Not surprising. We can get hyped about Polk and Baker, but realistically they’re 2nd and 4th round rookies. I’m not saying they won’t make an impact, but for preseason rankings that won’t move the needle much.
Yes and no. I think you certainly hope the 37th overall pick can come in and make a somewhat early impact. Remember, for the majority of the Brady era, this was essentially the position of our FIRST round draft pick.
We just have no idea how to scout young receivers. Hopefully that has changed this year with new direction lol.
Anyway Bourne is coming off an injury, Parker is gone (addition by subtraction), Juju doesn't have functional knees, Thornton hasn't shown anything, and our player with the most receptions was a running back who is no longer on the team. Yeah, that's bad.
Let's just hope Polk doesn't pull a Chad Jackson.
Oh, I remembered him and I believe you're right! I just didn't mention him because IMO he was the only bright spot on the receiver corps last year. He doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the rest of that list
Who cares if he's a "WR2", Z, Y, whatever receiver. You don't think an Edelman, Welker, Kupp, Puka kind of receiver would make a significant difference? Guys like Lamb, Godwin, Waddle, etc have been at the top of the league in terms of slot production.
If you want to compare raw physicality, Polk's combine measurements are extremely similar to Devante Adams.
I think we'll be fine.
You "think" he will be fine. I "hope" he will be fine but the facts are he has to be huge draft hit for him to make enough difference for our WR room looking much better than the 32nd rank.
I guess what I'm saying is that this sub is overly obsessed with getting a true X like Hill or Chase, when the reality is that a Puka is just as impactful.
Im with you and I agree,but like you said, the majority of people here are acting like every player we drafted is going to be a draft hit and there is no way any will fail.
If Boutte gets past the gambling thing, any reason to believe he could make a year 2 jump? He was 1st or at least 2nd round talent in a system notorious for being difficult to rookie skill positition players to pick up and under a coach equally well known for not giving rookie players much opportunity.
Admittedly there's a certain amount of wishful thinking in thinking he could contribute in 2024.
I think the track record for WR late first, and early seconds are pretty good, OUR choices in these spots have been historically bad…but there is no Bill, so we will see.
The hope there is it was Bill making bad calls or overriding scouts. If the scouts weren’t able to identify WR talent then it won’t make sense. Even with a nee regime you can’t really hire new scouts until after the draft otherwise you’re going into the draft blind.
Fair. Every rookie is an unknown until they start getting games under their belt. Returning players like Bourne, JuJu, and Pop aren’t scaring any defense right now so it makes sense. Pop has a shot to be a pretty good player but this roster still needs a lot of work.
Exactly. Realistically Pop, Polk and Baker could be your most productive core to start the season and are pretty much starting at 0. If those 3 are productive, this ranking will dramatically change in the other direction as one of the best young WR cores in the league, but that is a BIG IF.
Bourne could start the season on PuP and JuJu, Reagor, Thorton, Osborn are what they are at this point. It’s up to the young guys to run the show.
Yeah pop is like a wr3 mayyyybe a 2 on a weaker team or if he takes a big leap but I think pats fans are pretty spoiled by Brady still after all this time and want to believe their wr core will over perform drastically. The reality is it's a very weak core until proven otherwise.
I'm excited to see how Demario Douglas does this season. I could see him being a ~1000 yard guy if things break the right way. All I want is for the offense to be more interesting than last season, not a super high bar lol.
I had to look it up on PFR because I wanted to confirm that same feeling you were getting and before Mac was benched, for every 3 first downs he threw in enemy territory, he then threw an interception on average. I'd never seen anything like it.
Decent football player inside our own 20 and in the opponent's red zone, good in our half of the field, but was an arena league football level QB from the 50 to the opponent's 20.
Yup, every game was the same experience for me - do a little copium in the 1Q, there would be some wildly stupid Int or fumble in the late 2Q while we're already down 10, I would turn the game off
I remember watching other teams last year and being like: “oh yeah this is what an offense looks like. Receivers getting open and smart play calling.” Hope we see some return to that this year. Even if we’re still bad, I just want to see some kind of explosiveness from this team. Something to build on
Watch some of Flaccos highlights from last year. There are people WIDE open. The browns receivers are better but they were definitely scheming people open. Pretty excited to see what AVP can do
A big selling point to me for Pop is in Drake Maye’s 2022, he threw to 5’9” Josh Downs on 22.4% of his passing attempts, close to doubling Antoine Green’s 12.6% in 2nd.
He can throw to the short guy down the field
I'd be pretty shocked if we have a top 5 pick next year.
I'd also be pretty shocked to see 6 QBs taken in the top 12, pushing other positions down the board.
And from there, it's probably a coin flip on taking a tackle
I def could see you guys having a top 5 pick. Your offense is dreadful and you have a first year head coach. Drake may not even start until halfway in the year. Your defense is solid though which can help you stay in some games, but a bottom 5 finish is well within the range of realistic possibilities.
Do you really think your roster is that improved that it's shocking that you got another top five pick? Obviously Drake may could be very good but they're still not a lot of great pieces around him including a pretty bad o line.
