Patriots 2024 Offseason Thread

I guess so. How many teams don't have a GM? What's to be gained by not announcing you trust your guys to lead the franchise and saying you'll continue to explore external options? Yes, the Rooney rule. That could have been done prior. What happens if Matt Groh and Elliott Wolf are completely split on Drake Maye/Jayden Daniels? Jerrod Mayo is going to make that decision? This seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

But maybe Kraft has the right idea in dragging out a GM search and possibly maybe keeping it in-house or maybe possibly hiring externally and going with the collective opinions of those 3 guys when they need a QB, they have the 3rd pick and I think the most cap space available in football. I don't love the approach, but maybe it works out. I'm just arguing if Kraft trusts these guys, then why not just say they're the guys? I think Kraft is giving them a chance, but uncertain and this is a very bad off-season to be uncertain.

Damn I thought I was bad

On a happier note, here's a short Jim Nagy (Senior Bowl) clip on a Day Two QB:

At start of 22-23 year many analysts had him as a top 10 prospect. I didn't see it. But then he had two surgeries and seemed to lose his dynamism. And then there was some alleged bad behavior at LSU. By the end of the draft cycle no one wanted to touch him. That seemed a bit harsh for a guy who less than a year before had been top 10 ranked. Using a 6th on him seemed like a reasonable gamble. It probably would not work out, but it was possible. It didn't work out. Move on.

Not the brightest bulb, using the same credit card on both a fake account and an account tied to his real name… not to mention using his mother’s credit card on the fake account.

First. I'm not wedded to AV or wAV. Is there a better objective stat that everyone agrees on? Just saying a guy is good or bad is not objective and its difficult to compare across teams. I like PFF but a lot of people hate that. I used All Pro appearances a few months ago and that got a negative reception. AV does seem to get the big stuff right. You look at the top 10 of all time and it looks reasonable. www.pro-football-reference.com/leaders/av_career.htm AV does seem to weight playing time a bit heavy. wAV seems to focus a bit more on peak value www.pro-football-reference.com/leaders/career_av_career.htm If anyone has a better stat I am open to it.

Second. There are few different questions.
(1) how much draft capital did you have. That is what I tried to address with sum(JJval).
(2) how well did you draft given the draft capital you had. Thats what I tried to address with sum(wAV)/sum(JJval)
(3) how much total talent did you bring in through the draft - which I tried to address with sum(wAV).
Breaking it into pieces clarifies what is going on. At least to me it does.
2013-2016 the Pats did not have much draft capital (relative to other teams) but (relative to other teams) they used that capital very well. So despite the lack of draft capital they were still able to bring in talent.
2017-2023 the Pats did not have a lot of draft capital (relative to other teams), and given that capital their drafting was just average (relative to other teams), which resulted in poor talent acquisition through the draft (relative to other teams).

I don't include UDFAs because that is a different question. Have the Pats done a good job at signing UDFAs? Just picking two that the Pats hit on doesn't tell me much. How have other teams done relative to the Pats? Even trying to construct the universe of UDFAs is difficult. You could try to construct a list of UDFA signings from the lists which come out just after each draft, but that won't get everyone. I found a few lists of all-time great UDFAs (Adam Vinatieri is the sole Pat rep) but that goes way back.

Also I should emphasize again that if you are evaluating drafting ability given draft capital by some sort of ratio of Value/Capital that will give excess weight to older draftees. Christian Gonzalez has only had one year to accumulate Value whereas Joe Thuney has had eight years. I geuss you could scale every player to four years or maybe just compare class by class and see where the Pats fall on average.

There's lots of ways to grade players and drafts depending how much work you want to put in. Pro Football Refrence is just probably the easiest way. I've always looked at draft as impactful starters, starters, and backups. That one you didn't seem to like looked at expected outcome and who did better or worse.

If you are 29th in draft capital and 17th in talent adjusted for draft capital you aren't average drafting. That's saying you got average talent out of crap draft capital. That's saying you did a very good job. You'd only be average if you had average draft capital and got average results.

When comparing teams you have to adjust the draft capital, the raw number is meaningless. Using it is cherry picking stats. I shouldn't have to explain why that is.

The draft is about bringing in cheap cost controlled talent. A large part of that is undrafted free agents. The best value in the entire draft is the undrafted guys because they cost you no picks, just money. I have zero doubt Bill was one of the best at this. Every teams undrafted lists are posted each year. Yeah it's going to be work, comparing every teams draft/rookies over a decade is going to be a lot of work. It's also going to tell you a ton about how good your GM is at grading talent. The fact the Patriots under Bill with a stacked roster for years could add so much high level talent with undrafted guys is unreal, compared to teams with worst talent level in the league. Nevermind he did it at premium positions like CB and WR.

Sure a general rule of thumb is you shouldn't be grading draft classes till after year 4 and the longer the better. Example Mac Jones after year one, versus year 2 and 3. Barmore just had his big breakout in year 3, still is he like Uche or does he just keep getting better? Look at Jennings, mini breakout in year 3 and a full breakout in year 4, you would have called him a bust after the first two years. Now he's a guy we should resign.

