It would be interesting to know who the scouts did want - any rumors out there?
Pats cut JuJu
- Thread starter RedOctober3829
- Start date
Was the "scouts were overruled by Belichick regarding Harry" story reported by anyone besides Tom Curran?
Bedard has suggested as much, as I recall.
Of course, we don’t hear about the picks 'the scouts' wanted that didn’t work out.
The real issue, as has been mentioned on this board, is that they didn’t double dip at a position of huge need in a quality draft. If they had gone Harry/AJ with the Harry/JoeJuan picks, we all would have been fine. But they took Harry and thought their job was done despite the roster being in real trouble at the WR/TE position, so much that they had to gamble on AB and then made the panic Sanu trade.
By April 2019, we knew Edelman was near the end at 33 or so. Gronk was already gone. Gordon was always unreliable. Dorsett was a proven non-factor. There was a big need for a pass catcher youth injection and it was a great draft to do it. This is why I liked the approach this year with Polk/Baker.
Plenty loved Harry too. It wasn’t even a Cole Strange type pick where the “consensus” had him as a third rounder and we’re trying to justify it through rumors that another team liked him and would have take him ahead of the Pats. There were several good WR prospects and they blew it by picking the wrong one.
I think Bill had a ton to do with them not picking either Brown or Samuel. From Albert Breer below. The fact that two players laughing together would lead you to think they weren't taking the visit seriously is so short-sighted and pardon the pun but it's laughable.
Rhamonde didn’t cover himself in glory on that play and it didn’t seem to affect his usage.
Rhamondre threw a lateral. Jakobi threw a 40-yard backward pass to Chandler Jones.
The first was dumb. The second was catastrophically reckless and unfathomably moronic and lost the game. Not really in the same ballpark of stupidity.
The first was dumb. The second was catastrophically reckless and unfathomably moronic and lost the game. Not really in the same ballpark of stupidity.
crazy to walk away from a player bc of one play…but if there ever was a play worthy of such a response, that play by meyers was it. One of the dumbest plays I’ve ever seen in a football game
The Meyers play was awful. But, come on man, it was one play in a regular season game. I personally doubt it was the reason he wasn’t signed. But if it was, it would indeed be an example of both Bill’s (coach and GM) needing to go. Sometimes coaches just got to work a bit harder with some players.
Last edited:
The lateral had nothing to do with them not resigning Meyers. He didn’t want to take the contract that they valued him, so he went to free agency and found a better deal.
There is discussion of whether it was a lateral move here (probably the most Jakobi friendly place you can find) but there was none of the stuff that's in this thread that everyone knew he was washed/hurt... that's all nonsense. Juju was pretty univerally seen by those outside looking in as the best WR on the market ahead of Meyers, and there was no indication of concerns about his knee. It sucks that he got hurt and didn't perform, but it wasn't anything that was obvious or known at the time he signed.
As always when someone leaks many years after a draft some self-serving stuff to help get a new job..... they wanted the guys who turned out good of course... just like how every single scout wanted to trade up for Mahomes 3 years later.
Well yes, the GM of the team probably had a ton do with who they draft.
I think the pushback in this thread is on the story that keeps popping up that the scouts didn't like Harry, but Belichick overruled them.
How real is that? We keep hearing stories well after the fact, after Harry had busted, that the scouts didn't like him. I mean, the story you linked to was written this year after Belichick got fired. It's not a surprise that scouts that are still there and want to keep their jobs might have a vested interest in saying they knew Harry would be a bust.
It seems far fetched that the Patriots scouts on the whole didn't like Harry, but Belichick just went ahead and picked him after talking to Herm Edwards. He was here on a top 30 visit, that likely doesn't happen if the majority of their scouts thought he stunk. I doubt he even ends up on Belichicks radar if the scouts had him rated much lower than Deebo/AJ Brown.
The scouts probably had those guys all in the same ballpark, probably in a bunch of different orders, and after they all visited and Belichick talked to all of their coaches, Belichick ended up breaking the tie/logjam/whatever and placed Harry at the top of the group.
I doubt it's at all unusual that in any organization that some scouts would have a differing opinion to the GM. I would imagine it's pretty ordinary. Two years from now if Polk busts, I'm sure Breer will have a story with unnamed scouts saying man I would've traded up to get whoever hit out of Legette/Coleman/McConkey.
I think taking anything from something Breer reported almost 5 years after Harry was drafted, when Bill was on his way out the door is silly. Bill drafted Gronk who literally fell asleep on his visit. If anything the "oh they were too friendly" bit is the exact kind of dumb detail you put in when you're full of shit but trying to paint your soon to be former boss as out of touch while looking for your next gig.
Ultimately, who really cares about all the noise around each pick….Bill was the decision maker and at the end of the day, made a series of pretty poor personel decisions which led to the team being mediocre to terrible, and led to his current unemployment . It is what it is, the why is kind of irrelevant.
Bingo. Bill made a series of poor personnel decisions since 2019. Juju was one of them. Now they’re both gone.
Maybe it started around 2017 when he stated he only wants players on the teams that he likes to coach.
https://www.patspulpit.com/2017/4/17/15324086/bill-belichick-is-only-going-to-bother-coaching-players-that-he-likes
And still he refused to pay Meyers.