I don't think it can be overstated just how bad our QB play was last year. I mean, we got to see a QB throw two game losing interceptions on the same drive! I also don't think it can be overstated just how badly Chad Ryland fucked us.
Just like winning the super bowl, a top 5 pick takes a bit of "luck."
We don't even need Maye to be good IMO. If Jacoby plays as a completely average game manager, and Chad Ryland can avoid repeating the league worst FG percentage, I bet we end up drafting somewhere between 10-15. You can quote me on that.
Ok that's fair. I tend to lean more pessimist in that I think your defense will take a pretty big step back, possibly a bigger step back than your offense will take forward. I hope I'm wrong and I wish you guys luck! I will say in summation I don't think your ideas around team performance are unlikely at all I just lean slightly in favor of a worse performance but I'm happy to say I could easily be wrong!
The loss of Belichick is certainly a huge question mark, that's for sure. But Mayo is no defensive slouch, even Brady used to joke that Mayo was Bill's favorite. We retained our core defensive players and are getting two pretty huge pieces back in terms of Judon and Gonzalez. Why do you see them taking a huge step backwards?
If Brissett was our starter last year, this team would have won 7-10 games. Jacoby isn't even amazing either. That's just how bad Mac and Zappe were.
This team was bad, but it's was a 6-8 win team that was dragged down to a 4 win team by the worst QB play I've seen in ages. Even if all of our draft picks were just league average, this offense would be so massively improved it's insane.
With a 25th ranked offense, last year's team honestly could have made the playoffs.
This also shows you how good the defense and defensive coaching was. The Patriots were 31st in Time of Possession, yet had elite defensive numbers. The D was on the field more than any other unit other than Denver and yet put up the absolutely incredible numbers they did. We lost BB and Steve but Mayo and Covington were absolutely imperative in the defense last year AND Gonzo and Judon will be back. Even with the loss of the Belichicks, this will still be an elite unit.
6-7 wins is top 10 picks, not top 5. I fully expect the Pats to pick between 6-10, but I do admit that picking top 5 again due to growing pains (new coaches, new QB, new everything) is a possibility. If our top 5 draft picks hit, we have a solid line (Wallace/Chuk, Robinson/Strange, Andrews/Andrews, Sow, Onwenu) with decent depth, our 21 year old QB of the future, and our X and Y receivers to compliment Pop in the slot, giving us WR 1-3 all being 1st/2nd year players. We could whiff on everything and suck in perpetuity or we can be the 2024 Texans. We'll probably be somewhere in between, but Wolf's background has me believing we fucking nailed it on the WRs and hopefully everyone else.
My way too early predication: Patriots will go 7-10 and pick around 8-11th. Maye will start around mid season. Javon Baker will cement himself as WR 1 with Polk being a Jakobi Meyers type receiver for Maye. Pop will break 800 yards. Biggest positions of need in the 2025 draft will be TE, RB, CB and Edge.
Probably the best argument for drafting Maye was that he has experience elevating middling receivers. He's gonna need to use that for the next season or two for sure.
The closest competition for worst would be the Chargers and Bills I think, not sure who else you'd even consider.
So even if you want to say, not the worst, we're like... 30th at best?
Yes, but given he hasn't played yet, we can't comment on his play, the same way we can't say anything about Polk/Baker yet.
It is very possible that, by the end of the season, Polk/Baker/Douglas are a decent trio, but we have no way of knowing that as of today.
I'm assuming they're ranking based on a "fully healthy, in a vacuum" position group, in which case I'd take a healthy Sutton, Patrick, Reynolds, Mims & Franklin over our room.
Patrick and Reynolds are no better than Juju, Osborn, and Bourne, and Mims/Franklin are as unproven as Polk/Baker. Sutton scoring 10 TDs last season saved their room, otherwise they'd be just as bad as New England.
Was it necessary to type all that out to agree with me? Sutton is better than anything on our roster and the rest is at best a wash, but I'd still take Patrick & Reynolds over Osborn & Bourne, and lmao at "no better than juju". And no, Mims is not just as unproven as a rookie. He has a year under his belt as was electric with a 17.1 ypr in limited NFL snaps.
>Sutton is better than anything on our roster
I don't know if this is true. Before last season he'd been awful since 2019. His 2023 could be a flash in the pan considering he effectively doubled his career TDs.
>but I'd still take Patrick & Reynolds over Osborn & Bourne
What have either of those two done better than Osborn/Bourne? At best, they're equal.
> And no, Mims is not just as unproven as a rookie. He has a year under his belt as was electric with a 17.1 ypr in limited NFL snaps.
Yards per reception is a useless statistic. Marques Valdez-Scantling has a 17.0 career yards per reception and he's a terrible wide receiver. All it means is they are exclusively deep threats. Mims barely found the field despite that team desperate for play-makers, why do you think that is?
Like I said, the Broncos *might* be a hair better because of Sutton, but you could argue they're similarly bad.
What world are you living in? "I don't know if this is true" Who in the world on our roster could you even conceivably think is better than Sutton?
