surprise trades, RFA signings, bargain shopping and the draft remain. Starting right now, what would your plan be for the WR corps?

How much are we even counting on our WR corps? Last time I checked 2 of our top 3 receivers were a TE and a running back.

The Patriots have never placed a heavy emphasis on elite receiving units and I doubt they're starting anytime soon. When they did try to go big at receiver they wound up not winning a damn thing for about 10 years. If you want to talk about lessons learned, I'd say that's a big one -- they went back to their roots starting in 2013 or so and went right back to winning Superbowls.

The fact is that WRs are only one part of a single facet of the team, and by far the least versatile component of that facet. BB craves versatility, and he's never likely to sink vast quantities of cap space into niche specialists, however important we perceive them to be. Not unless it's another Moss style no-brainer where the risk to the team is minimal and the reward is enormous.

 

[Deus Irae]

I think it's great that more and more posters are willing to separate the winning from the underlying issues (positive or negative) for discussion purposes.

 

[Ring 6]

I am so done with this fanbase overrating the importance of the WR position in this offense.

Saying we won despite the WR position is crap.

Before the SB, Hogan had good games. So did Jules and Dorsett.

As we have seen, Bill and JMc like playmaking WRs (Branch, Randy, Flash, Lloyd, Cooks) but we don't need them to win. They know it.

All we need are players who can get open and represent legitimate threats in the passing game. Beating man coverage is a plus.

They almost exclusively like “playmaking wide receivers” THAT HAVE LOW CAP NUMBERS.
I’m sure Belichick would love to have Beckham, ab and Julio all on the team.
But a player equals ability plus cost.
The way the rest of the league values WRs overprices them to BB so he avoids the high priced receivers, spends money elsewhere, adapts his scheme to that a s realizes that having brady means you don’t need to over pay for WRs to have a great offense.

Look at it this way. Go back over any of the recent seasons. How much would a top tier wr improve our offense? Did we need that improvement? How much would the subtraction in other areas needed to pay that wr degrade the rest of the team and could we really afford to get worse elsewhere?

 

[manxman2601]

Yes we’re lucky to have Edelman, Gronk and White. But last season showed that times that was barely enough, particularly with a sub-par Gronk on the field. Brady was as bad in the RZ as I’ve seen him in the last decade and that wasn’t because of a big drop off in his play, it was because his targets didn’t seem to be there. I don’t see the harm in drafting some WRs when you have 12 picks even if it’s just to throw stuff at the wall in the hope that something sticks (of course, I hope they’ll be a little more scientific than that).

 

[Ring 6]

Yes, we had the 8th-ranked passing game in the NFL in 2018. I would suggest that we had significantly better than the 8th-best quarterback, 8th-best offensive line, and 8th-best receivers out of the backfield. Leaving the WRs and TEs as significantly worse than 8th-best.

And if we tried to spend more money on WRs we would have had to cut other areas. The offense and the passing game were clearly good enough to win the Sb. Why cut a different area back?

And bet we were the 4th ranked offense in scoring, which is what matters. If we wanted to throw more we certainly could have ranked higher in yards with the same WRs.

 

[Ring 6]

Yes we’re lucky to have Edelman, Gronk and White. But last season showed that times that was barely enough, particularly with a sub-par Gronk on the field. Brady was as bad in the RZ as I’ve seen him in the last decade and that wasn’t because of a big drop off in his play, it was because his targets didn’t seem to be there. I don’t see the harm in drafting some WRs when you have 12 picks even if it’s just to throw stuff at the wall in the hope that something sticks (of course, I hope they’ll be a little more scientific than that).

I don’t think anyone is saying ignore the wr position.
I think the reality is that it’s one of the worst places we can invest big cap $ comparatively.

 

[fightingirish595]

I am so done with this fanbase overrating the importance of the WR position in this offense.

Saying we won despite the WR position is crap.

Before the SB, Hogan had good games. So did Jules and Dorsett.

As we have seen, Bill and JMc like playmaking WRs (Branch, Randy, Flash, Lloyd, Cooks) but we don't need them to win. They know it.

All we need are players who can get open and represent legitimate threats in the passing game. Beating man coverage is a plus.

No need to Commit long term big time money to receivers in this offense. We get cheap guys that know how to get open. The rules help.

 

[fightingirish595]

I don’t think anyone is saying ignore the wr position.
I think the reality is that it’s one of the worst places we can invest big cap $ comparatively.

Absolutely agree 100 percent.

 

[TB_Helmet]

Just because we haven't had success drafting WRs in the past doesn't mean we should stop trying.

We need to acknowledge that the main reason we fail at drafting WRs is that they can't pick up the offense, and therefore we should only draft a guy if we think he has a brilliant football mind (perhaps at the expense of athleticisim). Go after a guy where you hear the story that BB watched film with him for an hour when scouting him and came out impressed (I think that was the case with McCourty and a couple others).

I don't think the WRs were a huge weakness last year but we can always get better at the position. One notable thing is that if Edelman goes down then I'd say WR shifts to be a major concern, especially given uncertainty around Gronk's availability.

 

[Tony2046]

I disagree that they won the SB despite the wr Corp.

They won the SB because the offense as a whole were good enough.

 

[patchick]

And if we tried to spend more money on WRs we would have had to cut other areas. The offense and the passing game were clearly good enough to win the Sb. Why cut a different area back?

Pardon? Andy, I never advocated for spending more money on WRs. I just invited people to say their plan would be for the position. Should I gather from what you've said that your plan would be to sit tight with the current roster? If not, what/who?

 

[fightingirish595]

I disagree that they won the SB despite the wr Corp.

They won the SB because the offense as a whole were good enough.

Yes because the line was tremendous at blocking for the run and pass. That makes everybody else’s job a lot easier.

I like this offense a lot more when there is somebody to stretch the field though.

I agree with you though

 

[TB_Helmet]

Also if Malcolm Mitchell had been able to stay healthy, he had a chance to have a ton of success as a Patriot, likely because he seemed like he was able to pick up the offense better than most. Too bad.

 

[manxman2601]

I don’t think anyone is saying ignore the wr position.
I think the reality is that it’s one of the worst places we can invest big cap $ comparatively.

I’m not suggesting spending big cap money at the position, I think we need to keep persisting in the draft. Particularly when we’re so well endowed with draft picks.