5 Biggest Needs New England Patriots Have Yet to Address This Offseason

If one man's trash can be another man's treasure, you can only assume how valuable the first man's treasure would be to the second man.

For years, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick has been the first guy in that equation. He's been able to take other team's garbage and turn it into gold; on the flip side, other teams have targeted the Patriots' castoffs in an attempt to squeeze out any remaining morsels of New England's winning flavors.

All the Patriots can do is build the best team possible for the 2015 season.

They've started the process at some positions (tight end, outside linebacker/defensive end, cornerback) but still have some work to do. Here's a look at some of the positions the Patriots have not fully addressed this offseason.

Defensive Tackle

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It's going to be weird watching Vince Wilfork suit up for a team besides the Patriots in 2015. At least he'll still be wearing pretty much the same color scheme with the Houston Texans, but for the Patriots, it's not about what uniform Wilfork will be wearing but who will be filling his massive shoes. 

It could be Sealver Siliga, a 6'2", 325-pound defensive tackle who is as close to the embodiment of Wilfork as the Patriots have on their roster. It could also be Alan Branch, a 6'6", 325-pound nine-year veteran who recently re-signed with the Patriots for two more years. It could also be second-year defensive tackle Dominique Easley, but the 6'2", 290-pounder is more of an explosive gap-penetrating type than a plodding two-gapping type like Wilfork.

It's not that the Patriots' options at defensive tackle are bad, but they would be foolish not to cover their bases. We've seen what can happen when they don't (see 2013, when Chris Jones and Joe Vellano were unduly thrust into starting roles). 

Offensive Guard

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The Patriots' offensive line play was downright offensive to start the 2014 season, with a revolving door of linemen that seemed as if the team was in preseason mode for the first four weeks of the regular season. The Pats finally settled things down after that point, but now, with the loss of one man—veteran interior lineman Dan Connolly—the offensive line could be thrown back into flux.

It may seem like an overreaction, but Connolly has been a glue guy in more than one sense. For starters, he was voted a team captain in 2014 for the first time in his career. Beyond his role as a leader of the team, he's also been as versatile as one could possibly expect, having started at all three interior positions (left guard, center, right guard). 

The men who could replace him are Jordan Devey and Marcus Cannon. Devey struggled in his early-season action, and Cannon is a natural tackle, not a guard. The Patriots will probably need to draft someone early to make sure that their offensive line play doesn't slip back into the doldrums. 

Cornerback

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The drop-off from Darrelle Revis is going to be pretty steep. There's no way around it. Losing a high-profile, once-in-a-lifetime player would take its toll on any depth chart. There are a lot of names on the list of players who will try to fill those shoes; the question is whether anyone is up to the task. 

Names like Logan Ryan, Malcolm Butler, Alfonzo Dennard, Kyle Arrington, Chimdi Chekwa, Bradley Fletcher and Robert McClain won't strike fear into the hearts of opposing offensive coordinators, but they are the players the Patriots will turn to. The team has already added three players to the secondary in Chekwa, Fletcher and McClain, but the doubt remains around their viability in the starting rotation.

And it will remain, at least until they get on the field and get an opportunity to show their abilities. 

This group is more likely to run a heavy dose of zone coverage than the aggressive man-to-man style we saw in 2014. 

That doesn't necessarily mean it can't work; it just means the Patriots will have to go about business much differently than last year. That being said, the last time they ran a zone scheme was 2011, when they yielded the third-most pass yards to their opponents of any defense in NFL history. 

So, after a year of watching one of the most dominant secondaries in football, Patriots fans may get right back to their favorite pastime: complaining about the secondary.

Kick Returner

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Most teams wouldn't put "kick returner" anywhere near the top of their needs. When you're talking about a Super Bowl champion, though, you can afford to be pickier.

The Patriots have been searching for someone to return kicks for years, and with only moderate success; they've finished in the bottom half of the league in yards per kickoff return in four of the past five years.

The only year they ranked higher than No. 17 was in 2013, when the returner was inexplosive rumbling back LeGarrette Blount—and they might have finished in the bottom half of the league that year, too, were it not for a couple of nifty returns in the season finale against the Buffalo Bills. In 2014, they tried their hand with shifty slot receiver Danny Amendola. With both men on the roster in 2015, it's feasible that they could ask either or both to reprise their role on special teams. 

Or maybe the Patriots should keep their eyes peeled for a versatile player who can contribute in the return game. 

Running Back

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In preparation for the impending free agency of both Shane Vereen and Stevan Ridley, the Patriots have been diligently fortifying their backfield for more than a full calendar year. From Jonas Gray signing a reserve/futures contract in January 2014 all the way to the recent signing of former New Orleans Saints running back Travaris Cadet, the Patriots have covered all their bases in terms of having a group of backs who can perform in a given situation. 

The question then becomes whether or not they've found one back who can perform in every situation. Those backs are few and far between in the modern NFL, where specialization is the name of the game now more than ever. That being said, it may be all too easy for opponents to decipher what the Patriots are trying to do depending on who is lined up behind Tom Brady in single-back sets or next to him in the shotgun.

The Patriots have made moves at running back, and their backfield has enough firepower to answer the bell no matter the down, distance or time remaining in the game, but even with all they've done, it still seems like there are significant questions as to whether they've done enough.