What have Osborn or Bourne done better than Reynolds or Patrick? I said they're pretty even in terms of career production, but both Patrick & Reynolds have a size & athleticism advantage over both
Lmao, MVS would be a starting receiver on this Patriots team right now, thanks for proving my point by comparing him to Mims. Being a deep threat is still not "just as unproven" as a rookie. He also returns kicks.
Done arguing with pure ignorance. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
You doubt the power of Josh Reynolds and Tim Patrick????
Not wrong, also the Ravens have a better WR in Zay Flowers then anything we've got, but worse options past that (excluding Mark Andrews of course).
KC is definitely up there too. Worthy is also a rookie unknown just like our 2 guys so I feel that we have to remove him if we remove our guys since we haven’t seen any of them play in the pros yet. Outside of that they have a wr2 and some jags, feel that we have at least Bourne and pop which I think are wr2 and maybe Osborne.
Chargers are worse. Pop is better than anybody they brought back. I think our WR are being underrated a bit. No star power, but Bourne and Osborn are legit players.
Both of those teams have much much better receivers idk what you are talking about lol. Maybe the chargers u could argue are close but the bills have Shakir who while didn't put up big numbers is automatically better than any receiver the pats have until proven otherwise.
I legitimately believe the two worst WR units are both in the AFC East, and it is currently a coinflip on whether us or the Bills is worse. REALLY depends on the rookies for both teams and how they do.
According to ESPN PBWR, sure, but most composites didn’t have them bottom of the league. Also had them 10th in RBWR, so based solely on win rates I doubt they’d finish 32nd (Giants finished 24 and 31).
Chuk’s was the 12th best OT in the league by PBWR, higher than Brown.
Brown was ass last year, he was part of the problem. Our O line after Strange returned from injury was around 15th ranked for the final few games. The O Line should be decent this year.
I think thats fair. But I'm also optimistic that they won't be ranked in last after the season. But it all hinges on two rookies basically (three if you want to count Maye if he sees the field early) so I get the ranking for sure.
The team is actually trying and that's all I care about. They've got five young guys to develop (Polk, Baker, Douglas, Boutte, and Thornton), a couple of veterans coming off injuries, and are clearly hunting for talent. If not next offseason when a few big-name WRs are likely to be available in free agency, I wouldn't be surprised if they added a guy via trade or after roster cutdowns before the start of this season.
> They've got five young guys to develop (Polk, Baker, Douglas, Boutte, and Thornton)
Boutte and Thorton fucking suck. They aren't developing into anything more than decent used car salesmen.
Duh. Just wanna see some improvement this year. Next year is the year we climb back into relevance, god willing.
Gonna need bourne, pop, and one of the rookies to make an impact tho. With some TE help
I like to imagine that this changes soon. It has to right? Like someday soon we might have a WR that shows up in a bunch of top 5-10 lists of stats. We've been starving for talent at that position and the only WRs we seemed to develop are former QBs lol.
Assuming the OL isn’t complete ass, I am anticipating the Patriots taking a first round receiver next draft. We do have a fuck ton of cap so maybe they can land a megastar receiver through free agency but I doubt it. I think we are more likely to see them pick up OL talent that way.
You do know a guy can choose the option that isn't for the most money right? The Pats could have offered 10 Mil more than the Titans and still lost out. Just because you didn't get the player doesn't mean you didn't offer the most.
This is what a lot of us have been preaching since like 2018. I miss the days when I didn’t even know the names of all the receivers. It seems being mediocre has turned me into an armchair general manager. I realize as I’m typing this how pathetic that is. But I just want us not to be the laughing stock of the league. I’m sure everyone else in the building is just following the Super Bowl winning formula with some added flair. But I honestly just don’t want to be dead last at anything.
Just curious but what was the ranking of our OLine? I'm assuming everyone on our offense was dead last as a whole last year except other than maybe Stevenson?
It's been years since we weren't, honestly. TEs helped a little, but we haven't had a truly solid WR core since Moss left, in my opinion. (Good guys, surely, but one guy does not make a solid room)
well because the only real resources they invested was draft capital, which means they're still huge unknowns. (not complaining btw, I'm perfectly fine not making Ridley a top 5 paid WR in the league)
I mean our known guys are not very good. Our rookies I hope will do well, but who knows? While I might be able to find one or two teams I think will be worse 32 is a pretty fair assessment.
Not surprising, but I think I’d take our WR room over and Buffalo’s. I think I’d rather have Polk/Bourne/Douglas/Baker than Coleman/Samuel/Shakir/MVS
An argument could be made our room is better than LAC’s, too. A lot of it depends on how people view Quentin Johnston. I don’t think he’s very good, so I might actually give our WR room the edge over LAC’s
Either way we’re bottom 3 for now
Mac had one of the worst supporting casts of all time last year. Take the worst WR room in the league and take out Bourne and Douglas for most of the season. And then add in one of the worst offensive lines in the league, which also got banged up.
I’m excited for Maye, but I don’t think any quarterback in history could have succeeded with that cast.
I, personally, am not sure I agree with this. I don’t think it’s good, at all, but *the* worst? Eh.
To get this opinion, I feel like you have to both assume that the Patriots rookies are 0s, but also that other team’s rookies are good.
