PatsPropaganda

An Independent Patriots Blog

Patriots getting better players is a good start – Sports – The Boston Globe

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Patriots getting better players is a good start – Sports – The Boston Globe

I rarely link to anything Christopher Gasper writes, but today you get a special surprise because today’s turd got me fired up.

The Patriots lost to the more talented team the last three seasons?

I don’t agree on that one. 2011 – Eli made pin point throws on the final drive to win the game. Were the Giants really more talented? That’s a stretch and definitely not true if Rob Gronkowski was healthy.

Same thing with last year and the Ravens, and again, especially not if Rob Gronkowski was healthy. Match the 2012 Pats with the 2012 Ravens man-for-man and I’d take the Patriots.

Talent doesn’t ensure that your players play better on any given Sunday.

And are we even going to talk about the Pats’ lack of talent in the playoffs this year? Really? Gasper says he gets it. I don’t think he does.

It wasn’t “Belichick’s choice to play with three rookie wide receivers”. In fact his choice was to play with Gronkowski, Hernandez, Amendola and Edelman and maybe one rookie wide receiver playing a big role, i.e. Aaron Dobson. You know, the second-round pick people like Gasper have been demanding Belichick pick for however many seasons.

There’s no question, the Pats were not in an optimum position this season due to poor personnel development and acquisitions at wide receiver. But hey, despite this “three rookie wide receiver” offense, they were still a pretty good offense this year by the end weren’t they? It wasn’t their best performance against the Broncos for sure, but they fought with what they had and I don’t think anyone had any problems with the offense after they demolished the Steelers and Ravens among others.

So where is all this “talent” that Belichick is passing over? Because that sounds more like selling out your cap and draft picks to make splashy moves. Avoiding that stuff is what has kept the Pats competitive even when they are DESTROYED by injuries like they were this year.

This just goes back to stupid football cliches. Trade up in the draft! Sign Mike Wallace to a monster deal! Those are the answers!

They’re not.

Would there be an article like this when the Pats won the Super Bowl in 2001 with mostly castoffs and unknowns? No, because expectations are different now.

Records must be set. Four losses is AT MOST what the Pats are allowed in a season, or else BURN BELICHICK, BURN!

This is why I avoid this oversimplified post-season articles trying to describe why the Pats didn’t win their last two games. And that’s really what it comes down to. They couldn’t beat teams that had more talent after five months of football but they sure beat PLENTY of teams this year that did have more talent after all their injuries. 

How about those uber-talentd Broncos, Ravens and Saints?

Injuries aren’t excuses but they derail a great chunk of teams every season. The Belichick team-building approach keeps them competitive regardless. And when they have a mostly-healthy year like 2007, they dominate.

But even that much talent like they had in 2007 doesn’t assure a Super Bowl win.

Keep on doing it your way, Coach BB. The “sell out for talent” approach is best left to those who will never actually have to build  a team, and if they did they’d be fired after their big piece of talent got hurt or underperformed.

The NFL Draft: Here We Go Again

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I think I’ll start my draft research today. I’ve gotten plenty of questions about specific prospects but I don’t pay any attention to college football or the draft until now, when the Pats’ season is over.

I find that three-plus months is more than enough time for the goat rodeo that goes on each spring. There are plenty of draftniks out there that study far more film than I do and they do it year-round. 

I don’t claim to be an expert at scouting, I only claim to understand the kind of players that fit the Patriots scheme and the kind of players that they look for. If you want to see how I’ve done in each of the last three seasons with my Patriots draft board, you can find out here: 2011, 2012, 2013.

Draft analysis has almost become a competitive sport at this point, but I just try to do it for myself for fun.  People get so attached to prospects, angered at random mock drafts, or into vehement arguments regarding who will be drafted where. At the end of the draft, almost everyone is 90% wrong about everything.

Here’s a secret – even the NFL teams don’t really know what they’re doing, much less the countless amateur draftniks out there. Again, I don’t want to take away from all the hard work that many out there do, but trying to predict the completely unpredictable and then getting mad about those who disagree is silly.

A huge percentage of these prospects we spend so much time debating will be out of the NFL in a matter of years, if not months. And that one player you love for the Patriots? Yeah, they’re probably not going to draft him.

So let’s just try to have fun with it. My favorite part of the draft is when it’s over and the speculation is done. The Pats will have a handful of rookies and then we can dive into the real analysis.

I’ll be focusing on free agency in most of the posts here in the coming weeks, while slowly crafting my big board. “Needs” at this point are pointless in relation to the draft. The Pats will fill every hole they have in free agency so they’re free to take the best player available in the draft.

So our focus will remain mostly on free agency for now but the time has come once again to hit the draft pipe… 

2014 Patriots Salary Cap Picture – 1/22/2014 Update :Patriots Salary Cap

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2014 Patriots Salary Cap Picture – 1/22/2014 Update :Patriots Salary Cap

I try to talk about salary cap, but I’m nowhere near to the expert that Miguel at PatsFans.com is. He’s been keeping track of the Pats’ cap for long before anyone else was ever into this kind of thing and now he’s writing for PatsFans we can expect more great analysis like the update linked above. Here’s the gist of it…

As you can see from above, the Pats could create more than $21 million in additional cap room if they chose to do so. The Pats could create more than $7.5 million in additional cap room WITHOUT releasing a single player. That is, the $21 million and the $7.5 million figures are in addition to the $6.16 million in cap space that I believe that the Pats will have before redoing the deals of the players already signed for the 2014 season, releasing any signed players, or signing any UFAs.

An offseason plan for the Patriots – Sports – The Boston Globe

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An offseason plan for the Patriots – Sports – The Boston Globe

I like Arthur Jones and Randy Starks, those are the kind of players the Pats’ really need, especially as Wilfork/Kelly insurance. Not sure how realistic Gonzalez is, but they need to add at least two tight ends and should take the best guys they can get. Bringing Mulligan and Hooman back would at least give a safe baseline, but they need another threat.

Not sure how they can possibly afford to do all this if they Franchise Talib at $11million. They’re below $5 million in space now with McCourty’s escalators for playing time. They can open up some space, but that’s a ridiculous number on Talib.

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