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Post by texs31 on Apr 24, 2017 14:57:51 GMT -5
Schefter reporting he's now a Patriot.
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Post by digit on Apr 24, 2017 15:00:54 GMT -5
Point is moot, he's a Patriot.
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Post by digit on Apr 24, 2017 15:05:35 GMT -5
And to address why they could decline it sooner, that's the practical reason for them yes, but the flip side is, by keeping it till the last minute, they force the Patriots to wait instead of doing other moves. (Which seems pretty weaksauce, considering the Patriots have much, much more cap room to play with.)
At least Adrian Peterson is headed to the Saints so he's no longer an option. If he ever was.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Apr 24, 2017 15:06:32 GMT -5
I think this is all just game play one way or the other. They had to know rather quickly if they were going to match. If they do they have taken time Patriots could have used before draft to look at signing players like Blount and AP. Not sure why they would be dumb to match, I would match it if I was them.
Edit: Nice, we keep getting good players from Bills.
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Post by texs31 on Apr 24, 2017 15:10:04 GMT -5
I agree UMass. In a different scenario (not this one) a team might have to make tough decisions if space is needed but that wasn't the issue. Gotta believe they knew right away (or pretty soon thereafter).
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Post by costpet on Apr 24, 2017 16:33:40 GMT -5
Looks like Blount is history. I'm surprised Bolden just got a new contract. They might pick one up in the draft. I don't see much coming from the draft. This team is all veterans. Maybe they get a few to stock away. They do have a lot of room to do that and late round rookies are cheap. They'll keep Jimmy and Butler, too. In other words, they are absolutely loaded this year. Nobody is catching them.
I don't see any real needs this year. I guess they could use a good TE, ILB, and maybe an OT for future use. The draft is for want-a-bees.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Apr 24, 2017 17:01:14 GMT -5
The Buffalo Bills- the official minor league football team of the New England Patriots lol.
(The team where good players develop before becoming even better role players)
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 24, 2017 17:37:09 GMT -5
Looks like Blount is history. I'm surprised Bolden just got a new contract. They might pick one up in the draft. I don't see much coming from the draft. This team is all veterans. Maybe they get a few to stock away. They do have a lot of room to do that and late round rookies are cheap. They'll keep Jimmy and Butler, too. In other words, they are absolutely loaded this year. Nobody is catching them. I don't see any real needs this year. I guess they could use a good TE, ILB, and maybe an OT for future use. The draft is for want-a-bees. Bolden isn't a running back on their internal depth chart... I mean he's like an emergency if we are really really in a bad spot he can play there |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Apr 24, 2017 17:53:56 GMT -5
Looks like Blount is history. I'm surprised Bolden just got a new contract. They might pick one up in the draft. I don't see much coming from the draft. This team is all veterans. Maybe they get a few to stock away. They do have a lot of room to do that and late round rookies are cheap. They'll keep Jimmy and Butler, too. In other words, they are absolutely loaded this year. Nobody is catching them. I don't see any real needs this year. I guess they could use a good TE, ILB, and maybe an OT for future use. The draft is for want-a-bees. No they don't have many needs, but they can really use depth at a bunch of positions still. TE, LB and OT for sure, but also DE currently the biggest need in my opinion, also Center and SS could use some more depth. I would really like to see them draft a DE, TE and LB, the rest you can debate how big of a need it is. Grissom is currently #4 on depth chart at DE, hence the big need. Gronk and Allen both are injury risks at TE. You have Hightower and Roberts at LB and not much else. Van Noy play was up and down last year. Just look at last year, we didn't have a ton of needs either but we had a ton of rookies make huge impacts. Don't discount the importance of the draft towards helping next years team. In football depth all the way to the practice squad is very important. |
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Post by digit on Apr 25, 2017 10:12:11 GMT -5
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 25, 2017 11:45:21 GMT -5
I read that it's a good one really puts things into perspective. They are the one franchise we can throw the traditional book out on and know the draft experts and their analysis doesn't apply to them. Of course it shouldn't be a surprise considering how far ahead of everyone else they've been for 16 years now.
