2023 Pats: Offseason
- Thread starter BaseballJones
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Well, DHarris has 462 yards last year, Agholor has 362, Jonnu had 245, & Wynn/Cannon were awful. So the only significant offensive loss is Jakobi who had 804 yards & as much as I liked him, he isn't really a big difference maker.
JuJu/JRob/Gesicki/Reiff/Anderson should be able to be a small to moderate improvement over that. Plus obviously the Patricia to BOB projected bump.
Agree there is no external improvement to the defense, but lots of continuity & the "not far" I was referring to was a couple competent DBs, maybe a WR & a punter.
Special teams should be improved over their punting/kick off situation last year, & they get Davis back healthy + Board so that unit should be improved as well.
Plus a whole slate of draft picks.
I think they improved at WR and TE, slight downgrade at RB, DB is moderately weaker (but obviously they aren't done there), they don't have a punter, but given how bad last year was, can't see a downgrade as likely, Hoyer is nothing. Question is where you come down on OT. I'd say that's an upgrade, I think Anderson is a clear upgrade on Mason, and I think Reiff is an upgrade on what Wynn has been post injuries, but I can see the case otherwise.
So I'd say upgrades across most of the offense, TBD on the defense/ST.... also Broad should be a nice addition on ST.
I'd argue losing JoeJuan is a net positive. Has a 2nd rd pick ever done less while playing mostly healthy and somehow survive the entire rookie contract? He did literally nothing for his NE career yet somehow was just good enough to stick on the roster. I feel like he deserves some special honorary award.
Nice post - it distills the trouble spots and weighs the additions/subtractions just right, I think. To me, it points to OT as BB's target in Rnd 1 or 2 at latest. The price of tackles is off the charts and you can argue it's the team's biggest need alongside a shutdown CB. It's the most efficient use of the cap as well and keeps the cap money available for a big move or two if opportunity arises.
To me the only definite upgrade on offense is Gesicki over Jonnu and I still have some doubts over his fit with the other guys we'll have playing inside. On defense so far they're worse, there's still time obviously, but think a lot of people are downplaying the loss of McCourty, he wasn't the same guy the last couple of years but he knew the defense inside and out and was on the field for pretty much every snap. Nevermind the fact that they don't have someone of his skill set on the roster, his accumulated knowledge and dependability will be hard to replace even if they find a good centerfielder.
McCourty will be a loss (and even Mills will be a bit of a loss) but I think there is a pretty significant value to having so much of what was a good defense back. Jones, Jones and Peppers should be better in their second year in the system, everyone should play a little better together, I think on the whole more players are ascending or int heir prime than are declining, and hopefully Barmore will get back on track to being a destroyer of worlds.
Similarly on offense the continuity should help even if it's continuity from a bad spot. You're basically talking about changing two players (the RT and the slot) from last years 11 packagae and three (one TE one RT and Schuster for Myer) from last years 11 package).
And that's all before the draft where you should be able to get a starter in the first round and a couple contributors if you do your job right.
You bring up a good point on Barmore. Obviously it would be foolish to count on 17 games of all pro play from him, but he was barely a factor last year and they were still a pretty good defensive team. If he does make a leap and is more healthy, that could provide a huge boost.
Joe Judge's role becoming clearer.
Jobs shaking out in NE, and here's a big one—Joe Judge will be in an ass't head coach role with the @Patriots in '23 (with personnel elements/some parallels to Matt Patricia's '21 role), per sources. On-field, he'll work closely with Cam Achord and Joe Houston on special teams. One difference b/w Patricia in '21 and Judge in '23, just to illustrate it—Patricia's name was on player contracts back then, and this year, Matt Groh's name is in that spot. Judge's job will be more in coaching special teams, being a liaison between coaching and scouting, etc.
View: https://twitter.com/AlbertBreer/status/1638942615000195099?s=20
Jobs shaking out in NE, and here's a big one—Joe Judge will be in an ass't head coach role with the @Patriots in '23 (with personnel elements/some parallels to Matt Patricia's '21 role), per sources. On-field, he'll work closely with Cam Achord and Joe Houston on special teams. One difference b/w Patricia in '21 and Judge in '23, just to illustrate it—Patricia's name was on player contracts back then, and this year, Matt Groh's name is in that spot. Judge's job will be more in coaching special teams, being a liaison between coaching and scouting, etc.
View: https://twitter.com/AlbertBreer/status/1638942615000195099?s=20
Assistant Head Coach or Assistant Coach?