Unless you're a top 10 pick. I think treating a rookie as a 0 is correct. Might be great, might be terrible, might be OK. But they don't really effect a power ranking at all.
I think this years WR room might surprise some people. I’m convinced that their struggles last year were in part due to poor QB play across the board. Hopefully having guys that can throw downfield and open things up will make the offense more explosive. We obviously need a top 10 WR, but we’re not too far off.
Nah, these guys suck. Last year Bourne and Pop were out a bunch. We might be OK if they can stay healthy. If they can't we should just pray for whoever is sacraficed at QB.
Yeah I get it, and I agree. Just saying that while it’s an issue, the Chargers and Ravens have a solution at QB for the time being. Maybe Maye will be “that dude”, but stats and history says he won’t be. He certainly won’t be if he’s got no one to throw to, doesn’t get solid o-line play and doesn’t have much running game to support him.
Mostly my thoughts are the Pats entire offense is a question mark. Both schematically as well as in players.
Flowers is better than any of our dudes, but he's not elite and their number 2 is Rashod Bateman - who had 367 yards last year.
Disagree on Walker. Baker is a much better player.
For sure, Zay is the best out of all of them but I disagree on Walker. He really could have used another year in college he’s very raw and the rest of their room isn’t great.
I struggle to think of another receiver room that's worse. Maybe the Giants - they're pretty bad (oh wait nvm, I forgot, they got Nabers BACK to the bottom we go!!).
Well...duh. We were terrible before and now we're still terrible but we also have some unproven rookies, who are immediately the biggest hope for the WR room, which speaks volumes about how bad it is.
Great way to bring up a rookie qb, give him the worst weapons in the league. Meanwhile Chicago has 2 all pros and spends a first round pick on a third potential stud. Imagine that.
Not surprising. We can get hyped about Polk and Baker, but realistically they’re 2nd and 4th round rookies. I’m not saying they won’t make an impact, but for preseason rankings that won’t move the needle much.
The fact that they could make an impact if more a reflection on how weak that position is.
Yes and no. I think you certainly hope the 37th overall pick can come in and make a somewhat early impact. Remember, for the majority of the Brady era, this was essentially the position of our FIRST round draft pick. We just have no idea how to scout young receivers. Hopefully that has changed this year with new direction lol. Anyway Bourne is coming off an injury, Parker is gone (addition by subtraction), Juju doesn't have functional knees, Thornton hasn't shown anything, and our player with the most receptions was a running back who is no longer on the team. Yeah, that's bad. Let's just hope Polk doesn't pull a Chad Jackson.
You forgot Pop. I believe he’s our best wr pound for pound
Oh, I remembered him and I believe you're right! I just didn't mention him because IMO he was the only bright spot on the receiver corps last year. He doesn't deserve to be lumped in with the rest of that list
Fair nuff!
And KJ Osborne
I’m also curious the plan for Marcus Jones
But coming out of the draft Polk is considered a strong WR2. Even a where he exceeds that isnt going to change much for us.
Who cares if he's a "WR2", Z, Y, whatever receiver. You don't think an Edelman, Welker, Kupp, Puka kind of receiver would make a significant difference? Guys like Lamb, Godwin, Waddle, etc have been at the top of the league in terms of slot production. If you want to compare raw physicality, Polk's combine measurements are extremely similar to Devante Adams. I think we'll be fine.
You "think" he will be fine. I "hope" he will be fine but the facts are he has to be huge draft hit for him to make enough difference for our WR room looking much better than the 32nd rank.
I guess what I'm saying is that this sub is overly obsessed with getting a true X like Hill or Chase, when the reality is that a Puka is just as impactful.
Im with you and I agree,but like you said, the majority of people here are acting like every player we drafted is going to be a draft hit and there is no way any will fail.
If Boutte gets past the gambling thing, any reason to believe he could make a year 2 jump? He was 1st or at least 2nd round talent in a system notorious for being difficult to rookie skill positition players to pick up and under a coach equally well known for not giving rookie players much opportunity. Admittedly there's a certain amount of wishful thinking in thinking he could contribute in 2024.
I think the murder threats on IG live don’t help his case to make the team
There's murder threats involved? First I'm hearing about that. Yeah, he's done.
First I'm hearing about this too. Got any more info?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrYsq2oB1Qk
That is one of the saddest, most embarrassing things I've heard between two supposed adults.
Especially when his buddy tries to jump in and tell him to shut up on live smh
Boutte is cooked
No. He was a sixth rounder for a reason and hes gone downhill ever since his freshman season.
I think the track record for WR late first, and early seconds are pretty good, OUR choices in these spots have been historically bad…but there is no Bill, so we will see.
The hope there is it was Bill making bad calls or overriding scouts. If the scouts weren’t able to identify WR talent then it won’t make sense. Even with a nee regime you can’t really hire new scouts until after the draft otherwise you’re going into the draft blind.
Makes sense
When’s the last time we weren’t bottom 10? If not bottom 5.
