Its not just drops, its catch rate, Vereen will turn the wrong way, lose the ball in the air, adjust wrong more than those guys plus Brady isn't good at throwing the ball outside the numbers and long at this point. If your argument is they should use him more in the passing game, yeah, to some extent I agree, but when they use him in the way you suggest he hasn't been as productive as the players you've mentioned for the reasons Ive laid out above and he's unlikely to be as productive with increased usage.

He was 1-9 on balls thrown beyond 10 yards last year.

Useful player, yeah. Try and feed him the ball more in a struggling offense, sure. Sproles/Bell/Woodhead type performance? Don't think its happening.

I think I disagree here. He had a number of games last year that were certainly on par with what those players are doing. I'm not sure it's absolutely going to happen but he definitely has the talent for it.

Not sure why it hasn't happened yet but I think he'll be getting more involved as the year goes on.

He might have the talent for it, but we're in year four here. Everything he's done career to date indicates that he's a good player that's unlikely to put up quite that level of production in this offense for various reasons

Fair enough.

This was the moment I realized that Brady might be gone sooner rather than later.

Goodie, the whole point of internet message boards is to analyze and critique people who are more qualified than us but subject to the public arena. That's part of being in the public arena. Appeal to authority is often a very valid argument, but you use it as a universal argument, and it's weak.

If your painter screws up the side of your house, don't question him, he knows more about painting than you.

If your plumber screws up your toilet, don't get upset, he knows why more about plumbing than you.

Never question a professional coach or athlete. They have played and coached more than you.

Welcome to Monday morning Salva, how's the weather there?

Surprised we haven't gotten a good roster construction rant from you yet this season. Unfortunately, I think its because the offense is just so depressing right now that its sapping your will to type one.

I get what your saying. However, with a plumber or a painter, it's extremely easy to tell when they didn't do their job well. The toilet doesn't work, the paint looks like crap. We also typically have all the information we need to make an assessment.

With BB, it's a lot tougher. Even if a move doesn't work out, it doesn't necessarily mean that he made a mistake given the information that he had at the time the move was made. There are calculated risks that don't always work out but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't take those risks. And we, as fans, just don't know which ones made sense and which ones maybe didn't.

That's the way I feel about it. I get it's an internet message board so speculating and critiquing will still go on. That doesn't mean it makes much sense though.

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Have you watched the offensive line play? I think we can tell the job's not being done well. Kind of would rather have my toilet spew **** all over my bathroom than keep watching it.

Or lets take Devey as an example
--His pedigree sucks
--His play sucked in preseason
--His play sucks now
--He's 26, so he's not even that young

Yeah, Im comfortable saying he sucks and shouldn't be playing.

Agreed and BB agrees as well. I can't tell you the reasons that led up to him playing 2 1/2 games though. BB can though.

Yeah, the reason is they ****ed up their player evaluation. It happens.

Some fabulous O-line gifs in this:

http://thebiglead.com/2014/09/23/the...r-three-games/

If you say so. I don't know how you could possibly know that's the only reason. Do you have candid one on one meetings with BB every week?

This is the **** that drives me bonkers. Don't say with certainty things that you have no f'ing clue about.

Correct. But Salva's analogy still doesnt work that well. BB has information we're not privy to so it's not as simple as saying something was done incorrectly because of the results (which you know).

Do you want me to allow that they might have coached him terribly in addition to ****ing up the player evaluation? OK, no problem, part of it might have been ****ty coaching as well.

The bottom line is the team decided Devey was a good enough solution at guard and that was pretty clearly a **** up as he's been just about the worst regular starter in the league. Pretty much no other team in the league thought he was any good, he went undrafted and was signed by the Pats off the street. Sorry you don't like it, its pretty obvious to everyone that's watched the team that it was a **** up including the head coach.

Don't worry, they aren't stripping BB of his Super Bowl wins or future Hall of Fame induction over it, ****ing up happens.

I can preface even the mildest criticism of BB by saying earmuffs if you want? That way you don't have to be offended.

I'm not offended in the least. And I don't think BB is some god or something. And I don't worship him or anything like that.

It just doesn't make any sense to me that you can be so sure about a subject that you have SOOOOOOO little information about. It's the same thing as you telling me that I f'ed up my job because one of my candidates didn't show up, without knowing anything else about the situation. You would have no idea what you're talking about because you don't know my business. Nor do you know BB business or job. Nor do I.

It absolutely could have just been a straight up f'ck up. Of course. But YOU have absolutely no idea if that's the case.

Yeah I do. They ****ed up with Devey. Ive seen it on my TV screens for three straight Sunday. Sorry bro.

Do you have any idea what goes into the evaluation of a player and managing the personnel of an entire football team? My thought is that you know just about as much as I do. Which is jack s'hit. I can't even begin to talk about the number of scenerio's that come up through drafting, camp and into the season that cause BB and his team to make the decisions they do.

However, do you truly think that if you were able to be walked through the decisions and reasons why Devey was playing by BB himself, it would be just a simple "oh yeah, duh, we f'ucked that one up". I just don't believe that. I think that BB can walk you or anyone through exactly why he was playing and it would make perfect sense. It's not just "Hey, we thought he was super good, I guess not". Do you really think BB or his staff is that f'ing dumb or clueless?

Devey wasnt even the type of bust that looked good in pre-season/training camp then went to **** in the regular season.

He was consistently the worst player in the line during pre-season aswell, even when playing vs 2's and 3's.

The narrative from all the beat writers during that time was pretty much " No idea what they see in the guy". All the mock 53 man rosters had him making the team with an asterix basically saying they thought he sucked but with his playing time the coaches must like something about it.

2 1/2 games in he gets benched so most definately seems like whatever BB thought he saw in the guy wasnt there.

Note: The beat writers that i was referencing werent in the room with BB so their opinion probly doesnt count.

Basically exactly right. That's my stance. Dude, listen, they might have just f'ed up. Maybe. But that just doesn't make a whole lotta sense. I mean, your basically saying that folks that have dedicated their entire lives to football were completely clueless on whether or not an offensive lineman sucked. That seems really crazy so I'm thinking there had to be other factors involved.

The other factor was likely Mankins not taking a pay cut and getting traded away. Im fine with the trade btw, but if Mankins did take a pay cut then Devey never sees the field.

BB might see something in Devey. He also might be able to bring it out of him eventually. The problem is right now Devey isnt an NFL quality player. While I have not dedicated my life to evaluating NFL players but im pretty confident in my assessment that Devey cannot block.

Sure there is a chance the OL comes together at some stage this season but the o-line they put out the first 3 weeks has been a dis-service to the team and Brady and they deserve to be called out for it.

Its one thing to have some kind of pet project that you want to coach up and mould into a good player. Its another to have that raw project trying to protect Brady.

The thing is that you don't have a solution. You really have no idea what factors were involved and how many scenerios and decisions were made that got to this point. So, you can't give any worthwhile alternative.

Again, it would be like you coming into my work, hearing that one of my candidates didn't show up (I'm a technical recruiter) and calling me out on it with no knowledge of what happened to get to that point or knowing anything about my business. I can't imagine you'd do that.

The problem isnt that I dont have a solution. The problem is that it seems like they have no solution.

By solution I meant "different course of action to get to this point". I get you can just say "don't play devey". However, I'm gonna just go ahead an trust BB a little more than I'm going to trust a fan on the internet.