FOF2k4: New England Pats Dynasty

[RPI-Fan]

We started out by building around one player on offense (Priest Holmes) and our secondary on defense. We nabbed a couple of quality wideouts in David Boston and Donald Driver, along with Tony Gonzalez at TE. At QB we'll look to Drew Brees, and have Tim Couch as a backup. Our offensive line is very weak, save Jeremy Newberry at center who is among the best of them. Our defensive line is pretty old, and not very talented. Our linebacking crew is a mixed bag, with Peter Bouleware anchoring, and Dat Nguyen supporting him. The others are pretty weak. As I said, our secondary is strong, with Chris McAlister and Ronde Barber at corner. They should both be fabulous players for quite a while. Lance Schulters is a veteran at safety, and Jerome Woods is a bit younger and less talented, but he's still not bad.

In the preseason, despite poorer ratings by our scout, Tim Couch proves to me he deserves the starting job. He takes that never looks back, and roles us to a 9-0 record before dropping a couple of games in the middle of the season. Nevertheless, we recovered, and finished 14-2 with homefield advantage throughout the playoffs.

In the playoffs, we were never really challenged all that much, and walked on to a Super Bowl victory in Hartford, CT, over the Giants.

Priest Holmes finished with 1,500 yards, and David Boston 1,100 yards in 13 starts. Donald Driver had a very solid season also, with 800+ yards. Jeremy Newberry was a first-team All-League player, as we ran behind him all season long. Couch finished with quality numbers, though not incredible. He's in a contract year, though, and will want a boatload of money to re-sign. On defense, Chris McAlister had a fabulous season, picking off 9 passes, including one in the Super Bowl. However, that Super Bowl interception was bittersweet, as he went down with a torn hamstring and is out until 2005. That's really a devastating blow for this next season. Barber put up 6 picks, which wasn't bad either. Our defensive ends had very good seasons, each getting well into double digit sacks. I think this was really a coverage issue, though, as they aren't all that talented. With McAlister and Barber locking up their men, though, the QB's just couldn't find anybody to go to.

Next offseason we'll be looking to fill our holes on both lines, and also consider our QB problem. Cornerback also needs to be a concern, with McAlister done for the year.

Ronde Barber is up for a new contract, and we decide to franchise him. We cannot really afford the big bonus money he'll be looking for, and must hold on to him without McAlister. Before free agency we realize that we'll have some cap issues, so make some salary-cutting moves. We "cap-out" Priest Holmes' offer, which helps out a good deal. We also planned on trading David Boston during the draft, so we needed to consider the hole that would leave at Split End. Donald Driver demanded a big contract, and we offered it to him, but were later highly overbid by Arizona. With his low loyalty rating, we expected him to bolt, and thus turned to Wayne Chrebet as a new alternative. Much to my suprise, however, both players signed with us the following week. This led us into some cap issues, however. Nevertheless, we made said renegotiation with Holmes, and dumped some unwanted salary. With that bit of extra room, we made the following moves:

WR Arnaz Battle: $940k over 2 years
WR Wayne Chrebet: $12.95m over 3 years
WR Donald Driver: $33.5m over 6 years
DT Dana Stubblefield: $1.85m over 2 years
G Andy McCollum: $7m over 3 years
T Fred Miller: $2.87m over 2 years
T Orlando Pace: $6.05m over 2 years
FB Tony Richardson: $11.67 m over 4 years

The three receivers will pretty much be our top three guys this season. Battle is just a speed guy, but he's very fast and will hopefully step up his numbers from last season when he had 8 catches for 100 yards.

Stubblefield is purely a pass-rushing DT, and we got him cheap. He'll be nice to have for passing down situations. Andy McCollum had a solid season for us last season, putting up a 29.5% KRB, but did allow 8 sacks. I know what to expect from him, though, and he did re-sign with a cap-friendly deal.

Tim Couch was signed to a big deal, and we're going to look to Drew Brees at QB this year, probably.

Fred Miller is just a run blocker, and his stats from last season show that. He had an impressive 37.5% KRB, but allowed 11 sacks. He'll allow us to run Priest Holmes to the outside more often, which should make our offense as a whole more effective. Pace only started 8 games last season, and doesn't have fabulous ratings, but is as big as they come, and won't get dominated by linemen. His limited time yielded 40% KRB, but an extremely high 8 sacks allowed. If he is allowing several sacks in the preseason, he may be relegated to a reserve role. Nevertheless, his run blocking success last season makes him very attractive.

