Wes Welker is headed to the Denver Broncos, and all I can really say is “shame on you, New England.” Welker has been the most productive receiver in the NFL for years now, yet apparently he’s not worth $12 million over two years to New England. If you ask me, that’s a certifiable slap in the face.

I’ll give you one stat on Welker’s production – in the last 6 years, he’s had 110+ receptions 5 times. In his entire NFL career, Jerry Rice had 110+ catches exactly twice. Don’t get me wrong, they’re very different players. But I think you get the point.

Welker’s production aside, what makes me the most angry about the Pats letting him slip away is this – sure, I see Danny Amendola as well as Julian Edelman as more than capable replacements. Both are younger and faster than Welker. But it could very well take Amendola two or more years to develop half the chemistry with Tom Brady that Wes Welker has right now. Welker is 32 – it’s not like he’s that old – and the window of opportunity for Tom Brady (and Wes) to win in right now. Why the need to bring in new blood and pass on a known (and incredibly productive) commodity?

Sure, it’s the Patriots schtick to stick it to the player and make it known that no one is that valuable and the cogs in their wheel are all mostly interchangeable. But it’s also the Patriot way to look for players, regardless of size, who know their role and compete on every single play. Wes Welker mine as well be the poster boy for that mantra. If I was Tom Brady, I’d sure be ticked.

As for Danny Woodhead, although he plays a different position he mine as well be Welker Jr. Both guys left it all on the field, were pound for pound two of the toughest guys in the entire league, and contributed to the Patriots in a big way. Neither was making unreasonable demands, and both were good for team morale.

Sure, Wes Welker has become something of a scapegoat for the Patriots’ two most recent and brutal playoff loses. But I can just see him in my mind’s eye catching that beautiful touchdown pass from Tom’s biggest rival, Peyton Manning, that sends the Patriots packing in the final seconds of next year’s AFC championship. On second thought, I can see him dropping the pass and New England rejoicing. Whatever the outcome, one thing is for certain – the Patriots better make some moves or they won’t have the opportunity to play against Welker in next year’s AFC championship.

Here we have Tom Brady and the best receiver in the NFL over the past 5 seasons, Wes Welker. Yes, you are envious of their awesomeness.

A lot went right for the Patriots yesterday, as they toppled a Vince Young led Eagles team 38-20 on the road. Tom Brady continued his ascent on the NFL’s single season passing yardage record, throwing for 361 yards and 3 touchdowns to pass Johnny Unitas on the all-time wins list (not a bad day’s work). Wes Welker and Deion Branch were involved in the offense, compiling 115 and 125 receiving yards, respectively. Rob Gronkowski had a touchdown, as usual. The defense even played well for much of the game. The Pats are now tied for the best record in the AFC and sit firmly atop their division.

Yet my confidence is waning.

As I watch the Patriots offense, it’s easy to see that little can go wrong. Tom Brady is so good, and has so many weapons, it’s almost impossible to defend against the pass. Benjarvus Green-Ellis, while not sensational, runs hard and doesn’t cough the ball up (he had 2 touchdowns yesterday). The offensive line has been decent as of late, despite starting  3rd string center. But the defense man… what are we going to do about this damned defense?

The first drive of yesterday’s game was case in point. Vince Young attacked from the get-go, leading the Eagles up the field for a touchdown on the back of two huge passing plays. If Vince Young is capable of carving up this secondary, I can only imagine what Aaron Rodgers would do. Or Drew Brees. Or Matt Ryan. You get the idea.

While I’m often cited as being overly optimistic about the championship chances of Boston’s sports team, this is one season in which I am assuredly pessimistic. With the easiest road in the league from here on out, the Patriots seem destined to end the season at 13-3 or 12-4. They’ll likely get a first round playoff bye, and home field advantage. But I can’t get around foreseeing another early playoff exit for the Patriots. Even as their confidence grows and the wins rack up, come the playoffs they’ll all of a sudden have to face the best teams in the league. Our inability to stop opposing quarterbacks will be our downfall, and another year in Tom Brady’s prime will be wasted.

Sure, this sounds very negative. But I don’t see any way around it. Maybe Billy B has a magic cornerback rabbit up his sleeve, because at this point as a New England fan, I feel like that’s just about all I can hope for.

The Patriots came up with a good win to start their season, in a game filled with several pleasant surprises. On the offensive side of the ball, the Patriots showed me that their offense is as good as ever. With not even a B+ running back, this offense will put up a ton of points — they simply have too many weapons. Tom Brady shined, Wes Welker showed that he’s going to be just fine, the offensive line actually bought Brady some time. Both of our two young tight ends played good games and Fred Taylor even pitched in running the ball. The offense is all well and good, but as the second half showed…..

Unfortunately, almost every Patriots game this year will be a time of possession battle. If the Pats get the ball, the offense will dominate and score plenty of points. I’m sure we’ll struggle against the premiere pass rushes in the league, but for the most part just get us the ball and we’ll be great. Unfortunately, the defense is young and generally terrible. Other teams will be able to eat up huge portions of the clock and put points on the board. There’s no way around it.

