Karras, Van Noy, Godcheux, how do we let them walk?

[Andyman]

How does New England dump Stefon Gilmore and get better?

 

[Fin-Loco]

With our anemic line and two solid defenders how does our F.O. Not bring these guys back????? Seems unimaginable..

Who cares? They're gone. It makes no difference now.

 

[Ryan1973]

Who cares? They're gone. It makes no difference now.

And what people seem to not understand is that they didn't perform at the same level when they were here as they are with the Patriots. It has to do with good coaching and being in the right schemes. Karras was nothing special here but he looks a lot better on the Patriots o-line because he is surrounded by better players and better coaching.

 

[dol-phan007]

Poor coaching on the defensive side?.....NO

Yes poor coaching.... Poor coaching had our defense playing so vanilla the first half of the season and they could not stop anyone. The coaches then changed the scheme to what worked best last year and look what has happened since. The players are the same but the coaches changed what the they had the players doing.

So yes poor coaching on the defensive side of the ball.

 

[andyahs]

Yes poor coaching.... Poor coaching had our defense playing so vanilla the first half of the season and they could not stop anyone. The coaches then changed the scheme to what worked best last year and look what has happened since. The players are the same but the coaches changed what the they had the players doing.

So yes poor coaching on the defensive side of the ball.

That has nothing to do with those players not being here anymore.

 

[gofins60]

Not making the playoffs is the price to be paid for waiting on young players to step up...

True, but with the o-line this could have been offset if Grier and Flores had brought in some better Free Agent veteran o-linemen to replace the ones they released. The smart thing to do would have been to start just two young guys on the o-line and have them play next to three competent veterans (not named Davis). The REALLY DUMB thing to do would be to start four unproven young guys with little to no experience along with an incompetent Davis and an inexperienced o-line coach, without having any starting-caliber veteran back-ups in case the young guys struggle. If Grier and Flores had put a few decent Free Agents on the o-line (and got a good RB) they would be playing for the #1 Seed instead of losing 7 games in a row and in all likelihood missing the playoffs again.

The defense may be playing well, but Grier and Flores can't be trusted with the offense.

 

[ANUFan]

My question is could NE do that too us? Just cram it and we’d be as helpless as Buffalo? I’d like to think we’re more stout up front than that am I dreaming?

I think we’re built more stout upfront. Whereas the Bills are built more lean and Atheletic. Unfortunately our LBs outside of maybe Roberts(and he gets hurt a lot) are built to defend against a power run scheme.

 

[Atila]

Trading Ereck Flowers was the true dumb move, as he’s legitimately developed into a good starting NFL caliber guard

In looking at the stats from the game last night, Van Noy had 1 tackle. So I have no idea why anyone would wonder why the Dolphins would have let him go. I would much rather have Van Ginkel and Phillips as the outside LB’s than Van Noy.

Godchaux had a very good game but the Dolphins saw him as more of a backup to Davis and Wilkins and didn’t feel he was worth the money that the Patriots were willing to give him in free agency. Davis and Wilkins have played very well, so not wanting to sign a backup DT for the money he was paid by the Patriots still makes sense to be.

Karras is listed as the backup center on the Patriots. He was nothing special with the Dolphins last year and he obviously wanted to go back to the Patriots instead of resigning with the Dolphins. No big loss as far as I am concerned.

i don't regret any of those three players no longer being here.

however, karras would have been better than Reiter and Mancz as a backup center here, when Deiter went down.

but we were looking to upgrade karras with andrews and some other guys, so it's understandable he'd rather ride the pine where he spent his career, than here.

Karras obviously didn’t want to return to Miami and wanted to return to New England. The Dolphins weren’t interested in signing him for a lot of money because it’s obvious they wanted Dieter to be their backup center this season. They signed Skura thinking he would be their starter. Unfortunately Skura didn’t pan out, even though he a better center over the years than Karras has been.

Skura had been a pro bowl center just a few years ago while Karras had been a backup most of his career in New England. So signing Skura instead of Karras prior to the season certainly looked like an upgrade at the center position at the time.

For the record, Karras said he had the most fun of his career playing in Miami. He wanted to be resigned. Miami didn’t want him and it was clear with how they went after Skura and how Karras got a very minimum salary from the Pats. Regardless, that ended up being a mistake.

Flowers was another poor move. He was solid if unspectacular. You took two players who were vets and performed at average and replaced them with new people… along with moving around the other two positions as well - remember, you had Kindley at RG and Hunt at RT those guys were in new positions to start the year.

Obviously hindsight is 20-20, but the team should have seen that changing 4 players on the OL (moving Hunt from RT to RG is still a “new player”) coupled with a rookie OL coach was a disaster waiting to happen. That’s on Grier and Flores. Keeping Flowers and Karras probably would have been helpful but we’ll never know.

Flores/Grier took that and gambled on “buy low” players like Skura and Fuller who were a total flop. It’s unfortunate that Grier/Flores gamble in stupid spots.

 

[circumstances]

For the record, Karras said he had the most fun of his career playing in Miami. He wanted to be resigned. Miami didn’t want him and it was clear with how they went after Skura and how Karras got a very minimum salary from the Pats. Regardless, that ended up being a mistake.

I don't think that is correct. My recollection is that the team was trying to upgrade from Karras to David Andrews, and were not able to get it done (with Andrews agreeing to a 4 year deal to return to NE).

I don't think any team had to "go after Skura." He was just floating around out there. He was plan B, C, or D.

 

[FanMarino]

And what people seem to not understand is that they didn't perform at the same level when they were here as they are with the Patriots. It has to do with good coaching and being in the right schemes. Karras was nothing special here but he looks a lot better on the Patriots o-line because he is surrounded by better players and better coaching.

Better players? I'd take Waddle, Tua, Gesicki and Parker (when healthy) as weapons over NE. Yeah they have better RB unit but I've been beefing about that since the Draft. OL is better as well but I'd take the players I've listed over their QB, TE and WRs.

 

[Finsfan1984]

1. Godcheux was NOT better than our top 3 of Wilk, Davis, and Seiler. He was a run stuffer only and offered nothing in pass rush. Way too much money for a backup.
2. Karras we lost bc we tried to upgrade the position instead of locking him down. Then when that fell thru, he already had another deal in place.
3. KVN was a possible mistake, but he was WAY overpaid.

 

[EPBro]

Chewy Godcheux..

 

[DuderinoN703]

Don’t need any of them really so who cares?

 

[NYC#1finsfan]

Don’t need any of them really so who cares?

But we do. We have the worst OL in the NFL Run blocking and pass blocking it was on ESPN with stats tonight. On the Defensive side of the ball we are just now starting to play lights out. But for 8 games we were in the abyss with their heads up their ass.

 

[spiketex]

KVN was the one I didn’t get.

Cost. They saw Andrew Van Ginkel (plus using the high Draft pick devoted to Jaelan Phillips) as the lower cost solution to optimize performance. GM Chris Grier probably concluded that he had way overpaid for Kyle Van Noy. Note, KVN was on a 4 year deal for $51M with the Dolphins, but Miami was able to pay him just the guaranteed amount of $15M in 2020 and exit after one year. In contrast, New England are set to pay him just $6.823M this year. (They had paid him an average of just over $5M per season in his previous contract with the Patriots).
Make no mistake, KVN is good and played pretty well in 2020, but not worth what we were going to pay. The conclusion that I draw from the numbers is that we overpaid to get him and his contract had an exit ramp. Bill Belichick rarely overpays.