Sony Michel to Rams

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
Do they move off from Brady before 2019 and still win the SB? It's impossible to answer. But they won. In huge part to Sony and TB. I'll take it. Man we are fucking spoiled.
Seriously.

Draft picks, like any form of player acquisition, are a means to an end. The goal isn't to be the team that drafts the best. The goal is to win the Super Bowl. You draft a guy (or trade, sign, etc.) in the hopes that they can be a contributor on a championship winning team.

At some point, the results of what actually happened need to take precedence over any fixation with efficiency and/or optimal paths.
 

PC Drunken Friar

Member
SoSH Member
Sep 12, 2003
14,542
South Boston
Seriously.

Draft picks, like any form of player acquisition, are a means to an end. The goal isn't to be the team that drafts the best. The goal is to win the Super Bowl. You draft a guy (or trade, sign, etc.) in the hopes that they can be a contributor on a championship winning team.

At some point, the results of what actually happened need to take precedence over any fixation with efficiency and/or optimal paths.
Patriot Reign, written by Michael Holley, addresses this. BB doesn't judge his scouts on guys they dismissed that panned out for other teams or for players that didn't pan out that they recommended. He only considers players that the Patriots drafted, based on the scout's recommendation. Who knows how different players would have performed in their system. The only thing that matters is how much those players drafted contribute to winning.
 

Ralphwiggum

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 27, 2012
9,827
Needham, MA
Seriously.

Draft picks, like any form of player acquisition, are a means to an end. The goal isn't to be the team that drafts the best. The goal is to win the Super Bowl. You draft a guy (or trade, sign, etc.) in the hopes that they can be a contributor on a championship winning team.

At some point, the results of what actually happened need to take precedence over any fixation with efficiency and/or optimal paths.
This is pretty close to saying winning a championship means you can't go back and look at mistakes you may have made along the way in roster construction. I'm pretty sure BB would not subscribe to that philosophy. Continuous improvement should be the goal, whether they win a ring in a particular year or not.

Reasonable minds can differ as to whether drafting Sony in the first round was a mistake or not. The fact that he contributed in a huge way in the playoffs to a SB winning team is a good argument drafting him wasn't a mistake, but it isn't determinative.

Edit: grammar

Edit 2: People were shitting on Bethel Johnson in another thread and I pointed out that he had three massive plays in the 2003 season: the two kickoff returns in the Colts games (McGinest goal line stand game) that put the AFCCG in Foxboro that year instead of Indy, and the TD against the Titans in the playoff freezing cold game. Do they win that year without those three plays? Impossible to know. I have fond memories of those Bethel plays just as I do Sony's play in the playoffs two years ago, but that doesn't mean the Pats didn't make a mistake in drafting both guys where they did.
 
Last edited:

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
Patriot Reign, written by Michael Holley, addresses this. BB doesn't judge his scouts on guys they dismissed that panned out for other teams or for players that didn't pan out that they recommended. He only considers players that the Patriots drafted, based on the scout's recommendation. Who knows how different players would have performed in their system. The only thing that matters is how much those players drafted contribute to winning.
Exactly.

Discussing whether or not Sony Michel was the best possible pick might be a useful exercise, but that's asking a different question then whether or not Sony was a good use of the pick. To answer the latter question, you have to judge the guy based on what he actually did, not what some other player may have hypothetically done if they were given those opportunities instead. I find it hard to argue with what they got out of Sony, all things considered. Getting a 4th and a 5th back for him helps too.
 

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
This is pretty close to saying winning a championship means you can't go back and look at mistakes you may have made along the way in roster construction. I'm pretty sure BB would not subscribe to that philosophy. Continuous improvement should be the goal, whether they win a ring in a particular given year or not.

Reasonable minds can differ as to whether drafting Sony in the first round was a mistake or not. The fact that he contributed in a huge way in the playoffs to a SB winning team is a good argument drafting him wasn't a mistake, but it isn't determinative.
That's not really what I'm saying, but I can see how the logic reads like that. It's not like I'm trying to justify a failed #1 pick by saying he was helpful in meetings, or something along those lines. Sony was a key contributor on offense. He did what he was drafted to do, ultimately. Sucks that he couldn't stay healthy the next couple seasons, but he did what he was drafted to do in his first season.
 

Erik Hanson's Hook

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 20, 2013
1,079
If you choose to be miserable, that's on you buddy.
I don't think rodderick was coming of as miserable, or "miserly"...he offered a measured response to something that actually is quoted ad nauseam ("Couldn't have done it without Sony") and actually created a pretty interesting conversation. You're the one that flew off the handle and turned it personal.
 

Soxy

Member
SoSH Member
Dec 1, 2008
6,095
I don't think rodderick was coming of as miserable, or "miserly"...he offered a measured response to something that actually is quoted ad nauseam ("Couldn't have done it without Sony") and actually created a pretty interesting conversation. You're the one that flew off the handle and turned it personal.
Cool. I find the argument that anyone could have done the same thing that Sony did to be quoted ad nauseam and, yes, miserly. That's not a judgment on any one person. It's a judgment on the argument.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
SoSH Member
Oct 1, 2015
24,386
There are clearly other RBs better than Sony - even in 2018. But the fact is, the Pats won with Sony being GREAT during that run, and there's nothing that anyone can do to take that away. We can hypothesize about what other RBs *would* have done, but Sony DID it. Maybe we can't say that "the Patriots wouldn't have won the SB without Sony Michel", but we CAN say that "the Patriots won the SB with Sony Michel playing a HUGE role during the entire playoff run".

He's a deserving champion.
 

Dogman

Yukon Cornelius
Moderator
SoSH Member
Mar 19, 2004
15,182
Missoula, MT
Meh. He's unvaccinated.
No context to this post. Joke? Not amused.

There is a line already drawn. That line is nothing V&N outside of V&N. Period. This post can easily be construed a certain way. This board will not have it that way outside V&N.

There is a thread in V&N to discuss athletes. This post doesn't even qualify there.

Is the board unclear about this in any way?