I'll add in things that make Bill look much better also, he didn't want Mac Jones. He was talked into taking him because they needed a QB. He wanted to move on in year 2 and take Will Levis, Kraft didn't want it. Kraft believed the media crap that it was all Matt Patricia and forced O'Brian on Bill thinking that's all Mac needed. The result is the worst Patriot year since Bill got here. Mac tanked, Levis looked darn good and has way more physical abilities than Mac Jones does.

Okay, something I just thought of. Guess who was Marvin Harrison Seniors' QB his first two years in the league? That would of course be James Joseph Harbaugh, who unfortunately got ousted by Peyton Manning who then jump-started MHS's HOF career.

Do we think there's any chance Jim Harbaugh would want to jump Arizona to get MHJ, and are we okay moving down to 5? Probably then AZ would trade down a few to a team who likes the leftover QB. We could get our favorite OL, move up from #34 for the favorite of McCarthy/Nix/Penix, and... figure out WR somehow. Not really a scenario I'd mentally visited. (sorry if this was obvious to everyone else...)

I still wouldn't do it because I feel like Top 5 Pick OT has been a similar crapshoot to Top 5 Pick QB so not sure you lower your risk that much and you do lower your ceiling. WR has been a smidge less crap-shooty lately and the free agency prices and supply have been brutal.

So the New Guy is just going to hire people he already knows & has worked with before?

Yes there are lists of UDFAs put out after each draft but they don't nearly comprise all of the UDFAs. And sometimes its not even really clear what the difference between a UDFA and a FA is.

For example, soon after last year's draft the Pats signed:
Malik Cunningham, Johnny Lumpkin, Jourdan Heilig, and Ed Lee in minicamp
www.pff.com/news/nfl-2023-udfa-tracker-undrafted-free-agent-signings-all-32-teams#NE
www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-udfa-tracker-2023/

However, if you look at rookie undrafted players who last year were rostered at some time by the Pats, that was:
LaMichael Pettway, Jeremiah Pharms, Nathan Rourke, Azizi Hearn, TJ Luther, and Tyrone Wheatley
going through all transactions related to these players
Rourke was initially signed by the Jags and then signed off waivers by the Pats
I think Wheatley was signed by the Bears, signed by the Raiders off waivers, signed by the Browns off waivers, and traded to the Pats
The others, so far as I can tell, signed their first NFL contract with the Pats

So the list of UDFAs contains none of the undrafted rookies who were rostered by the Pats last year, and none of the UDFAs on the list were rostered by the Pats.

Looking backward here are the rookie undrafted players who were rostered by the Pats
2023 LaMichael Pettway, Jeremiah Pharms, Nathan Rourke, Azizi Hearn, TJ Luther, and Tyrone Wheatley
2022 Tucker Addington, DeMarcus Mitchell, Quandre Mosely, Bill Murray, Brendan Schooler, Scotty Washington, Raleigh Webb
2021 DeAngelo Hall
2020 Rashod Berry, Myles Bryant, Terez Hall, JJ Taylor, Nick Thurmon, Kristian Wilkerson, Isiah Zuber
2019 Jakob Johnson, Jacobi Meyers, Gunner Olszewski
2018 Keionte Davis, JC Jackson, Riley McCarron,
2017 Adam Butler, Cole Croston, Jacob Hollister, Harvey Langhi, Eric Lee, Bernard Reedy
2016 DJ Foster, Woodrow Hamilton, Jonathan Jones, Matt Lengel
2015 David Andrews, Justin Coleman, Chris Harper, Brandon King
2014 Malcolm Butler, Jordan Devey, Jonas Gray, Deoantae Skinner, Casey Walker,
2013 Ryan Allen, Chris Barker, Ja'Gared Davis, Kannoris Davis, Justin Green, Josh Kline, Zach Sudfeld, Kembrell Thompkins, Joe Vellano, Cierra Wood

some of these players may have originally signed with other teams, and this is obviously not all of the players who the Pats signed as UDFAs.

Is this good? I have no idea. You would have to do the same for every team and then go through the lists to remove players who were allocated to the wrong team (like Rourke or Wheatley).

Spencer Rattler is an interesting QB prospect and a tough projection. The talent is clear as day, it's the results that aren't. His highlight tape is as good as any QB in the draft. A true Freshman Caleb Williams greatly outplayed him in his 3rd year at Oklahoma though, after his red shirt freshman year had talk of being the 1st pick in the draft. His worst games this year were against the best defenses, put wow his OL sucked. He'd actually love our OL as it's an improvement. He's like a more talented gun slinging Purdy, that makes more mistakes and doesn't do some of the little things. 

I'm not even considering it unless it's some massive overpay. True value would be Chargers 2nd round pick, maybe a little bit more. I'd want double that or more. Right now we get one of top two QBs or top WR in a long time, heck seem Daniels to Washington in Mocks lately, so I'm not looking to trade down. I'd rather trade up if we can get Caleb Williams, but I'm not going crazy 2025 1st and 2026 2nd is the most I'd offer.

I do understand the idea though, don't take LT in first, you basically need to take one in 2nd, they already all going high in mocks. We just have so many needs. We need a good free agency to start knocking down the needs on offense.

I'm worried with Mayo having much more power than a regular coach and what that could mean. If he's like Bill he might go OT, build up running game to help the D. Why I wanted an offensive coach. I'm a Notre Dame Homer, Joe Alt is a very good LT, I have big questions if he actually worth a top 5 pick.