I’ve been meaning to post on the whole “Patriots getting too young” angle, so I was excited to see Ian Rapoport asked BB what he thought about it. Tedy Bruschi has mentioned the “too young” factor a couple times this off-season, which is kinda funny coming from one of the guys who was at the heart of the team when everyone said we were “too old”.
But it made me wonder, are the Pats really too young? Jerod Mayo and Vince Wilfork are the leaders of the defense and they’re entering/in their primes respectfully. Granted there aren’t many guys over their 30s, but it was just a few years ago when every impact player on our defense was.
There’s certainly an element of having a good mix of young and old on your team, but when I look at the Patriots I see a talented team that definitely skews on the younger side but not to an extent that I would call it a detriment.
The fact is that the majority of these young guys, especially on the defensive side are going to be playing together for a CBA-willing long time. It won’t be long before they’re all in their primes and well versed in the Patriots defensive system. That will be when we can expect a championship level of performance out of them.
I don’t see the practicality of bringing in older veterans just to have a veteran presence. It comes down to who are the best football players. We weren’t talking about replacing Bruschi, Vrabel, Harrison, McGinest just because they were on “the wrong side” of 30. It came down to replacing them when they could no longer get the job done.
The way I look at it is the younger we are, the longer we’ll dominate!
Here was BB’s take to Rapoport:
“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t really think we’re there,” Belichick told me. “I think we still gotta try to bring good, young players onto the team. There are certain positions that I wouldn’t say we’re young at. There’s others that we have some youth, but competition at those positions, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, either. Last year you know we drafted a kid like OL Ted Larsen, and he didn’t make our team but then he went and started for Tampa. So, there isn’t room for everybody.”
“At the same time, you can have a good young player like a Dane Fletcher or (Brandon) Deaderick or (Myron) Pryor the previous year, (Julian) Edelman, guys that you get even at the end of the draft. Brian Hoyer, who wasn’t drafted who can still come in and help your team,” Belichick said. “I’m glad we have those guys. I’m glad we’re not sitting there saying, ‘Well, we’re trying to find somebody to fill those spots now.’ We already have that. So, we got a punt returner, got a couple guys who can play in the kicking game. We’re young at linebacker, but we’re good at linebacker. So…”