It's easy to say "they have Brady it's easy". Well look at Green Bay with Rodgers and Indy with Manning and NO with Brees and all these other franchises with really good to great QBs. It's certainly easier and gives a huge leg up but to say it's just Brady is foolhardy.
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Post by costpet on Apr 25, 2017 13:26:36 GMT -5
The Pats currently have 65 players under contract. That means they have 25 slots open for draftees and free agents. Bill always seems to find a couple of gems there. I think this weekend will be fairly quiet, as he's made most of his moves already.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Apr 25, 2017 13:55:36 GMT -5
The Pats currently have 65 players under contract. That means they have 25 slots open for draftees and free agents. Bill always seems to find a couple of gems there. I think this weekend will be fairly quiet, as he's made most of his moves already. Not to mention undrafted free agents like Malcum Butler and players off the scrap heap like Dion Lewis. Bill usually can find anyone with talent. |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Apr 25, 2017 13:56:44 GMT -5
Overall they are great at drafting, the one thing that bugs me is that they reach for certain players that they have graded way higher than anyone else. They help that by always trading down, but man every draft has one, two or more guys way over drafted. Example look at the recent safeties in Wilson, Harmon, and Richards. They drafted them all way high, as all three were seen as late round or even undrafted players. Now Harmon has helped us and looks like a good pick. Wilson and Richards not so much. I'm willing to bet you could have traded down one or two rounds and drafted those players no problem. I buy around 5 draft magazines a year that have between 350 to 500 players ranked and they always seem to pick a guy in round 2 or 3 round that isn't in a single one of them. They draft a Grissom way high and then come back and made a great pick in Flowers because we were very lucky he fell in draft. If you liked those two players it just seems you should have taken Flowers first then Grissom. Flower was seen as a 2/3 round guy, Grissom was a 6/7 to undrafted guy. Last year taking Valentine in the third. It looks like a good pick, but I would say there was about a 100% chance he was there in the fourth round and like a 95% chance he was there in the 5th round. He was seen at best as a 7th round guy, most had him being undrafted.
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 25, 2017 15:14:52 GMT -5
It frustrates me at times too but they have a system and it works and it has nothing to do with what's in the draft magazines. There are guys with first round grades that they wouldn't even take in the 7th round.
That's how I make myself feel better anyways and the results are the results.
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Post by digit on Apr 25, 2017 15:24:05 GMT -5
The Pats currently have 65 players under contract. That means they have 25 slots open for draftees and free agents. Bill always seems to find a couple of gems there. I think this weekend will be fairly quiet, as he's made most of his moves already. Feels more like the calm before the storm... Willie McGinest talks about the draft here: www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000802418/article/patriots-nfl-draft-strategy-make-the-most-of-every-selection
A large part of what factors into assessing the NE Patriots draft, I think, is that Belichick simply follows his board, rather than other people's boards, and drives draftniks crazy, because of things like 'hidden yardage'.
If they cluster into a similar range, he trades into the range he feels he can still get one of those players. Otherwise, he just goes ahead and picks whatever is highest on his board, regardless of what others think. I believe when asked about this once, Belichick cited Jimmy Johnson in saying to just get the players you like.
