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The 2011 New England Patriots

Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

NMU8405 said:
This is what happens when you cut half your defense for practice squad players. Stop giving the team a free pass on losses. This is not the same Pats team as years past.
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Oh I'm not giving them a free pass. The defense is getting blamed, and rightfully so, but most of them are low draft picks/undrafted. They are coming exactly as advertised. Belichick's belief that he can turn anyone into a NFL caliber player is just not true.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

There's probably 4 guys at most on our defense that are legit NFL starters. Wilfork, Mayo, Chung and McCourty, with Chung and McCourty being borderline 1st/2nd string guys. The rest would be backups and practice squad players on any other teams. It's mind boggling that a guy like Belichek, who supposedly has the best defensive mind in the game would allow this team to get to the point where they would have so little talent on the defensive side of the ball. They are also seriously lacking any depth at the wide receiver position beyond Welker and haven't had a good kick/punt returner in forever.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

UNH GH said:
Oh I'm not giving them a free pass. The defense is getting blamed, and rightfully so, but most of them are low draft picks/undrafted. They are coming exactly as advertised. Belichick's belief that he can turn anyone into a NFL caliber player is just not true.
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There are times when undrafted players work out. Victor Cruz was a "walkon" from Patterson, NJ who played for UMass.He spent last year on the practice squad and has really developed into a solid receiver with "good hands".
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Nothing new here...just like the Super Bowl. Brady produces when the chips are down and our defense doesn't. Until that changes, this team is not winning another super bowl.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Take heart Patriot fans, the Steelers defense just allowed the Ravens to march down the field and win the game.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

carltonbarrett said:
There's probably 4 guys at most on our defense that are legit NFL starters. Wilfork, Mayo, Chung and McCourty, with Chung and McCourty being borderline 1st/2nd string guys. The rest would be backups and practice squad players on any other teams. It's mind boggling that a guy like Belichek, who supposedly has the best defensive mind in the game would allow this team to get to the point where they would have so little talent on the defensive side of the ball. They are also seriously lacking any depth at the wide receiver position beyond Welker and haven't had a good kick/punt returner in forever.
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The good news is, though, that we have two first- and two second-round draft choices this year! Belichick will work the draft board like a maestro in order to deliver the next batch of stars to Foxborough!

Oh wait, you mean we've been saying that every year for the last 4-5 years? And they've drafted guys like Jermaine Cunningham, Ron Brace, Darius Butler, and Terrence Wheatley in the second round? Oh.

Okay, sarcasm aside, I agree with everything you said. You nailed it. There's not enough talent. Looking back just over the last 12 months, the insistence that New Orleans throw in a draft pick to complete the Pierre Thomas for Darius Butler trade hurt them in a number of ways. They missed out on Thomas, Butler coontributed nothing to last year's team, then they cut Butler and got nothing and used two early draft picks in 2011 to draft RBs when they clearly had a bunch of other needs. That was a disastrous decision by Belichick because of its trickle-down effect.

I laughed at the Jets last year when they cut Danny Woodhead to keep Joe McKnight. Who's laughing now? We can't get a kick return past the 20-yard-line while McKnight seems to return everything to midfield.

They can't afford to spend $4M on James Sanders but they can on 85 and Shawn Ellis. Just extremely poor personnel assessment.

Oh well, let's hope they can turn it around next week. When did they last lose three in a row? Nine years ago?
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Jason A said:
-------Oh well, let's hope they can turn it around next week. When did they last lose three in a row? Nine years ago?
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I don't know about three consecutive losses, but they have lost consecutive games 3 times since the beginning of the 2003 season.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

This is by far the worst job Belichick has done since he became head coach. From both a coaching and a personnel perspective. Like a lot of great coaches, I worry he's set in his ways. However, he needs to do several things differently immediately.

1) Cut Ochocinco or IR Price and get Moss back here. They're only hope this year is to outgun everybody. They can't do that with no deep threat. There's only one game changing deep threat who's familiar with Brady (the excuse we keep hearing with Johnson) that's available right now. The team has absolutely nothing to lose.

2) Fire secondary coach. I don't know how you can defend with your back turned chasing the receiver. Its either a completion or a penalty 90% of the time. The technique these guys are taking is horrible. I could understand a rookie but Arrington, McCourty, etc should know better.

Beyond this season, I don't care if it takes trading the top 4 draft picks to move up, they need the top pass rusher in the draft next year. No more O-linemen. You can get those guys cheap in the offseason without wasting 1st round picks on them. No more TE's, no more WR's (they're terrible at drafting those), no more RB's. Andre Carter is doing his job back there, as is Wilfolk. They need a top guy rushing from the other side however. They also need to trade for an established safety. Again, use the zillion picks they have. I think McCourty can turn it around. He has talent (unlike Arrington, Brown, or Adams - our secondary vs the Giants). Wilfork, Mayo, Carter, Spikes, and Chung can all make plays. The problem is there's too many holes. Draft the pass rusher and spend some bucks to get a quality guy, not a scrap heap one, for the #2 corner and one of the safety positions.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

I agree with you 100% Rover.

