Should we give up next year's first to move up in the draft?
I think more than HALF of New England's are players that were signed via FA... not drafted by them. Merriweather is the only player from their draft that made the squad last year ( think). And I'm only talking about 1 pick man you act as though I'm pulling a "Ditka"...
Check that again:
Yahoo! Sports - NFL - New England Patriots - Depth Chart
(note that their CB Jason Webster is a replacement for Samuel and Eric Alexander has replaced Rosevelt Colvin)
Starters that were drafted by NE (14):
Tom Brady
Ben Watson
Matt Light
Logan Mankins
Dan Koppen
Stephen Neal
Nick Kazur
Ty Warren
Vince Wilfork
Richard Seymour
Tedy Bruschi
Asante Samuel
Ellis Hobbs
James Sanders
Starters that were not drafted by NE (7):
Randy Moss
Wes Welker
Heath Evans
Mike Vrabel
Adalius Thomas
Rosevelt Colvin
Rodney Harrison
On top of that, NE had a distinct advantage in FA. They have won 3 SBs recently and players near the end of their career are willing to go there and sign for probably less to have a chance to win.
True... they drafted well. And this team has had one good draft (jury is still out on 07 class). All of the teams you mentioned drafted their way into super bowl titles... but don't think for a second that these teams didn't take risks to make their teams better. We can debate this until we're tired of typing... but giving away 1 pick won't kill our team.
I'm not saying that you don't take risks, I'm saying that you don't gamble the future away. Yes you have to take risks. Trading BACK is a risk, which is what most of the good teams have done lately.
Would you rather go into this season aremd with a our 6 picks and NOT address the DT position? Vilma would get killed.
You make it seem like if we don't give up our 1st and trade up to get Dorsey, we can't address the DT position. Ellis could fall to us at 10? Laws, Balmer, or a host of other DTs could fall to us, heck we could trade back and pick up more picks and pick up TWO good DTs instead of one.
Even if we trade up to get Ellis we'd have to give up additional pick(s) that may be from this years draft. What's the difference? You give up a 2nd/3rd rounder in THIS years draft, and now we can't address a need for the 2008 season... and we just took the 2nd best DT in the draft.
Again, you make the assumption that if we don't get Dorsey or Ellis, we aren't addressing the DT position and I don't agree with that.
When we could have (probably) had the best DT in the draft... kept our picks in this year's draft, and filled holes that can help us THIS YEAR.
Again, I say build for the long term is smarter. :) :)
Maybe I'm alone on this one... and that's cool.. its fun to talk about stuff we have absolutely NO control over.
Whatever the FO does... I just hope it leads us to where we want to go.
So true, we have no control and ultimately little real understanding of what it's like to make these decisions. It's easy for us to argue back and forth and never really pay the price for a bad decision. : ) :)
Totally agree about the hopes, I hope that in the end they make the decision that makes us a lot better. If it's to take some risks trading up and it works, I will LOVE eating crow as I buy my SB champion Saints gear. :) :) If that's to stay or trade back, I will just as happy. :)