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Post by digit on Apr 25, 2017 15:40:34 GMT -5
It frustrates me at times too but they have a system and it works and it has nothing to do with what's in the draft magazines. There are guys with first round grades that they wouldn't even take in the 7th round. That's how I make myself feel better anyways and the results are the results. There's something to be said about just -grabbing- the guy you actually like than spend time dillydallying trying to find a 'safe range' to trade down to in the middle of a draft and risking either losing valuable time you could be doing something else during the draft, or risk someone grabbing your player when you've traded down. The stupidity of wringing about trading down and such is that a) you have to identify the range you can get your player, b) you have to find a trade partner, and c) you have a ticking clock that's your enemy in playing out your draft. Great idea in theory, but seriously, you'd have to be working on such a trade for a while as part of a contigency in advance, without knowing exactly who's there on board when it's your turn to pick, and sometimes some trades don't go through because a player ISN'T there for the other team to trade into. If you have the conviction that's the player you want, you get him. Screw draftniks and trying to 'sort out the value of the pick'. Ultimately, in the end, a pick is a lottery ticket you get to cash in on a player, not currency, so you'd better grab your guy instead of being caught offguard with no pick because a trade you were working on fell apart. |
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 25, 2017 16:03:57 GMT -5
And we all know now from Lombardi the Pats don't even talk about round when grading players.
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Post by digit on Apr 25, 2017 16:45:43 GMT -5
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Apr 25, 2017 20:37:31 GMT -5
They are not losing valuable timing working on trades. By all accounts that's all they do on draft days. There is nothing more valuable than nailing the draft. If your just going by your board and not looking at if it's good value you're not maximizing your draft capital. That's exactly what the draft experts are saying and they are right 100%.
You can't argue that a lot of our recent high draft bust have been guys that the Patriots waaay over drafted. Guys that went 4-5 rounds higher than they were expected to go. Say what you want about draft experts but the nail the majority of players within a couple of rounds. I think a lot of teams either agree with them or they influence other teams boards. Now on the flip side how many guys have they hit big on when drafting them 4-5 rounds early?
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 26, 2017 6:35:13 GMT -5
You're not wrong, in theory it would be better to wait a couple rounds to draft a guy if you could but you're assuming the Patriots are missing out on better players that that want. Maybe the next two players on their board 2 years ago were Grissom then Flowers. Why would they wait to draft someone lower?
By recent reports the Patriots have 75 draft-able players on their board. 75 is a small number compared to other teams and especially compared to the draft mags.
I'm sure they try to think about when they can get a guy but it seems they are way more concerned about just getting the guys. If you think about that number that's only two and a half rounds of players they think are draft worthy and a lot of those players are later round grades in the magazines. What does this mean? It means you are going to have a lot of perceived overdrafts.
I hope Bill is simultaneously working on his tell all book as he's coaching so he can coach until he's really old then release the book.
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Post by texs31 on Apr 26, 2017 7:19:01 GMT -5
Just one year, can't they let the former Orlando Magic GM into their draft room? That board would fascinate me.
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Post by digit on Apr 26, 2017 8:16:17 GMT -5
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Post by texs31 on Apr 26, 2017 8:55:32 GMT -5
Not Pats related but the day before the draft begins (arguably your biggest non-game related content) is a strange time for ESPN to announce layoffs no?
Ed Werder announced on Twitter that he's one of the on-air cuts.
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Post by rjp313jr on Apr 26, 2017 10:10:55 GMT -5
Not Pats related but the day before the draft begins (arguably your biggest non-game related content) is a strange time for ESPN to announce layoffs no? Ed Werder announced on Twitter that he's one of the on-air cuts. Those layoffs have been known for a while tho. Or at least speculated on. Plus, what difference does it make when a networks lays people off? Does it really affect viewership? I avoid ESPN as much as possible because I think they are overall very bad at what they do now and they think way too highly of themselves and they've turned me off. I don't watch sports to get your extremely slanted and biased political views. I stopped watched sports center long before they got bad with the political stuff tho because the show is awful. Back in the early to mid 90s when Keith Olberman, Robin Roberts, Kenny Mane, etc hosted Sports Center it was funny and good. Then it started to get over the top and forced "funny" with guys like Stuart Scott. He was almost unwatchable (god rest his soul. Great guy but an annoying host. Then HD happened and he was really unwatchable. The problem is they had these great hosts that were funny just being themselves and they tried to replicate that with every host thereafter. Ok I could go on but that's already too much of an anti-ESPN rant. If they didn't have Mike Reiss and good Celtics reporters, I'm not sure I would visit their site on purpose. |
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