Week Before Kickoff: Wild Card Weekend

Congratulations to CB Devin McCourty for being a finalist for NFL Rookie of the Year. I don’t expect you’l win, but you got my vote.

If the NFL has already announced R.o.Y. finalists, then it shouldn’t be much longer before the All-Rookie teams are announced.

For these All-Rookie teams, both Patriot tight ends, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez, should be selected for the team.

I’m not asking to change Hernandez’s position from TE to WR just to fit him in. The idea is to update the selection process to accommodate offenses and defenses of today.

The NFL isn’t simple anymore. Rarely does a team play a basic two-back, two-receiver offense anymore. They use a variety of offensive packages to create mismatches, including two tights, empty backfield, and three, four, or five receiver sets.

It’s the same story on defense. To combat the multi-faceted offenses, defenses deploy more nickel and dime packages, align players out of position like a D-line consisting of all defensive ends on passing downs and even standing up all defenders before the ball is snapped to disguise blitzes.

More than anything else, we’ve seen more 3-4 defenses in the league than we’ve seen just a handful of years ago.

So how can the league pick rookie teams fairly without taking the how the league has changed into consideration? No matter the alignment for the rookie defense, someone deserving will get left out. Why not pick four linemen and four linebackers to reflect today’s versatility?

The same should be done on offense. But why expand the roster at tight end over another position, like a third receiver? The third wide out innovation isn’t new anymore. And as teams learned what a difference-maker the TE can be, they valued the position enough to have two well-rounded tight ends to use at their advantage.

The names are very familiar to us. Dallas’ Jason Witten. Indianapolis’ Dallas Clark, Washington’s Chris Cooley. New Orleans’ Jeremy Shockey. But behind them are talented players that can do what these stars do almost as well. Cowboys’ Martellus Bennett, Colts’ Jacob Tamme. Redskins’ Fred Davis. Saints’ Jimmy Graham.

It used to be a two tight end set was for short yardage runs. Not anymore. Playing with two TEs creates mismatches because linebackers can’t run with them and defensive backs are too small to defend them. Today’s tight end has extra versatility as he can line up in the slot, split out wide, next to the offensive tackle, and even as a fullback. Teams will run or pass out of any alignment, and defenses are left guessing.

That’s what the Patriots did with Gronk and Hernandez. Rob played the position classically while Hernandez was the X-factor, lining up everywhere. Whoever caught the pass, they produced at a very high level.

On their own they had seasons worthy of acknowledgement. But one isn’t mentioned without the other. Gronkowski and Hernandez are inextricably linked for being selected by the Patriots in the same draft class.

So why split them up? Maybe it should be taken to the next level and call them Gronknandez or Hernanski? No matter how it’s done, put them both on the All-Rookie team. It would be wrong to pick one over the other.