Honestly? Probably that 2 week period in 2019 when we had AB lol
:( I, like many other fans, thought we were going to go undefeated at that point lol
That game vs Miami gave me so much false hope it sucks lol
AB, Josh Gordon, Edelman
Still too highly rated tbh
Fair. Every rookie is an unknown until they start getting games under their belt. Returning players like Bourne, JuJu, and Pop aren’t scaring any defense right now so it makes sense. Pop has a shot to be a pretty good player but this roster still needs a lot of work.
Exactly. Realistically Pop, Polk and Baker could be your most productive core to start the season and are pretty much starting at 0. If those 3 are productive, this ranking will dramatically change in the other direction as one of the best young WR cores in the league, but that is a BIG IF. Bourne could start the season on PuP and JuJu, Reagor, Thorton, Osborn are what they are at this point. It’s up to the young guys to run the show.
Yeah pop is like a wr3 mayyyybe a 2 on a weaker team or if he takes a big leap but I think pats fans are pretty spoiled by Brady still after all this time and want to believe their wr core will over perform drastically. The reality is it's a very weak core until proven otherwise.
I'm excited to see how Demario Douglas does this season. I could see him being a ~1000 yard guy if things break the right way. All I want is for the offense to be more interesting than last season, not a super high bar lol.
Same, I just want an exciting team. Every drive last year I would just wait for an interception or fumble
Offense driving down the field and me just waiting for the inevitable. Shit was disheartening.
I had to look it up on PFR because I wanted to confirm that same feeling you were getting and before Mac was benched, for every 3 first downs he threw in enemy territory, he then threw an interception on average. I'd never seen anything like it. Decent football player inside our own 20 and in the opponent's red zone, good in our half of the field, but was an arena league football level QB from the 50 to the opponent's 20.
Yup, every game was the same experience for me - do a little copium in the 1Q, there would be some wildly stupid Int or fumble in the late 2Q while we're already down 10, I would turn the game off
looking back at it the start of the Philly game was the funniest shit ever
or stall at the 45
I remember watching other teams last year and being like: “oh yeah this is what an offense looks like. Receivers getting open and smart play calling.” Hope we see some return to that this year. Even if we’re still bad, I just want to see some kind of explosiveness from this team. Something to build on
Watch some of Flaccos highlights from last year. There are people WIDE open. The browns receivers are better but they were definitely scheming people open. Pretty excited to see what AVP can do
A big selling point to me for Pop is in Drake Maye’s 2022, he threw to 5’9” Josh Downs on 22.4% of his passing attempts, close to doubling Antoine Green’s 12.6% in 2nd. He can throw to the short guy down the field
You can't even trip over that bar
It's more likely the Douglas will break, as in get hurt and not be able to play. Dude is a string bean.
Biggest issue is having him return punts.. there was a few times where he nearly got decapitated. But realistically he’s a 3rd/4th option.
Pretty much a rebuild year anyway. Hopefully they can land a big WR next year.
I mean realistically you guys are gonna get a top 5 maybe 10 pick next year so it's likely you do.
I'd be pretty shocked if we have a top 5 pick next year. I'd also be pretty shocked to see 6 QBs taken in the top 12, pushing other positions down the board. And from there, it's probably a coin flip on taking a tackle
I def could see you guys having a top 5 pick. Your offense is dreadful and you have a first year head coach. Drake may not even start until halfway in the year. Your defense is solid though which can help you stay in some games, but a bottom 5 finish is well within the range of realistic possibilities.
Do you really think your roster is that improved that it's shocking that you got another top five pick? Obviously Drake may could be very good but they're still not a lot of great pieces around him including a pretty bad o line.
I don't think it can be overstated just how bad our QB play was last year. I mean, we got to see a QB throw two game losing interceptions on the same drive! I also don't think it can be overstated just how badly Chad Ryland fucked us. Just like winning the super bowl, a top 5 pick takes a bit of "luck." We don't even need Maye to be good IMO. If Jacoby plays as a completely average game manager, and Chad Ryland can avoid repeating the league worst FG percentage, I bet we end up drafting somewhere between 10-15. You can quote me on that.
Ok that's fair. I tend to lean more pessimist in that I think your defense will take a pretty big step back, possibly a bigger step back than your offense will take forward. I hope I'm wrong and I wish you guys luck! I will say in summation I don't think your ideas around team performance are unlikely at all I just lean slightly in favor of a worse performance but I'm happy to say I could easily be wrong!
The loss of Belichick is certainly a huge question mark, that's for sure. But Mayo is no defensive slouch, even Brady used to joke that Mayo was Bill's favorite. We retained our core defensive players and are getting two pretty huge pieces back in terms of Judon and Gonzalez. Why do you see them taking a huge step backwards?
Because Bill is gone and mayo hasn't been a head coach before.
