This narrative needs to die. The amount of plays the falcons were on the field tohow much they scored was attrocious. Van noy and Roberts were an absolute disaster. I will say the secondary was unreal outside of butler who had a few obvious missteps both on Gabriel with the crucial PI and the exploding ankles.
Also I'd like to chime in on bill the gm debate. Bill the gm is at the very best midtier and I honestly think he's more bad than good. I will say his drafting was a big part of what pushed the pats over the edge... It's also his drafting and free agency that nearly blew toms legacy.
Once parcells picks and early draft guys like Seymour all went with age and a few of his pickups left it took a decade for bill to build a real defense. He couldn't sign nor draft a legitimate cornerback, safety, or pass rusher during this time period. His Wr selections were also attrocious, however I'll give him Welker and moss were great pickups. The pats had a bottom 5 defense for a while there and we're even being forced to run edelman out at corner back during the 2011 playoffs in an attempt to find something that worked. Hell even is best secondary draft pick (DMC) was a disaster at cb outside of his rookie campaign.
His wr selections were a trainwreck both in the draft and free agency. Aaron Dobson, Taylor price, Chad Jackson, Chad ochocinco, Brandon Lloyd, Joey Galloway, etc. They got so comfortable with Brady turning scrubs like givens, Patten, etc into "stars", that they went with rechee freaking Caldwell into the 06 season as the number 1 target and it quite literally cost them an sb berth (egregious drop in the afcc) and likely win going against sexy rexy Grossman.
It also took him years to find a pass rusher. He whiffed hard on guys like Jermaine Cunningham, adalius Thomas, Ron brace on the interior, dominique easley, Derrick Burgess, albert "sleeping giant" haynesworth, etc.
Not to mention hilarious bits like bill pressing Dimitrov hard NOT to take Julio Jones, who when all said and done may be a top 5 wr all time, certainly talent wise, and instead take Jonathan Baldwin because they are "the same player" at a lower cost.
Bills ego is what hurt him, wanting to wag his dick around and say "hey look what I found!" By taking unknowns in higher rounds which he could easily sign much later. They got that "win with less", rep early and it bit them in the ass. Aaron Rodgers IMO is experiencing a very similar issue right now. The fact is everybody has a bad day, and on top of that when the playoffs come the game becomes a different beast.
