The growing din of critics, analysts, fans, scouts and more saying the Patriots lack elite talent may have just reached a fever pitch.
According an anonymous ESPN survey / ranking of the 10 best at each NFL positional grouping, compiled and analyzed by Jeremy Fowler, the New England Patriots have just one player to crack the multitude of Top 10s league-wide. The anonymous survey, compiled from the votes and rankings of 50 NFL execs, scouts, players and coaches, produced a Top 10 from virtually every positional grouping; edge rushers, defensive tackles, off-ball linebackers, cornerbacks, safeties, interior offensive linemen, QBs, wide receivers, running backs, tight ends and offensive tackles. That’s 11 groupings of 10 players each for 100 players overall. And just one Patriot.
That lone Patriot? Tight End Hunter Henry, who finished 10th overall in the TE Top 10.
Oh boy.
The new list is interesting as we’ve seen lists from other football-centric sites recently that have cited the Pats as having some strong positional groupings, like safety and running back. We know several groupings are in a state of flux, so there shouldn’t be much surprise to not see any linebackers or corners there to say the least. But with Devin McCourty recently being named a Top 5 safety, and David Andrews a Top 5 Center, it’s odd that those players, among perhaps a few others didn’t receive the same sort of peer approval these football sites gave them.
Special Teams were not included in the ESPN rankings, where one could imagine players like Matthew Slater, Nick Folk and Jake Bailey could or would have gotten some love.
Worth watching to see if players who at times can elevate and play Top 10 worthy at their position, like Matthew Judon, Trent Brown and Adrian Phillips, will ever make mention of the team’s lack of “Top 10 players”, or find ways to assert themselves this year. We certainly could see players like Kyle Dugger and Christian Barmore play well enough in their third and second years to turn heads for the 2023 rankings.
As far as league-wide perception...this can be taken two ways; you can panic and say the Pats, as previously believed, lack enough talent to compete in the reloaded AFC East and AFC overall, a failure by and indictment of Belichick’s roster building and drafts of recent years. Or you can believe these Patriots are built not with elite talent but a strong middle class of talent, giving them enough depth and skill at many positions to compete and if not surprise. The playoff loss to Buffalo in January might have you feeling more former than latter, but this is a new team with some quality returning parts and fresh, younger faces who will no doubt experience growing pains on their way to what ultimately becomes of this team. To say in July that these rankings indicate the team to be a complete negative or failure on behalf of Bill Belichick, Matt Groh, Eliot Wolf and company is too much, too soon. Let’s at least get camp going before we judge further.
But one thing is for sure; the rest of the league doesn’t think the 2022 Patriots are an all-star or dream team. And should they make progress noise or headway it won’t be those 50 anonymous scouts, execs, players and coaches who saw it coming.