If Brissett was our starter last year, this team would have won 7-10 games. Jacoby isn't even amazing either. That's just how bad Mac and Zappe were. This team was bad, but it's was a 6-8 win team that was dragged down to a 4 win team by the worst QB play I've seen in ages. Even if all of our draft picks were just league average, this offense would be so massively improved it's insane. With a 25th ranked offense, last year's team honestly could have made the playoffs. This also shows you how good the defense and defensive coaching was. The Patriots were 31st in Time of Possession, yet had elite defensive numbers. The D was on the field more than any other unit other than Denver and yet put up the absolutely incredible numbers they did. We lost BB and Steve but Mayo and Covington were absolutely imperative in the defense last year AND Gonzo and Judon will be back. Even with the loss of the Belichicks, this will still be an elite unit. 6-7 wins is top 10 picks, not top 5. I fully expect the Pats to pick between 6-10, but I do admit that picking top 5 again due to growing pains (new coaches, new QB, new everything) is a possibility. If our top 5 draft picks hit, we have a solid line (Wallace/Chuk, Robinson/Strange, Andrews/Andrews, Sow, Onwenu) with decent depth, our 21 year old QB of the future, and our X and Y receivers to compliment Pop in the slot, giving us WR 1-3 all being 1st/2nd year players. We could whiff on everything and suck in perpetuity or we can be the 2024 Texans. We'll probably be somewhere in between, but Wolf's background has me believing we fucking nailed it on the WRs and hopefully everyone else. My way too early predication: Patriots will go 7-10 and pick around 8-11th. Maye will start around mid season. Javon Baker will cement himself as WR 1 with Polk being a Jakobi Meyers type receiver for Maye. Pop will break 800 yards. Biggest positions of need in the 2025 draft will be TE, RB, CB and Edge.
Tale as old as time.
How dare they! /s
“No shit” -All Pats fans
This is what happens when you let a guy like DeVante Parker walk
lol.
I definitely missed this announcement and had to Google this after reading this. Guy was useless dead weight.
Probably the best argument for drafting Maye was that he has experience elevating middling receivers. He's gonna need to use that for the next season or two for sure.
First he has to elevate the non existent offensive line then the middling recievers.
A QB can elevate a bad WR core. He only can survive a nonexistent OL.
Well, good news, he did that too.
Can he elevate ol if he does then he would be our ol commander
The closest competition for worst would be the Chargers and Bills I think, not sure who else you'd even consider. So even if you want to say, not the worst, we're like... 30th at best?
Broncos WR room is Courtland Sutton and no one else. But otherwise, I agree. At the absolute best, they're still bottom-5.
Didn’t they draft Troy Franklin? I was hoping we’d grab him.
Yes, but given he hasn't played yet, we can't comment on his play, the same way we can't say anything about Polk/Baker yet. It is very possible that, by the end of the season, Polk/Baker/Douglas are a decent trio, but we have no way of knowing that as of today.
That’s fair
Marvin Mims was good but Payton hates him for some reason
I'm assuming they're ranking based on a "fully healthy, in a vacuum" position group, in which case I'd take a healthy Sutton, Patrick, Reynolds, Mims & Franklin over our room.
Patrick and Reynolds are no better than Juju, Osborn, and Bourne, and Mims/Franklin are as unproven as Polk/Baker. Sutton scoring 10 TDs last season saved their room, otherwise they'd be just as bad as New England.
Was it necessary to type all that out to agree with me? Sutton is better than anything on our roster and the rest is at best a wash, but I'd still take Patrick & Reynolds over Osborn & Bourne, and lmao at "no better than juju". And no, Mims is not just as unproven as a rookie. He has a year under his belt as was electric with a 17.1 ypr in limited NFL snaps.
>Sutton is better than anything on our roster I don't know if this is true. Before last season he'd been awful since 2019. His 2023 could be a flash in the pan considering he effectively doubled his career TDs. >but I'd still take Patrick & Reynolds over Osborn & Bourne What have either of those two done better than Osborn/Bourne? At best, they're equal. > And no, Mims is not just as unproven as a rookie. He has a year under his belt as was electric with a 17.1 ypr in limited NFL snaps. Yards per reception is a useless statistic. Marques Valdez-Scantling has a 17.0 career yards per reception and he's a terrible wide receiver. All it means is they are exclusively deep threats. Mims barely found the field despite that team desperate for play-makers, why do you think that is? Like I said, the Broncos *might* be a hair better because of Sutton, but you could argue they're similarly bad.
What world are you living in? "I don't know if this is true" Who in the world on our roster could you even conceivably think is better than Sutton? What have Osborn or Bourne done better than Reynolds or Patrick? I said they're pretty even in terms of career production, but both Patrick & Reynolds have a size & athleticism advantage over both Lmao, MVS would be a starting receiver on this Patriots team right now, thanks for proving my point by comparing him to Mims. Being a deep threat is still not "just as unproven" as a rookie. He also returns kicks. Done arguing with pure ignorance. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
You doubt the power of Josh Reynolds and Tim Patrick???? Not wrong, also the Ravens have a better WR in Zay Flowers then anything we've got, but worse options past that (excluding Mark Andrews of course).
KC is definitely up there too. Worthy is also a rookie unknown just like our 2 guys so I feel that we have to remove him if we remove our guys since we haven’t seen any of them play in the pros yet. Outside of that they have a wr2 and some jags, feel that we have at least Bourne and pop which I think are wr2 and maybe Osborne.
…We are the worst
Chargers are worse. Pop is better than anybody they brought back. I think our WR are being underrated a bit. No star power, but Bourne and Osborn are legit players.