That being said, game one was a huge success as the defense did show up and make plays. If the Pats can play decent defense even half of the game, get a defense score, or even make just a few key stops on third down, they’ll be extremely tough to beat. And it was great to see them do this in game one against a pretty damn potent offense. Our young cornerbacks, although inexperienced, looked young and fast. They did a great job, despite Ocho Cinco going on a bit of a receiving spree in the second half. This game ultimately provided the blueprint for Patriots success this year — make a few key plays on D and the offense will take care of itself.

Big game against the Jets next week, and thrilled to have football back.

Check out http://chrisross91.wordpress.com.

So yesterday I ripped on Eli Manning and the New York Giants a bit, as he was all bloody and one of our contributing New York writers has season tickets to the mediocrity happening every weekend at the new $1.7 Billion dollar Meadowland stadium. Now it’s time to take a look at my team — the New England Patriots.

I’ll start with some criticism of Tom Brady. Yes, I’ll say it again. I’ll start with some criticism of Tom Brady. I ripped on Eli, and at risk of being called a homer, I must be fair. I’ve decided to do this in a personal note to Tom, as I love him.

Dear Tom,

Boy, your eyes sparkle in the picture above. You are so photogenic. But please, Tom, cut that hair. You’ve never looked so soft. I know that Gizelle loves the triumvirate of your long locks, your dimples, and your butt cheeks — but that hair is not intimidating Ray Lewis. If I was a D-lineman, I’d want to rip your head off. So ditch the pretty boy look, get back to the grizzly-badass-stud look, and dominate once again. We all still love you.

Geoff

Tom Brady aside, I’ll start with this — despite the newly retooled Jets and Dolphins, the Patriots will once again win the AFC East. That being said, I don’t think they will be able to contend with the elite teams in the league. Their Super Bowl chances look very slim.

As usual, I think the Patriots offense will be fine.  The air attack still consists of Tom Brady, arguably the best slot receiver in the league (Wes Welker, knee-dependent), and arguably the best deep threat in the league (Randy Moss). It’ll certainly be interesting to see how our new tight ends play — Ron Gronkowski is supposedly a stud and has great size (6’6″, 264 lbs.) while Florida’s Aaron Hernandez has shown great potential despite a love of weed that rivals Ricky Williams’. The Patriots should use approximately 4-28 different running backs, all with mild effectiveness. The O-line isn’t great, but neither is the D-line. The pass defense should be pretty poor, as in past seasons. I’d look for the Patriots to go 10-6, something along those lines, then lose before the Super Bowl.

This is extremely unfortunate to me. The Patriots have an all-time coach, arguably two all-time receivers (it’s a bit early to call Welker that), and an all-time quarterback. These are extremely hard pieces of the puzzle to come by, let alone finding all of them at once. Yet by having the third lowest payroll in football, the Patriots seem to be throwing it all out the window. They are simply refusing to surround this core with the role players necessary to win another championship. I don’t know why, and it frustrates me.

Oh yea, and message to Bob Kraft. What are you thinking? Sign Brady all ready. Who cares what it takes? 

Check out http://chrisross91.wordpress.com.

A Guest Post by Patrick Klimm, Boston, MA

           I want to begin this article by making it clear that I am one of the most diehard and loyal Patriots fans out there.  However, as I sit back and watch what has been going on with the team over the past several years and throughout this offseason, I have to seriously question the direction they are heading in.  Many fans, including myself at times, still see the Pats as a well oiled machine that hasn’t outlived its days as a dynasty.  The reality is they haven’t won anything in six years, the icing on the cake being getting blown out by the Ravens in the playoffs last year.  Their frugality and unwillingness to spend money to improve the quality of the team has finally caught up with them, as many publications now have the Pats finishing 3^rd in the AFC East behind the Jets and Dolphins.  What was once considered to be one of the best run franchises in all of sports may now be stumbling back into mediocrity.  How did this happen?

