Julius Peppers has signed with the Chicago Bears and Anquan Boldin has been traded to the Baltimore Ravens. Boldin subsequently signed a four-year deal with the Ravens.
Two big-time free agents are off the market and the Patriots are still looking for a 3rd receiver and a defensive lineman. The Ravens traded a 3rd and 4th round draft pick in this year's draft to land Boldin. This kills me. The Patriots could have easily put together a better package then that. The Pats are stacked with early round picks and did not offer them to Arizona to try and land the receiver. Somewhere along the way the Patriots lost their ability to land the big free agent. Just a few years ago we were gloating with the acquisitions of Rodney Harrison, Roosevelt Colvin, Randy Moss, Adalius Thomas, and Cory Dillon. Now the Patriots seem clueless at how to the fill holes that they desperately need to make themselves Super Bowl contenders again.
I suppose we can wait for April's draft and hope they land a stud. But the Patriots draft records since 2006 has been dreadful. Awful even. Poor scouting and bad selections is the biggest reason why New England had an early exit from the playoffs this season.
3 comments:
I think you're overreacting. We always seem to adopt this Red Sox mentality over our other teams: drooling over every free agent that may come our way. I think the patriots have more "holes" that you are admitting to. I think they are going to really do their homework this year and draft as many quality players as possible. Sure they could have shelled out more, but with the salary cap issues next year, who knows, they could be making the right move. And besides, think about how many needy NFL teams (like the bears) who need some of these star players EVEN MORE! The Patriots need to fill as many holes as possible with non-star players if they have any shot in the next few years. And the only way to do that is in a draft with lots of first round players going into the second round. It is not time to panic, they have done really well historically in the later rounds of the draft. See how they do in the draft - If they do well, we may have 4 really solid players next year in positions that have been lacking...
Anonymous Ross
As head football writer of this blog, I agree with Anonymous Ross to an extent. As you have read in previous blogs, I'm not as concerned about the defense as some other Pats fans. As Ive said before, this is an offensive league and nobody has an elite defense anymore. The Superbowl was a game between the two best offenses in the NFL as evidence. And besides, the young talent that the Patriots have on this team is mostly on the defensive side of the ball with Meriweather, Butler, Meyo, etc and they should improve in the coming years. In my opinion, the offensive skill positions are where the Patriots should be looking to improve on if they want to get better quicker. While on paper, the offense didnt look that bad last season, but anyone watching could see that they were out of sync most games and lacked consistency despite having virtually the same offensive roster as the 2007 season. Teams learned quickly that all they had to do was double Moss and Brady could only throw to Welker as the Patriots had no other options other than those two. I wasn't high on bringing in Boldin. Hes a good receiver, but extremely injury prone. Maybe Brandon Marshall? I think they need to take a chance on a some RBs and WRs in the draft. I know Belichick is probably still feeling burned by Maroney and Chad Jackson, so hes nervous about doing that. But other teams have been hitting it big on them in the drafts, there is no reason the Patriots cant have that success as well. A great Patriots offense hides a lot of weaknesses in other areas. Thats why in my opinion it is the most important area of the team to focus on this off season.
If you are going to appoint yourself as head football writer for the blog then why don't you actually post something about the Patriots?
Don't get mad, its a valid question.
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