I know everyone is really feeling their "THIS ROSTER IS COMPLETELY WITHOUT MERIT" oats and all. But there is some middling talent on it:
Man, as a "There's a silver lining!" post I was excited to see it... but 4 "decent" guys is pretty thin gruel.
I don't think that anyone who's sour on the roster doesn't think that there are redeemable players on the 53-man. Of course there are good players on both sides, plus some ST guys. That doesn't mean that it's not bad. It is bad. It has some good players. Just not enough of them.
Middling talent is fair. It's also likely that at least 3 of these guys, if not all 4, won't be here the next time this franchise makes the playoffs.
That's how Ted Thompson, who Wolf mostly worked under, operated. But Wolf has worked other places where things operated differently, so it's not 100% clear to me whether he subscribes to that philosophy or whether he was just keeping his powder dry because the 2024 Patriots figured to suck even with a 2021-esque spending orgy. We'll see.
Henry is the epitome of league average tight end in this NFL era.
It's probably partly a function of the suckitude that is the Patriots' WR room, but he is probably among the top 10-15 TEs in the NFL this season in terms of production.
I don’t know that they’re getting their money’s worth on the Dugger, Peppers, Bourne extensions. Onwenu maybe if he’s a guard but would they have re-signed him if playing tackle was off the table?
I don't know all the ins and outs of Robert Kraft's business history, but it's worth noting that in 2017 he spent $20 mil on an eSports team in a league that ended up failing spectacularly. A recent book on the history of Blizzard (the developers of Overwatch) showed that when this league was cooked up the Blizzard execs expected to sell teams in the league for $250k until Bobby Kotick stepped in and decided to grift the living piss out of people like Kraft and sell teams for $20 mil. Probably just a drop in the bucket, but perhaps a sign his days of being savvy in the business world are long gone.
I can't really blame Wolf for Peppers or Barmore (who you count in the good category even though he hasn't played). I like the Schooler signing; Bourne and Dugger and Stevenson, we'll see. Onwenu is probably worth similar as a really good guard versus an averageish tackle (and of course he's done both this year).
Wolf to me fell in the middle.... he didn't make any particularly good external signings, his re-signings were generally good. He avoided bad deals (not entirely clear that was by plan) but also his low risk moves almost all failed. It's not the worst outcome, but it does mean they have a lot of work to do year 2.
That absolutely makes sense for Green Bay, who have to work around a unique cash flow situation, but not when you have an owner with deep pockets.
We all lose our fastball as we age, he's no exception.
If the only tight end production was receptions and yards, then yeah, that's true.
Yep, and they had the benefit of Aaron Rodgers at QB, which stabilizes a lot and allows them to go draft hunting and stockpiling picks like crazy. I think they may have been caught off guard at how good Jordan Love got so quickly, so it looks like it's going to keep working for them. Since 2019, Green Bay has made 23 picks in the 1st 3 rounds (8 1sts, 8 2nds and 7 3rds). Because they didn't need to fill the QB position, it allowed them to accumulate 2 additional first, 2 additional 2nds and an additional 3rd in a 6 year period.
I don't think it will take *that* much to turn it around. First of all, the most important position on the team seems to be solved in Maye.
This is the most important part; " The question is whether they can make the actual right moves."
Yeah, that's the million dollar question. No idea. Obviously in order to get where they want to go, they'll need those things. All the great Pats' teams had those things. One could, I suppose, argue over whether Branch or Brown was a true #1, but the latter championship teams had prime Gronk and prime Edelman. Oh, and the GOAT at QB. They also had really, really terrific LT - Light, Solder, Trent Brown (when Brown was motivated and playing well).
you’re not seriously suggesting there are 24(ish) better TE in the NFL than Henry? Even with his blocking issues, the idea that almost every team has a better TE is crazy.
This is the way I feel. Hopefully, they have learned their lesson and will pick up like 4 or 5 5-8 million a year players. They can afford it. You can get serviceable LBs, OGs, and run-stuffing DTs for that money.
Sorry if this is a hot take, but this is part of why I want to layer Wolf and make a Godfather offer to Nick Caserio to lure him back from Houston as "Team President" or whatever (I recognize Jonathan Kraft is President, but you get the idea) and let Caserio make a decision on Wolf/Mayo/etc. Since 2019 this organization has gone from mediocre to bad to competing for worst in the NFL for the 2nd year in a row. They seem to have hit on the most important cornerstone in Maye and a few other pieces on defense, but the list of successes over the past 5 seasons is stunningly small.
How quickly they can rebuild depends a lot on what free agents are available and how deep/talented the 2025 NFL draft is, specifically in areas of need, but the way their roster is currently constituted, they have multiple areas of need.
They have so many holes it will be interesting to see who they sign, I'd rather they spread money around and sign multiple players like they did in 2021 vs a couple of very high end talents as this rebuild is going to take some time.
Do you have a feel for how deep the 2025 draft will be or is it too early to determine that?
I don't know. @SMU_Sox and @Cellar-Door are much more knowledgeable than me on those matters. I do know that picking first in each round helps!
like any draft, it has its deep groups and not so deep groups. And like any draft class in November, it’s in flux for a while because who knows what players will return back to school
That's exactly what I'm suggesting.
Thanks.