Richardson was 2nd-team all-league last year, and has great ratings. He only ran for 143 yards on 27 attempts in 16 games, but had a 42.3% KRB, with 25 blocks. He also allowed only 1 sack, for a sack percentage of 0.2%. Additionally, he caught 57 balls for 413 yards and 3 TD's. With a slightly depleted receiving core this season, we're looking for even more out of him in the receiving game.

We draft at #32, of course, and have all of our picks. We would really like to get a quality defensive lineman, as a failed pursuit at DT John Randle in free agency kept us from really upgrading there. There is one quality player at DT available, and I am interested in trading up by sending David Boston somewhere. We'll wait three picks, though, to see what happens. We talk with Denver about their #4 pick, when we still see our guy on the board, but they don't really want to move it. So we'll wait and hope that they don't take our lineman. Unfortunately, however, they do. But we do see something interesting. There is what looks like a spectaculor RB available, Chester Campbell. We talk with Jacksonville about David Boston, and their interested, and we end up sending Boston and a 4th rounder for their #5 pick. Boston is as good as they get at receiver, so I feel it's a fair trade. We take Campbell, but don't really know how we'll use him at this point. But he was simply too good to pass on, especially considering we don't really need Boston all that badly.

With our 1st Rounder, we look to improve at QB. Our scout is good here, which helps. QB Dominic Talley probably isn't a franchise guy, but he can move well, and has respectable passing ratings. He could potentially be a quality backup, but would need to get a good deal better to be a starting-quality QB. We'll see, though. Our 2nd Round pick is used on G Harvey Schwartz, who looks like a decent blocker. His strength numbers aren't all that impressive, though. Nevertheless, we'll take a crack at him.

S Chris Crawford from UCLA is our 3rd Round selection, and he's pretty interesting. He has no apparant run-stopping skills, but is pretty good in all types of pass coverage. I think we'll slot him in as a nickel or dime cornerback, as he is pretty good in pass defense. Carlton Jenkins, who played with Crawford at UCLA, is also pretty intriguing at Offensive Tackle. He is a very big kid, at 6-6/342, and is pretty strong. He's run blocking looks quite solid, but pass blocking is non-existent. We'll try and develop him into a guy Priest Holmes can run behind in the future to the outside.

MLB Leo Krueger is a run-stopping LB who hits pretty well. We'd be happy if he develops into a decent backup LB. Our 7th rounder was cut right after the draft.

We manage to get everybody signed, except for QB Talley. He's still squabbling over his contract as we go through training camp, and get ready for the preseason. Hopefully we'll get him signed soon enough to at least get some game action in the preseason.

After camp, we get our first "real" look at our draftees. Campbell isn't quite as good as we had though, but he is a fabulous north-south runner who can make guys miss. He has average speed, and is decent when he goes outside. But for this season, we'll probably make him our 3rd-and-short back. He also has average receiving skills, but is good at catching the ball on 3rd downs. I'd like to get around 400 yards rushing and 250 yards receiving from him this season. He is also a great kick returner, which is something we lacked last season. Additionally, he's a quality special teams player. He'll do a lot of the little things for us this season, and hopefully at some point he can step into a more productive role.

As I said, Talley is still holding out, so we don't really know how he looks. Schwartz is pretty much awful, as he's probably won't ever be more than a backup, at best. He'll stick around here for a little while, but will probably not be a key player. Crawford looks like we thought he would, and will be a nickel or dime cornerback (playing out of his normal safety position).

T Jenkins looks pretty damned good as run blocking, and could be a useful player as early as next season. Hopefully we can get him some time this season so he'll develop a little bit, as his run blocking is pretty raw. Krueger is in the same boat - he needs to work on his run defense, but if he does could step into the lineup as a backup pretty soon.

Before the preseason, we receive two interesting trade offers. Cincinatti offers us a 3rd Round pick for G Andy McCollum, but as I look at our depth at guard, it is, well, not there. So I turn this one down, as McCollum will is not too expensive and is our best option at G.

Soon after that, we here from Cleveland, who offers a 1st Rounder for LB London Fletcher. Fletcher is very good, but had a poor year last season, with just 70 tackles and 2 sacks in 16 starts. He did also, however, pick off two passes. We have some depth at LB, but not enough to justify losing Fletcher. We'll pass on the 1st rounder, but I think I'd do the deal for a bit more. I add in a 3rd Round choice, and see what they say. The deal is accepted, but I'm still reluctant to make it. I say no, but add a 2nd rounder instead of a 3rd. The offer is declined, and now I finally say no for good. They were close, but it's not quite enough in return for a quality young guy like Fletcher.

Now we're ready to roll into the preseason.