Real Football - The New England Patriots - Where Are The Studs?

Think this guy would have helped the Pats on Sunday?
Oh, what could have been.

Where Are The Studs?

Are we for sure the Jets beating the Pats was a huge upset?  Sure the Pats were 14-2.  Sure they beat the crap out of the Jets 45-3 just a few weeks earlier.  And sure they're the Pats.  But if you look at the New England roster, you're left with one nagging question about a team that's supposed to be that good - Where are the studs?

We don't even mean that as a criticism.  In fact, it's really a testament to both the coaching staff and the great Tom Brady that they could take a team with a distinct lack of playmakers and win that many games, score that many points and generally dominate the regular season. 

Compare the Pats roster to the Jets roster. The Jets have a really good offensive line and guys like Greene, Holmes, Edwards, Ellis, Scott, Harris, Revis, Cromartie who, despite their warts, create the types of individual mismatches that can tilt playoff games.  Who do the Pats have that do that?  Brady and Wilfork, of course, and we'd probably give you McCourty and Mayo. But who else? Merriweather? Woodhead? Branch? Hernadekowski? The line that's been exposed in big spots?  Even Welker is a complimentary guy but he's not a #1 receiver.  The Pats have a roster of incredible depth - lots of C's with a few A's and B's thrown in.  The Jets have a bunch of A's and B's, some C's and F's plus a few "incompletes" and shit.  Maybe over a long season, you could argue the balanced roster is better, but when when the playoffs come around and you don't have the individual players who can make a big play on their own, you have to be perfect to win.  Not an easy task.

Isn't That How They Roll?

And don't be fooled by the common perception that the Pats' Super Bowl winning teams were just a star-less bunch of grinders. Those teams were full of players like Brady, Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, Teddy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Richard Seymour, Willie McGinest, Rodney Harrison, Corey Dillon, Young Deion Branch, and Wilfork; the exact types of guys were talking about.  Their most dominant team of the run - the 18-1 team that lost to the Giants - had Welker and, of course, Randy Moss to go along with many of those guys.  Back then, the Pats used their magical ability to find veterans and other unheralded guys to compliment their studs as a huge competitive advantage.  They didn't do it without talent.

Gearing Up For The Next Run?

Obviously, those teams were special and this version is still very young but it seems to be an accepted fact that the Pats are just gearing up for one final run at trophies with The Hair.  That these young guys are just going to get older and become dominant players, worthy of their predecessors.  Maybe that's true but maybe it isn't.  While guys like McCourty, Merriweather and Mayo seem to be on their way, none of the other guys are can't miss prospects.  The talent just isn't overwhelming.

What Could Hve Been

For a team with such a great reputation for spotting talent, they haven't made it easy on themselves with lots of weird draft maneuvering and some just plain misses.  While they continue to be excellent at finding guys later in the draft or free agency (Green-Ellis, Woodhead, Gary Guyton, for example) but looking back at their draft picks since 2005, they've only found 8 established starters (Makins, Kaczur (on IR), Merriweather, Mayo, Chung, Vollmer, McCourty and Gronkowski).  The rest of the roster is made up of older vets (many of whom they drafted) and free agents they picked up here and there. 

We recognize how specious the "coulda had" argument is but its still fun and a team as good at identifying talent the Pats is held to a different standard.  Check out some of the guys selected near picks the Pats either made that didn't yield a starter or traded in the last 5 years, including the forfeited pick from Spygate (NEVER FORGET): LeSean McCoy, Mike Wallace, Brandon Flowers, Kenny Phillips, Matt Forte, Ray Rice, DeSean Jackson, Jon Beason, Jamaal Charles, Johnathan Joseph, Santonio Holmes, DeAngelo Williams, Nick Mangold, Greg Jennings (they traded the pick used on him to go up to get Chad Jackson), Maurice Jones-Drew, Elvis Dumerville and Brandon Marshall.  You'd think The Genius would have stumbled into a few of these guys, right?  Even one of them could have been huge.

Wheeling and Dealing

Even when they haven't quite whiffed, the Pats seem to have fallen in love with their maneuvering, valuing quantity over quantity.  Take the 2009 Draft, for example.  The day started with New England sitting at 23 but they out of the first round completely, trading picks that ended up being pro-bowlers, Michael Oeher (#23) and Clay Matthews (#26), before ultimately making their first pick (after trading back up) at 34.  The pick?  Mr. Fake Punt himself, Patrick Chung.  Chung is a good player but its got to drive Pats fans nuts that their team thought themselves out of Oeher and Matthews (not to mention Kenny Britt or Hakeem Nicks)  Worse yet, they always have so many picks that they probbaly could have still added guys like Vollmer and Edelman (and maybe even Chung) in the later rounds anyway.  Guess it's just all part of some mater plan that mere mortals like us can't appreciate.

Less Is More

As the Pats move forward and try to recreate the impossible, we think they'd be smart to focus less on quantity and more on quality.  If they're going to trade, why not move up to get their hands on some of the premium talent to compliment their depth and go back to using the ability to find undrafted guys as their great competitive advantage.