BB is the best coach/head of football operation of all time, no question, but latter years BB had unquestionably lost something off his fastball.
Bill made a bunch of poor decisions - draft and FA - and not enough really good ones (though, of course, there were some) starting before 2019 or even 2017.
Disclaimer: I was team "move on from BB since BB the GM is killing BB the coach". But the weird thing is that BB the GM was actually really good once upon a time. He had good drafts from the first round through the seventh. And even a number of his head-scratchers worked out in the early days. But agreed towards the end of the Brady years there were a lot of decisions that weren't that great but Brady still made it work and once Brady was gone, there were some personnel problems that didn't get better. He still had the occasional hit, and I'm not saying Wolf is a genius or anything, but today's team is a far cry from those early dynasty teams.
To be fair, one week later, Rhamondre gave us this too, and we probably make the playoffs if we finish off just one of those games:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S33aG_LaBKE
Bill Belichick could coach and game plan a bunch of retired NFL players to a competent defensive level. I'm 100% confident in that. It's almost hard to tease out whether he was making the right moves on defense in the draft, or if he was just so fucking good at coaching/gameplanning on that side of the ball that he was able to turn those guys into better players than they really were. Realistically, how many defensive players left the Patriots and played better elsewhere? The only real exception was the #1 corner position, because that's what made BB's defenses go. It's why he needed Ty Law, Revis, Talib, Gilmore, Samuel locking down one side of the field. He recognized the importance of that spot, and made sure they were never without, barring injuries. It's why, when everyone with a functioning brain knew this team needed offensive talent, he went and got Christian Gonzelez at #17 in 2022, which was a fine pick and the best player available. It was the Keion White pick that drove me fucking crazy though. The next 4 WR's after the White pick were Jayden Reed, Rashee Rice, Marvin Mims and Tank Dell, 3 of whom look like steals and the fourth, Mims, played in an awful situation in Denver but may also be the best KR/PR in the NFL right now. BB easily covered up his own misses on defense and special teams for two decades because of his genius.
The flipside was it was the genius of Tom Brady that covered up BB's misses on the offensive side of the ball (along with Josh, Charlie Weis, etc.), until he felt like he couldn't anymore and took his talents to Tampa where he could turn an underperforming, but talented offense into a super bowl winner.
Bill clearly drafted well in the 2001-2005 era: Seymour, Light, Branch, Givens, Graham, Jarvis Green, Ty Warren, Eugene Wilson, Asante Samuel, Koppen, Tully Banta-Cain (ST player is fine outcome for the ass end of 7th round), Wilfork, Ben Watson, Logan Mankins, even Ellis Hobbs and Nick Kaczur and Matt Casell (a top 5% outcome for a 7th rounder). That is a great haul, and it not only accounted for the first 3 Lombardis, but also helped extend the playoff contention window well past beyond what most thought possible. Yeah, that one draft pick from 2000 helped, as did Bill's acumen. But, still, there is no counterargument to the one that Bill drafted exceedingly well in that period.
And, to be fair, Bill also benefited from players drafted before he arrived: Ty Law, Willie McGinest, Lawyer Milloy, Troy Brown, Tedy Bruschi and Ted Johnson in particular. But he also had to bring in an entire offensive line (besides Damien Woody) and interior DL and LB corps (above players aside) in 2001 to make the team competitive.
There was a definite draft day dry spell starting in 2006 that lasted until about 2010 (existing head coach excepted), when he selected McCourty, Gronk, and Hernandez. The next few drafts brought in Chandler Jones, Hightower, Jamie Collins, Nate Solder, James White, which allowed Bill to renew the window all the way through 2018. But the drafts were meh since 2017 (albeit some special circumstances there with GFIN trades), and those chickens came home to roost once Brady decided he needed a change.
Bill, like every single GM in the NFL, past and present, made mistakes. But those draft hits did a lot to cover up his mistakes. And, like with every other GM, once those hits disappear, so do the job prospects with the current employer.
And, to be fair, Bill also benefited from players drafted before he arrived: Ty Law, Willie McGinest, Lawyer Milloy, Troy Brown, Tedy Bruschi and Ted Johnson in particular. But he also had to bring in an entire offensive line (besides Damien Woody) and interior DL and LB corps (above players aside) in 2001 to make the team competitive.
There was a definite draft day dry spell starting in 2006 that lasted until about 2010 (existing head coach excepted), when he selected McCourty, Gronk, and Hernandez. The next few drafts brought in Chandler Jones, Hightower, Jamie Collins, Nate Solder, James White, which allowed Bill to renew the window all the way through 2018. But the drafts were meh since 2017 (albeit some special circumstances there with GFIN trades), and those chickens came home to roost once Brady decided he needed a change.
Bill, like every single GM in the NFL, past and present, made mistakes. But those draft hits did a lot to cover up his mistakes. And, like with every other GM, once those hits disappear, so do the job prospects with the current employer.
Really wish we could have squeezed an asset out of them last year for him when their offense was struggling. Of course turns out they didn't need him but they were probably desperate enough at one point. Tried to talk myself into the signing at the time but what a whiff.