To borrow a term from baseball, the New England Patriots have a great deal of ‘quadruple-A’ talent in almost every position on the team.
Eliot Wolf might want you to blame this on poor drafts in the twilight of Bill Belichick’s career, but outside of his third overall selection, he picked up his fair share of low-quality players in his first draft without Belichick.
But now, with the arrival of Mike Vrabel and his player personnel accomplice in Tennessee, Ryan Cowden, Patriots fans are hoping the tides will turn on the poor draft choices.
One area that’s in desperate need of rejuvenation, whether in the draft or via trade or free agency, is the wide receiver room.
From the outside looking in, Vrabel’s tenure in Tennessee was great from a receiver’s perspective. Noted Patriots fan A.J. Brown is the big attention-grabber in that position, given his time in Tennessee and the ‘Inner Excellence’ he’s found in Philadelphia.
But as Adam Jones and Rich Keefe discussed on WEEI Thursday, Brown’s marquee name may be covering up for a checkered track record for Vrabel and Cowden’s wide receiver development.
“You'd think, just based on A.J. Brown and his production in Tennessee, how good he's been since he left Tennessee, you'd think Mike Vrabel had a pretty good track record at the wide receiver position when he was with the Titans,” Jones said.
“It's important to factor in – it's not just Vrabel, but Ryan Cowden is now here alongside Elliot Wolf. So these three, the track record they have at wide receiver is absurd,” he continued.
Wolf’s resume at evaluating receiver talent speaks for itself, or rather yelps for itself.
“We know [Wolf] can't draft receivers, we know Bill couldn't. Turns out, if you think Vrabel’s on the Bill coaching tree, this is one highlight of the Bill coaching tree,” Jones said.
Keefe tried to pump the brakes a little, shooing some of the blame away from Vrabel for these draft decisions.
“They traded away his best receiver when he said, ‘Don't,’ so I mean, I don't know if he had full say on who to draft either,” Keefe said.
However, Jones argued that the personnel department was drafting with Vrabel’s system in mind and that Cowden was behind many of these decisions.
“You put none of this on Vrabel?” Jones asked.
“Let’s give you the names: Corey Davis, fifth overall pick, bust; Treylon Burks was the replacement for A.J. Brown, first-round pick, 18th overall, bust; A.J. Brown was in the second round. Other than that, these were later picks in their defense, but that's two first-rounders they whiffed on,” he continued.
Jones went on to list a series of later-round picks who did not make much of an impact in their NFL careers. But, looking at the big picks, the Tennessee receiver evaluation system may not be enough to give Drake Maye something to throw.
But Keefe is still giving Vrabel the benefit of the doubt with regard to this year’s draft.
“I look at him, he’s a defensive coach, and didn't have a ton of player personnel control, so I'm not as worried about that run,” Keefe said.
“I think he wants more control, maybe because he saw how bad it was going there. And I'm sure he disagreed with all, at least this is in my head, he disagreed with a lot of the different roster moves that were made,” he continued.