The former makes me pretty uncomfortable, unless it’s simply a way of shoehorning him into the org in a special teams role without explicitly demoting Achord.
The former makes me pretty uncomfortable, unless it’s simply a way of shoehorning him into the org in a special teams role without explicitly demoting Achord.
See that tweet says "asst head coach role" and not "will be an asst head coach". Kinda like the Pats had people in the OC role last year, and no OC. So maybe that's Breer extrapolating what Judge will be doing and saying it's like an asst coach.
Either way--he's away from the offense and in the one role he appears to be good at--special teams. I could care less about the title. BoB is leading the offense.
Assistant Head Coach is to football teams as producer is to films. Could be really important, could be totally worthless, it's just a random title you give guys that has no set responsibilities or impact.
Interesting backstory. Born in Belgium, raised in the Netherlands, came to the US at 15.
Was on the Patriots' practice squad in 2021.
Punted a league high 96 times last year, 14th in NY/P, didn't have any blocked
Was on the Patriots' practice squad in 2021.
Punted a league high 96 times last year, 14th in NY/P, didn't have any blocked
Corliss Leendert Waitman is from Ghent, Belgium - the birthplace of Kevin De Bruyne (& a ton of other people who I care about less).
Waitman's dad was a professional basketball player & his mother was from Suriname. Corliss was born in Belgium where his father was playing professional basketball at the time, and then moved to Netherlands when he was 15, before moving to Milton, Florida where his dad lived. Up to that point, he was a soccer player, but switched to football when he moved here.
He played his college ball at South Alabama, where his dad had been a star basketball player, from 2014 to 2018 & transferred to Mississippi State as a graduate transfer but was denied the extra year of eligibility so he did not play in 2019. Apparently, he was expected to be able to play, but the NCAA said no at the last minute. Mississippi State did the nice thing & kept him on scholarship which allowed him to stay in school & practice with the team.
Scouts kept in contact with him during that season, & the Steelers signed him as a UDFA. He was on the Steelers, then Raiders, then Patriots practice squad for 2 months before the Steelers took him back & he got his 1st NFL action. & yeah, career stats:
& yeah, despite having the most punts in the league last year, he was only 6th in return yards allowed.
Waitman v. Patriots punters last year:
Avg: 46.56 to 42.25
Net: 41.54 to 35.89
% inside 20: 31.3% to 27.8%
TB %: 6.3% to 12.7%
Waitman's dad was a professional basketball player & his mother was from Suriname. Corliss was born in Belgium where his father was playing professional basketball at the time, and then moved to Netherlands when he was 15, before moving to Milton, Florida where his dad lived. Up to that point, he was a soccer player, but switched to football when he moved here.
He played his college ball at South Alabama, where his dad had been a star basketball player, from 2014 to 2018 & transferred to Mississippi State as a graduate transfer but was denied the extra year of eligibility so he did not play in 2019. Apparently, he was expected to be able to play, but the NCAA said no at the last minute. Mississippi State did the nice thing & kept him on scholarship which allowed him to stay in school & practice with the team.
Scouts kept in contact with him during that season, & the Steelers signed him as a UDFA. He was on the Steelers, then Raiders, then Patriots practice squad for 2 months before the Steelers took him back & he got his 1st NFL action. & yeah, career stats:
& yeah, despite having the most punts in the league last year, he was only 6th in return yards allowed.
Waitman v. Patriots punters last year:
Avg: 46.56 to 42.25
Net: 41.54 to 35.89
% inside 20: 31.3% to 27.8%
TB %: 6.3% to 12.7%
I believe the idea was a big corner to counter the move tight-ends (e.g. Kelce's).
I'd have a very difficult time arguing anyone other than Harry for the "worst pick." Especially since they could have taken basically any other WR picked around him and gotten a stud.
Yes, to me Harry is easily worse because he was picked right before two guys in Deebo and AJ Brown who everyone thought were better fits for the Patriots and both ended up being stars. Harry wasn't a reach, but I think everyone preferred the players they passed on and it was a head scratcher of a fit from the jump.
That 2019 draft was just a huge organizational failure.
You had Harry in Round 1. JoeJuan in Round 2. And Winovich in Round 3. Tons of impact guys all around them and they struck out on 3 pitches.
And then the very next year, Harry's college teammate (Aiyuk) went #25 overall, right after the Patriots' 1st rounder at #23, and ended up being a great player too. (Of course, they traded out of #23 for two picks that became Kyle Dugger and Josh Uche so not a total miss).