What you see is what you get with the defense this year. They AREN'T going to be much better than they are right now. Don't get me wrong, they have improved and actually surprised me yesterday. But it's not a championship caliber defense. And with the offense struggling they are on the field too much.

The offense has been getting progressively worse, notably the last 3 weeks. Why? Because opposing defenses realize that if you play tight coverage in the first 15 yards, you stand an excellent chance of stopping New England. The rushing game is surprisingly decent, but again, if you put 8, 9 guys in the box, it makes it difficult to run OR pass.

So with the defense not improving to the point of winning you games, and the offense struggling because the opposing D has figured out what to do, the ONLY option at this point is to improve the offense enough to give you a fighting chance. While adding Moss isn't a 100% sure way to improve the offense enough, what it does is immediately make the defense be more honest. This opens up the underneath passes again, and helps the running game. These two things move the chains and keep your defense on the sideline as much as possible. And Moss will catch his share of balls. No, he won't be 2007 Moss. But 2011 Moss has to be better than 2011 Ocho. He knows the offense, knows Brady, desperately wants to come back (IMO), and is anxious to prove to the league he still has talent.

I say call him up, tell him that he's wanted, but for minimum salary, and that he might only get 1 or 2 targets a game. If he grumbles or doesn't give 100% on every snap, let him know he'll be out on his *** so fast he won't know what hit him. Tell him all that up front, and see if he wants to come back to the place he realized he never wanted to leave. I bet he does.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

No thanks on Moss. It's the classic putting lipstick on a pig. There's a reason he was on three teams last year and nobody wants him.

Even if he contributed the tiniest little bit and the offense did just enough against good teams...this defense will choke when the chips are down. Until that changes, we won't win another SB. Yesterday was basically the exact same ending as the SB. It's frustrating that since that time, the defense has actually gotten worse.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Haynesworth is gone.

And they flexed the Colts game on 12/4 from prime-time to 1 p.m.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Can't argue with this move. If he had anything to contribute he would have shown it by now. Ocho should be next out the door and bring back Moss!
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

The difference between Ocho and Fat Albert:

Albert got a little money up front, but most of his contract gets paid next year. Releasing him saves the team lots of money.
Ocho got most of his up front. If you've already paid him, releasing him saves the team nothing. In fact, you'd likely be paying him to play for someone else. Unless Ocho becomes a huge problem and disrupts the team, I doubt he gets released before the offseason. It's more likely he is just inactive or rarely sees the field for the rest of the season.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

ScottK said:
The difference between Ocho and Fat Albert:

Albert got a little money up front, but most of his contract gets paid next year. Releasing him saves the team lots of money.
Ocho got most of his up front. If you've already paid him, releasing him saves the team nothing. In fact, you'd likely be paying him to play for someone else. Unless Ocho becomes a huge problem and disrupts the team, I doubt he gets released before the offseason. It's more likely he is just inactive or rarely sees the field for the rest of the season.
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Understand, but his contact is a sunk cost. Sick of seeing him run out there and going 0-fer the game in catches when he's being covered by the 3rd cornerback now. Put Edelman in there anyway. He's good with his hands (yuk yuk yuk).
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Safety Josh Barrett on IR. Really, really would like to know what the F Belichick was thinking when he released Sanders. Or even Meriweather in hindsight. The key to getting rid of a guy is do you have someone to take his place. In Haynesworth's case the answer is yes. For safety the answer is a resounding no, and it seemed even the average fan didn't think these guys could hold down that position. I'm rarely in favor of owners meddling with personnel decisions, but Kraft needs to ask Belichick how he plans on addressing this specific issue (the secondary) in the offseason. If the answer is "more of the same" than a director of personnel needs to be brought in IMHO.
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Rover said:
Safety Josh Barrett on IR. Really, really would like to know what the F Belichick was thinking when he released Sanders. Or even Meriweather in hindsight. The key to getting rid of a guy is do you have someone to take his place. In Haynesworth's case the answer is yes. For safety the answer is a resounding no, and it seemed even the average fan didn't think these guys could hold down that position. I'm rarely in favor of owners meddling with personnel decisions, but Kraft needs to ask Belichick how he plans on addressing this specific issue (the secondary) in the offseason. If the answer is "more of the same" than a director of personnel needs to be brought in IMHO.
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As PTI said last night(Kornheiser, I think),"Belichick appears to be losing his magic dust". Shanahan knew what he was doing when he cut Haynesworth and McNabb. Belichick seems to think he can take a reclamation project and make a solid player out of him.
 
Rover said:
... but Kraft needs to ask Belichick how he plans on addressing this specific issue (the secondary) in the offseason. If the answer is "more of the same" than a director of personnel needs to be brought in IMHO.
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krafty bob (i'll bet) is too busy looking for his 'christie brinkley' to keep him warm at night ;)
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

Chung and Spikes both out tonight. Their replacements are both making their first career starts. I can see how this is going to go
 
Re: The 2011 New England Patriots

NMU8405 said:
Chung and Spikes both out tonight. Their replacements are both making their first career starts. I can see how this is going to go
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Chances are good it wasn't going to go well with them
 
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