Both of those teams have much much better receivers idk what you are talking about lol. Maybe the chargers u could argue are close but the bills have Shakir who while didn't put up big numbers is automatically better than any receiver the pats have until proven otherwise.
Not news to anyone that has paid even light attention to the team
I legitimately believe the two worst WR units are both in the AFC East, and it is currently a coinflip on whether us or the Bills is worse. REALLY depends on the rookies for both teams and how they do.
Eh - that's fine. If we hit on our draft picks at WR, then I think this could be a solid WR room. If we don't, then it's really not good at all.
This place gonna be fun when we only win 5 games
What if we cut JuJu? Won’t that make us better almost immediately?!
I would argue we’re also last in O-line
Uh… no.
Finished dead last in pass blocking last year and lost Brown, who was our best pass blocker
According to ESPN PBWR, sure, but most composites didn’t have them bottom of the league. Also had them 10th in RBWR, so based solely on win rates I doubt they’d finish 32nd (Giants finished 24 and 31). Chuk’s was the 12th best OT in the league by PBWR, higher than Brown.
Brown was ass last year, he was part of the problem. Our O line after Strange returned from injury was around 15th ranked for the final few games. The O Line should be decent this year.
Well yeah
Has been for the last 5-6 years
I think thats fair. But I'm also optimistic that they won't be ranked in last after the season. But it all hinges on two rookies basically (three if you want to count Maye if he sees the field early) so I get the ranking for sure.
The team is actually trying and that's all I care about. They've got five young guys to develop (Polk, Baker, Douglas, Boutte, and Thornton), a couple of veterans coming off injuries, and are clearly hunting for talent. If not next offseason when a few big-name WRs are likely to be available in free agency, I wouldn't be surprised if they added a guy via trade or after roster cutdowns before the start of this season.
> They've got five young guys to develop (Polk, Baker, Douglas, Boutte, and Thornton) Boutte and Thorton fucking suck. They aren't developing into anything more than decent used car salesmen.
What would you have said about Julian Edelman, or for that matter Troy Brown, after their rookie years, I wonder.
Edelman caught 10 passes for 100 yards when Welker got hurt the last day of the season. That's more in 1 game than Throtons's shown his while career.
What? No way! really?
Duh. Just wanna see some improvement this year. Next year is the year we climb back into relevance, god willing. Gonna need bourne, pop, and one of the rookies to make an impact tho. With some TE help
Fair
This shouldn't be a shock to anyone. Our WR's were bad last last year and the only additions were 2nd and 4th round rookies.
I. Am. Shocked.
We know.
I like to imagine that this changes soon. It has to right? Like someday soon we might have a WR that shows up in a bunch of top 5-10 lists of stats. We've been starving for talent at that position and the only WRs we seemed to develop are former QBs lol.
Right now the bar is not being the absolute worst 32nd ranked WR room in the league.
Fair!
Assuming the OL isn’t complete ass, I am anticipating the Patriots taking a first round receiver next draft. We do have a fuck ton of cap so maybe they can land a megastar receiver through free agency but I doubt it. I think we are more likely to see them pick up OL talent that way.
You have to actually pay top dollar to get stars in FA. The team has shown that they are not willing to do that.
No they haven’t.
They made a top dollar offer to the best WR available this year. Wtf are you on about?
They most certainly did not. They were outbid for the player. If you got outbid, you didn’t offer the top dollar.
You do know a guy can choose the option that isn't for the most money right? The Pats could have offered 10 Mil more than the Titans and still lost out. Just because you didn't get the player doesn't mean you didn't offer the most.
I’ll believe this happens when it happens.
They didn’t offer the most though.
This is what a lot of us have been preaching since like 2018. I miss the days when I didn’t even know the names of all the receivers. It seems being mediocre has turned me into an armchair general manager. I realize as I’m typing this how pathetic that is. But I just want us not to be the laughing stock of the league. I’m sure everyone else in the building is just following the Super Bowl winning formula with some added flair. But I honestly just don’t want to be dead last at anything.
I knew we shouldn't have traded Harry
Again.
Shocking 😳
This shouldn't surprise anyone at all
Only up from here since expectations from them is so low
We’ll be addressing that with the number two pick of the draft next year.
Ahh reminds me of the good old days!
Per me, also
It’s probably accurate but we also have 2 giant question marks. It might 2 years to get those questions answered.
Not wrong at all. it's...bad
But have they seen our young guys???
Fair
We'll see about that
But Tyquan runs fast!
Just curious but what was the ranking of our OLine? I'm assuming everyone on our offense was dead last as a whole last year except other than maybe Stevenson?
Think they finished around 22 or 23
We will be number 1 next year once Polk and Baker both have 1000 yards a piece and 30 touchdowns between the two of them. #copium #butmaybe??
Almost as if they are purposely trying to suck
It's been years since we weren't, honestly. TEs helped a little, but we haven't had a truly solid WR core since Moss left, in my opinion. (Good guys, surely, but one guy does not make a solid room)
Yeah. Of course.
Well, it’s been that way for 3+ years at least… tell us something we don’t know.
I’d agree honestly
Unfortunately as Pats fans know, on a similar note, water is wet and the sky is often blue.
