• I'm getting a little tired of New England saving for a rainy day. A couple of disclaimers: No one works the draft and manages the draft like Bill Belichick. And a year ago, I was screaming for the Patriots to make a big deal and trade for Anquan Boldin. They scored 32 points a game without Boldin; so much for my sense of urgency at receiver. But with their treasure trove of draft choices -- three in the top 33 when no other team had more than one, and five in the top 75 -- they had to upgrade a deficient pass-rush, and didn't do it. (Great stat from John Clayton of ESPN: When New England sent five rushers or more last season, opposing quarterbacks had a rating of 103.2. That was third-worst in the league. I'm amazed any team was worse than that, really. That's just awful. And New England allowed a 47-percent third-down conversion rate, which is not a winning defensive number. Not close.) The Patriots got cute. They set themselves up for the future, when they'll control the 2012 draft again with two first-round picks and two second-rounders. This is a draft New England needed to add pass-rush pieces, not just one. And they got none. They passed on two good rush prospects -- Pitt's Jabaal Sheard and Arizona's Brooks Reed, who went 37 and 42 to Cleveland and Houston, respectively. New England got a good tackle at 17, Nate Solder, and you can't knock them for dealing the 28th pick to New Orleans for the Saints' first-rounder next year plus the 56th pick in this draft, which they used on Cal running back Shane Vereen. But at 33, with Sheard and Reed in play, Belichick took cornerback Ras-I Dowling of Virginia, continuing a borderline myopic trend with corners. Check out the recent activity with New England and cornerbacks in the draft and free agency: Draft Corner picked Overall pick Free-agent signed 2011 Ras-I Dowling 33 N/A 2010 Devin McCourty 27 N/A 2009 Darius Butler 41 Leigh Bodden (Cleve.) 2008 Terrence Wheatley 62 N/A New England's leading outside pass-rusher last year, Tully Banta-Cain, had five sacks last year. Not good enough.
The Patriots are gay. You would think that they would want to beef up on the inside seeing as two of their division rivals love to pound the ball on the ground. Seems like they are bulking up at corner in order to defeat Peyton and Roethlisberger.
I'm guessing BB may play the FA game, even though there aren't many OLBs out there that can rush and rush well. Also, they have young blood on their DL. Maybe he's going to count on them to make the OLBs look good. Maybe he sees Ninkovich as someone who is going to improve into a decent enough pressure player. Pace is the best OLB out of the two teams.
I could see that. He could embrace the youth movement, give up a couple of those picks, and throw money at Tamba Hali or Lamarr Woodley. It's not the Belichick way, but he's got the picks to do it.
That's what I've been thinking as well. He's got the Saints' first rounder to trade for a top OLB that will make that defense SB caliber. Thankfully Brady is getting older, but as we've seen with Cassel, the Pats won't be bad until BB leaves.
I'm not going to lie and say that their neglect of this obvious need didn't piss me off a bit at first. But, I guess you could argue that having two shutdown corners allows you to blitz more often and get to the qb easier just as much as having an elite passrusher. If they actually think Dowling will develop into McCourty II I guess I can see the logic, and maybe they do have some faith in Warren coming back healthy along with a projected improvement in Cunningham and Brace. Maybe they felt that Von Miller was the only sure thing and that trading up would cost too much, or maybe they plan on using all the cap space/ draft picks to acquire other help for the front 7. I'm sick of saying maybe this much though, clearly they miss Seymour, Vrabel, and McGinest a ton and clearly they not filled in the gaps at one of those spots nevermind all of them. Until they can get back that meanstreak on defense (even Muhammad Wilkerson would have been a step in the right direction instead of trading down again) I'm worried they're going to keep being regular season juggernaut frauds. Fuck you, you're the drunk one.