            Over the past 10 years the Patriots have become known for their expertise in talent evaluation, finding value at every position and having strong influences and leadership in the locker room from both players and coaches.  There’s no question a winning coach is still in place, but how good has the talent evaluation been over the past several years?  Sure they have made excellent trades for Randy Moss and Wes Welker barely giving up anything in return, but a franchise that historically has been one of the best in the draft has fallen behind – which may be attributed the loss of GM Scott Pioli.  Year after year, they have traded back or out of the first round altogether, which has terribly frustrated fans.  Beginning in 2005, the Patriots first round, 32^nd overall pick was Logan Mankins who has turned into one of the best guards in the game and who they now refuse to pay.  2006 may have been the worst draft year where the most dependable pick was kicker Stephen Gostkowski who was taken in the 4^th round.  Their first round pick that year was underachieving and injury plagued Laurence Maroney, followed by receiver Chad Jackson who they traded up to get and who turned into a complete bust.  2007 was another horrible draft where the only notable player they got was Brandon Meriweather, who has turned into a pretty decent safety although he still makes absolutely ridiculous decisions at times, ie. taunting penalties to put teams in scoring position.  2008 seemed promising with the drafting of Jerod Mayo at 10 overall (who they traded down to get). After a monster rookie season, Mayo suffered a sophomore slump, albeit primarily due to injury.  In that draft they scored studs like Terrence Wheatley, Shawn Crable, Kevin O’Connell, Jonathan Wilhite and Matthew Slater.  And by studs I mean absolute busts.  It may be too early to tell what the class of 2009 will achieve but Ron Brace doesn’t seem to show too much promise and Darius Butler and Pat Chung have yet to offer serious contributions.  However, it must be noted that they did take Sebastian Vollmer in the 2^nd and Julian Edelman in the 7^th, both of whom were nice surprises.  Also note that they did trade out of the 1^st round entirely.  That brings us to the 2010 draft where they traded down multiple times passing up impact players to go with a guy like Devin McCourty to throw into their heap of undersized cornerbacks.  They also drafted highly touted tight ends Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez and while I like them, we all know the Patriots’ record with drafting tight ends (see Ben “stone hands” Watson and Daniel Graham.) 

            With the past five years of draft history outlined it is pretty clear that the Pats have not yet drafted a serious impact player, save perhaps Jerod Mayo, and at times Meriweather.  Of those two, Mayo was able to step in and contribute right away but it took Meriweather several years to develop into a starter.  Players are first round picks for a reason – because generally they are better and are able to contribute more quickly.  How can you expect to improve your team if you keep trading down and out of the first round for “value” in later rounds?  When a team says it is looking for value in later rounds it basically means they are looking to get lucky and hit the jackpot with some unknown player, which is perfectly fine if you are a small market team and need to run your team that way.  The fact of the matter is the Patriots are not a small market team.  Actually, Forbes just recently published a list of the richest sports franchises in the world. Guess who was sitting there at number five?  You guessed it.  The stingy, value-seeking New England Patriots. That’s not number five in the United States or in the four major sports, that’s in the world.  To put it in perspective number one was Manchester United and number three was the Yankees.  As a matter of fact, all 32 NFL teams were on that list.  That’s right, all 32 NFL teams were on the list of the 50 richest sports franchises in the world.  That means that even the bottom feeding Oakland Raiders (44^th), perhaps the most pathetic franchise in all of American sports, made the list ahead of great franchises like the Lakers (49^th).  The scariest part is where the Pats fall in the payroll rankings.  For the 2010 season the Patriots have the third lowest team salary in the NFL at a projected $92,734,120.    

            That is why I get so upset when I hear the Patriots can’t afford certain players or refuse to offer contracts to guys who have played their hearts out for them.  Vince Wilfork was put through the ringer after not holding out, not making a stink about his contract situation, and showing up for camps, which is more than can be said for most players.  Tom Brady is still without a new contract.  They refused to sign pro bowler Asante Samuel because he was demanding too much.  Instead they went with cornerback by committee and put on the most pathetic display of pass defense I have seen in a while.  They inexplicably traded Mike Vrabel to free up space from his miniscule couple million dollar contract.  The one big name they did sign was Adalius Thomas which worked out terribly.  Not to mention the Joey Galloway and Shawn Springs experiments.  They simply refuse to go out and sign big name players or to keep their high first round picks because they don’t want to pay people.  That doesn’t sound like something the 5^th richest sports franchise in the world should be doing. 

            I’m not a proponent of players making exorbitant amounts of money, especially rookies who haven’t proven themselves yet.  I do believe however, that when a player is loyal, works hard and performs, then he should be compensated accordingly.  The Patriots refuse to do that and they have gotten that reputation throughout the league.  What kind of star player will willingly choose to come here now if he knows he’s going to be treated like that?  They are alienating their own players and future prospects, and that needs to change.  As a fan it’s easy for me to say that a club should open their pockets and spend away – I do realize that however wealthy a team may be they do still need to operate under a budget.  However, it’s evident that the Patriots are not operating to their maximum spending potential.  They haven’t spent money in the draft or in free agency and it’s beginning to show.  The Jets went out and got Santonio Holmes, Antonio Cromartie,  LaDainian Tomlinson, Jason Taylor, and stayed put in the draft.  The Dolphins signed Brandon Marshall, Karlos Dansby, and stayed put at their position in the draft.  Outside of keeping Vince Wilfork, the Pats have made no major moves and moved down multiple times in the draft.  They signed dinosaurs like Tory Holt and Alge Crumpler.  Sweet.  Way to keep pace in the East.  Not to be repetitive, New England Patriots, but you are the 5^th richest sports franchise in the entire world.  Act accordingly.

Check out http://www.chrisross91.wordpress.com.