Patriots changes by position: Cornerback
by MaPatsFan on May 4, 2009 9:14 PM EDT
in New England Patriots News
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PrintIn conjunction with our 2009 Draft Grades stories, I thought I'd start with a look back at the Patriots transactions since Free Agency, position by position. My goal? With your help, I'd like to assess the impact to the position those changes may have. Of course, this is like pheasant hunting in the dark, or trying to find a sober person on Union St. at 2am on a Saturday, but I digress. It's next to impossible, but let's give it a shot anyway, shall we?
- Shawn Springs - In March, former 33 year old Redskin Springs signed a three year deal that could net him $13 million when incentives kick in. Noted as being "strong out of the slot", Springs also comes at a very interesting time, the signing of Terrell Owens to Buffalo. It seems Springs and Owens have a LOT of history together. Like, seven seasons of history. Did Belichick have him in mind as a T.O. stopper? Springs says no and I doubt Hoodie would lay out that kind of cash just to stop one receiver, but I wouldn't totally rule out that the thought may have crossed Belichick's steel trap of a mind.
- Leigh Bodden - Continuing the cornerback deals in March, New England signed free agent Leigh Bodden to a veteran minimum $750,000 one year deal. Leigh says he wanted an extended deal, but was happy to sign with a winner. He played on the Browns for five years, learning defense under the likes of Romeo Crennel whose system is remarkably similar to New England's. I think that might help a bit, don't you? After a 2008 with the Lions in a Cover-2 style defense (that was smart - put a 3-4 corner in a Cover-2 D), we have ourselves the 27 year old Bodden.
- Wheatley/Wilhite - I lumped Terrence and Jonathan together because, well, they were virtually interchangeable last season. Expected to see sporadic playing time, Deltha O'Neal changed all of that. Ellis Hobbs had locked up one CB starting position and veteran O'Neal should've been the other. No dice. Deltha was hammered all season and has been sent packing. The W twins jumped in and gained valuable experience at a tender age, almost unheard of in a Belichick defense.
- Mike Richardson - Mike, in his third season with the Patriots, is a solid backup corner and special teams guy. He has numerous tackles to his credit during the '08 season and will, most likely, continue those roles in '09.
- Darius Butler - The young guy on the block, he's got a lot to prove. Draftcountdown.com says he has "Impressive natural talent" and I'm sure we're all hoping the same. I, for one, have missed an aggressive ball hawk since the departure of Asante Samuel and would love to see a guy who's not afraid to take some risks and is also allowed to take those risks. Let's get smashmouth at this position!
- Ellis Hobbs - I have mixed emotions about this one. On the one hand, Ellis played injured for much of the historic 2007 season and gave us all he had. On the other, he routinely played soft, in my opinion, and didn't "prowl" his territory. Ultimately, the Eagles went after him hard, packaging two fifth round choices to get the starting corner. The Patriots ultimately swapped those for fourth and sixth rounders, picking up OL Ohrnberger and LS Ingram. The Eagles reunited Hobbs with former Patriots teammate Asante Samuel and, more importantly, gained valuable leverage with problem child Sheldon "I'm unhappy with my contract" Brown.
Analysis
A rating of 89.8 put us at 23rd in total defense. While none of the other stats are miserable (YPG, touchdowns, etc...), they were nothing to write home about, either. I believe Belichick has been itching for a defense capable of matching his high-powered offense. Cornerback is usually the first player to come in contact with a receiver. Disrupt his route and you potentially narrow down the choices available to the quarterback. Belichick carried at one time, 10 cornerbacks into 2008 training camp, so I believe he was searching then, too.
It is my belief Bodden will get the most snaps (I hate the term starter). At 27, he's still got a lot of gas and six years under his belt. Young, healthy, and experienced are three powerful attributes not all players have and I think they'll play in Bodden's favor. I see the remaining players, in terms of snaps, like so: Springs, Wheatley/Wilhite, Butler, Richardson.
My greatest WISH is to see Butler turn out like another Jerod Mayo and work it early on. It's all about physical talent and football IQ. If he has them both, lookout. We got ourselves a corner!!
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This is really good.