In those two drafts combined, they passed on Deebo Samuel, AJ Brown, DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson, Terry McLaurin, Brandon Aiyuk, Tee Higgins, and Michael Pittman. And they passed on some of them multiple times.
We've reached the "having a real argument over a The Office bit" stage of the off-season.
Curran as always is stupid. Assistant Head coach does not mean 2nd in line... it's not the royal line of succession. It just means not a coordinator and needs a title.
Isn't "Assistant Head Coach" what Belichick was to Parcells in 1996? I think he was second in command ...
Carl Smith was the assistant head coach in 1997, he was the TE coach in 1998 and 1999, he worked 20 more NFL seasons, never a head coach, was an OC once. He's now "associate head coach" in SEA and has been for 3 years.
Dante Scarnecchia was the assistant head coach from 2000 until 2013... do we think he was 2nd in command?
It's just a title you give guys, it doesn't mean they're running the show, or somehow overseeing the coordinators.
So if BB get's ejected or suspended, JJ doesn't become head coach?
After the shit show that was our kickoff unit the second half of last year it might be worth an additional roster spot for someone who can kick it in the stands every time. Well, this will be exciting:
New England Patriots Draft Picks by Round in 2023
After the shit show that was our kickoff unit the second half of last year it might be worth an additional roster spot for someone who can kick it in the stands every time. Well, this will be exciting:
New England Patriots Draft Picks by Round in 2023
- Round 1, Pick 14 overall
- Round 2, Pick 46 overall
- Round 3, Pick 76 overall (From CAR)
- Round 4, Pick 107 overall (from LAR)
- Round 4, Pick 117 overall
- Round 4, Pick 135 overall
- Round 6, Pick 184 overall (From CAR)
- Round 6, Pick 187 overall (From LV)
- Round 6, Pick 192 overall
- Round 6, Pick 210 overall
- Round 7, Pick 245 overall (from ATL)
Oh and corner is one of the hardest spots to draft. College coverages vs NFL can be wildly different. A lot of colleges play like 1 scheme and barely vary it. Spot drop zone! This guy looks like he can play press man but he never once did it. Etc.
McLaurin hurt the most for me. He was talked up as a perfect fit here and I thought he’d get to us for the Winovich round 3 pick. Then, goes right before. Guessing we wouldn’t have taken him anyways given the Harry luck. God that draft sucked.
Harry just busted. Those picks happen.
When drafted they had such a need at WR/TE they really should have picked that multiple times. Picking Williams when Brady was 43 and the team was loaded in the secondary made no sense. For him to even have had playing time he'd have needed to jump over multiple other players. Meanwhile, the WR room in April of 2019 was a 33 year old post ACL Edelman, Josh Gordon who can't be counted on at all, and Phillip Dorsett, who can only run two routes, and had 500 yards in the last two seasons combined.
Harry wasn't a bad pick, he was a bad player.
Williams was both a bad player and a bad pick.
Harry was a bad pick because of who they passed on and the consensus in that draft that Harry wasn't a great fit.
When you pick a bad player instead of good players, that means you made a bad pick. Not sure how much simpler I could make that for you.
EDIT: Additionally, you make no mention of the fact that Harry was a 1st and Williams a 2nd. Williams was bad but Harry was catastrophic.
This was not the consensus though. The analytics and fantasy community loved the fit.
Look they thought he would be a dynamic receiver with great RAC and that they could fix his route running. Lombardi loved the fit. Now yeah some of us didn’t like Harry (I was all out on him) but it made sense. It just didn’t work out. Really wish they had gone with AJ Brown. Instead they got sold a bill of goods on him.
There was a ton of optimism around Williams at the time he was drafted. He had that Jamie Collins type feel. Great athlete that could be projected into a needed role. He seemed to be completely lost here once he arrived though.
No love for Ras-I Dowling? Still only 34 years old!
They were picked 13 picks apart. They were both bad players. One was picked at a position of great need, one was picked at the strongest position on the team.
And BB has made clear they draft on best player, not position of need. So...not really relevant.
The Pats have also had some obviously spectacular UDFA finds at corner (Malcolm Butler, JC Jackson) even as they have struggled to draft corners early in the draft.
Yeah, that's just a downright lie by Bill if he's stated that. Of course they take positional need into consideration, especially in the first round. As they should.
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I think BB has actually said that they consider a myriad of factors, not all weighted the same, and need is just one of those many factors (and it’s not weighted as much as certain others).