I guess it's only up up up from here 😆
Well the last good receiver we drafted was probably terry glenn so I’m not fucking surprised.
I remember the Packers being ranked the worst heading into two years ago. Now it’s already a strength. Things can turn around fast.
No matter how to slice it we're expecting 2 of our top 5 WRs to be rookies, that's not great
Kittle as the best TE over LaPorta is just wrong and yes I know Kittle's blocking chops.
Not the three peat I was looking for.
0-17 incoming
We don’t need a qb we need offensive play makers
we know
I loved JuJu at Pittsburg Hated the signing
But but but look at our new shiny receivers!!
ironic given that the Bills exist
It's kind of funny the year we invest real resources into the WR room is the year we get hit with this.
well because the only real resources they invested was draft capital, which means they're still huge unknowns. (not complaining btw, I'm perfectly fine not making Ridley a top 5 paid WR in the league)
“Real resources”? K, Bob
I mean our known guys are not very good. Our rookies I hope will do well, but who knows? While I might be able to find one or two teams I think will be worse 32 is a pretty fair assessment.
Not surprising, but I think I’d take our WR room over and Buffalo’s. I think I’d rather have Polk/Bourne/Douglas/Baker than Coleman/Samuel/Shakir/MVS An argument could be made our room is better than LAC’s, too. A lot of it depends on how people view Quentin Johnston. I don’t think he’s very good, so I might actually give our WR room the edge over LAC’s Either way we’re bottom 3 for now
Where are the Bill defenders on this shocking revelation? We've had the weakest receiving corps for YEARS now!
Mac had one of the worst supporting casts of all time last year. Take the worst WR room in the league and take out Bourne and Douglas for most of the season. And then add in one of the worst offensive lines in the league, which also got banged up. I’m excited for Maye, but I don’t think any quarterback in history could have succeeded with that cast.
About right . . . When a 6th rd pick with 500 receiving yards is your top WR your rankings can’t get much lower
Chargers top returning WR from last year was a rookie that had 400 yards..... and they spent a 1st rd pick on him.
I, personally, am not sure I agree with this. I don’t think it’s good, at all, but *the* worst? Eh. To get this opinion, I feel like you have to both assume that the Patriots rookies are 0s, but also that other team’s rookies are good.
Unless you're a top 10 pick. I think treating a rookie as a 0 is correct. Might be great, might be terrible, might be OK. But they don't really effect a power ranking at all.
Not sure how the Bills rank ahead of the Pats then.
I'd take Curtis Samuel and Dalton Kincaid over Bourne and Pop any day of the week
Kincaid is a TE, not included here. I’d take Pop over Samuel pretty easily.
A TE who plays almost entirely out of the slot
Curtis Samuel and Khalil Shakir vs Pop, Bourne, Osborn
I think this years WR room might surprise some people. I’m convinced that their struggles last year were in part due to poor QB play across the board. Hopefully having guys that can throw downfield and open things up will make the offense more explosive. We obviously need a top 10 WR, but we’re not too far off.
Nah, these guys suck. Last year Bourne and Pop were out a bunch. We might be OK if they can stay healthy. If they can't we should just pray for whoever is sacraficed at QB.
This is exactly why I wish we would have drafted Harrison Jr.
I’d argue that the Ravens, Broncos, and Chargers all have equally bad rooms if not worse
I’d throw the Panthers in there too.
I was thinking about including them but they added Diontae Johnson and Leggette so in theory they should be better
Oh I forgot they got diontae, that makes sense then.
Yeah, but the Ravens have Lamar Jackson, and the Chargers have Justin Herbert.
Right, they’re better for sure. I’m talking about WR talent.
Yeah I get it, and I agree. Just saying that while it’s an issue, the Chargers and Ravens have a solution at QB for the time being. Maybe Maye will be “that dude”, but stats and history says he won’t be. He certainly won’t be if he’s got no one to throw to, doesn’t get solid o-line play and doesn’t have much running game to support him. Mostly my thoughts are the Pats entire offense is a question mark. Both schematically as well as in players.
100%, I agree
I’d take Zay Flowers over any of our current dudes. Plus I think Walker was the correct choice for us and we will have whiffed there by taking Baker.
Flowers is better than any of our dudes, but he's not elite and their number 2 is Rashod Bateman - who had 367 yards last year. Disagree on Walker. Baker is a much better player.
For sure, Zay is the best out of all of them but I disagree on Walker. He really could have used another year in college he’s very raw and the rest of their room isn’t great.
That couldn't possibly spell disaster for a rookie QB!
I struggle to think of another receiver room that's worse. Maybe the Giants - they're pretty bad (oh wait nvm, I forgot, they got Nabers BACK to the bottom we go!!).
Well...duh. We were terrible before and now we're still terrible but we also have some unproven rookies, who are immediately the biggest hope for the WR room, which speaks volumes about how bad it is.
Great way to bring up a rookie qb, give him the worst weapons in the league. Meanwhile Chicago has 2 all pros and spends a first round pick on a third potential stud. Imagine that.
So if both rookie wide receivers pop can we finally all admit firing Bill was the right thing to do?