I hope you’ll do a similar roster breakdown and analysis for each position on the team. I agree that things sure do look better at cornerback than they did this time last year. I think the top 5 guys are a big improvement over last year’s top 5 corners and, more importantly, the top 2 corners—whoever they turn out to be—will surely be better also.
Yup
Definitely more to come. Tomorrow will be Safety. That oughta be fun. ;-)
Blogger at SBNation's Patriots blog, Pats Pulpit
Your mention in the article that the Pats initially carried 10 CB’s into training camp got me thinking – when evaluating the changes, it may be useful in all these “changes” articles to list: (i) who were the guys on the roster last year at the position and (ii) what percentage of snaps they played.
I know Mike Reiss began tracking this for defensive players last year, in addition to his previous work tracking the offense, and did a year-end wrap-up for both sides of the ball (defense linked below).
http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/reiss_pieces/2009/01/final_defensive.html
For example, for CB’s, Ellis Hobbs played 89% of snaps, Deltha O’Neal 67%, Wilhite 36%, Lewis Sanders 30% (some at safety), Mike Richardson 12%, Wheatley 8%, Jason Webster 4%. At Safety, Merriweather played 85%, Sanders 80%, Harrison 32%, Spann and Slater each 2%.
Mike Reiss is gold
That stat box he’d put up after a game showing the snaps taken by the offensive skill players and defensive players was very informative. It really clued readers in to the truth rather than perception, and that’s key when evaluating any player.
Keep the faith!
Pie, good thought. I'll track those guys down for the next round
Blogger at SBNation's Patriots blog, Pats Pulpit
What made me think of Reiss’ analysis is that we seem a little short on safety depth with just Sanders, Merriweather, Chung, Spann, and Tank Williams (plus potentially Springs shifting over). I consider Matthew Slater and Ray Ventronne as primarily special teams players who are listed at safety.
In comparison to last year, however, it looks like Pats would be content with their current depth, assuming good health, given that three players essentially saw all the snap at the position (Merriweather, James Sanders, Harrison).
To get better at the position, it seems like we just need continued development from our two starters and for Chung to get up to speed to be able to play more than the one-third of snaps that Harrison did last year. Additionally, having Tank Williams hopefully also gives some positional flexibility. Also just realized that I jumped ahead to today’s post.
Jumped ahead
That’s ok, now I can just cut & paste!! ;-)
Blogger at SBNation's Patriots blog, Pats Pulpit
Hold on
You might want to hold on to the Safeties-piece. According to ESPN Brandon McGovan has been added to the mix.
truth
With last yrs rookies having a yr under the belt and the 2 vets added and a good rookie. It looks like we might have some real good CBs this yr and should be a better defense than last yrs at that position. If the improvements on the front 7 turn out to be good to it will be interesting to see and kinda scary to think about.. If we get Jason Taylor to.. it will really be frighting…
Good on paper
I think this looks good on paper, but I don’t think we looked al that shabby on paper last year either. I like the development of the W’s, the experience of the free agents and the potential of Butler, but the fact remains, that we have let the only quality starter from last year go.
Now, Hobbs was never a great cornerback so he is by no means irreplacable, and of course you could argue, that things couldn’t get much worse than last season, so why not go in a new direction? I just hope the Hobbs trade doesn’t come back to bite us in the but.
you're right, especially at the CB position
We were swimming in CBs last off-season and it wasn’t until the pre-season games that the plan fell apart and we were left with Deltha O’Neil as the “cream” of that FA crop. It was tough to swallow as fans, especially because we had traded away our ace in Asante Samuel and had literally nothing to show for it but a JAG to pair up with Hobbs. Must have been tough for BB to swallow too, as he’s cleaned house again and brought in more replacements.
Keep the faith!
Hobbs please!
Has any Patriots DB in history given up more big plays than Hobbs? The good receivers beat him like a Salvation Army drum…HE can join Asante…Asante dropped the SB winning interception, and Hobbs gave up the final TD
GOOD RIDDANCE
That's harsh
Especially considering that it wasn’t even Hobbs’ fault on that last touchdown, and he’d shut down Plaxico for most of that night. Blame the all-out blitz that couldn’t get there in time.
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