Can't say I'll miss Butler.
Cringed everytime someone threw his way.
I was shocked he made it through the first round of cuts.
Same here.
That '09 class is shaping up to be a bit of a dud. Butler & Brace were disappointing 2nd rounders although Chung has been decent (taken before both). Vollmer, Ohrnberger, Pryor, and Edelman still remain.
Not sure that's a dud though. Depending how good Chung proves to be, they have a pro bowler in Vollmer, a solid starter at worst in Chung, with potential to grow, a rotation DT in Prior, and a quality special teams guy with potential for more in Edelman.
Its not a great draft, but I think most teams would consider that a success.
Good point. And I do wonder...I am not great at knowing how to build an NFL roster. It is so deep, so nuanced in terms of playbook and team skills vs. individual skills. Plus the hard cap so that you can't afford to have a lot of high paid studs and still have great depth.
I do think that Bellichek has obviously missed in many drafts. However, I think his strategy of cutting ties as soon as skills slip or it's obvious a player doesn't fit the scheme works well since he is always building pure depth through the draft. Yes, a lot of picks get cut, but as pointed out above, a lot stick too because there are just so many players drafted due to his trading down for multiple picks; there just isn't room to keep all his picks and free agents. The other thing is that a lot of players in the NFL either outperform their draft slot by a lot or drastically underperform and it's highly random. Thus the "shotgun" approach bellichek uses seems to work well. His stock isn't tied to the success/failure of the first couple rounds; Pryor and Edelman fit great and seem like very good talents, and they were late picks.
Topic: Patriots 53 roster predictions (Read 29039 times)