As
@lexrageorge pointed out, the defense has been decimated by injuries. When you're missing your best front 7 player and your top 3 corners, its a bit of an issue.
We should probably highlight that the Pats offense ranks 30th in time of possession. Couple that with the fact that the Patriots offense is getting smoked in field position - the average starting field position for the defense is the opponents 36, good for 5th worst in the NFL - and you have a gassed defense forced to defend shorter fields than almost any other team in the NFL. There isn't a defense in the league that could succeed in those circumstances.
I get that, but context matters. And this discussion has been pretty void of it. So lets go through BB/the offense chronologically:
- 2020 only kind of counts. Yes, the rebuild started in 2020, but because of how we needed to structure contracts to try and squeeze value into the Brady window, the Patriots started the offseason with nearly $30M in dead cap. There was no way to build an offense because we had no fucking money to do it. Without being able to sign free agents, that means the Patriots either had to (A) stand pat and bring back their own players or (B) build through the draft. That offseason consisted of:
- Franchising Joe Thuney (good move)
- Signing Cam Newton (Hindsight is what it is. I still consider this a good move. We had no QB and we took a flyer on a 30 year old former MVP. What other option was there with no money?)
- Drafting Asiasi, Keene, Rohrwasser, Onwenu (gross.)
While theres nothing the team could do about the salary cap situation, its certainly fair to dig into the 2020 draft. Other than Onwenu, those players are mostly shit. They passed up on Hurts, Aiyuk, Higgins, Pittman, and Jeudy. That said, its hard to hold it against the Patriots on Hurts - everyone passed on him once and there wasn't much to suggest the level of success he's had.
So...4 offensive skill players we missed on, and we had a roster full of holes. Outside of the top dozen or so offensive skill players - who almost all went prior to their initial draft pick - this draft sucked for offensive talent.
- 2021 had financial flexibility. When people think of BB's failures building an offense, this is what they point to. Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith, Nelson Agholor, Kendrick Bourne. Absolutely not worth the money invested in them - although one could argue Bourne has brought value when not in the doghouse. So, lets hop in a time machine and help Braindead Belichick reinvest in the free agentsthat would have helped the offense that season!
- First on the list - nobody.
Thats the list. Nobody. Trent Williams wasn't leaving San Francisco, there was no reason to pony up money for Joe Thuney, and Corey Linsley would have been redundant at center. I'm sure theres some names on the list that could have been marginally more valuable, but thats just picking nits. There isn't anybody on that list for us to say, "Boy! The Pats sure fucked up by not signing him!" I suppose they could have just signed nobody, but I'm not sure how that helps the offense get better. Gotta pay to play.
With that out of the way, its also worth noting that the Patriots got David Andrews to return on the cheap after signing Ted Karras. They traded for Trent Brown who, for all his faults, is one of the better lineman on the roster when healthy and motivated. Again, the roster was overhauled, one season prior, so there isn’t much to bring back in terms of talent.
As for the draft, the Patriots selected Mac Jones in the 1st round and Rhamondre Stevenson in the 4th round. Say what you want about Mac Jones - and I think I've made it clear that I'm not a fan - but the pick was 1000% justified and a gamble that any NFL team needing a QB should take 10 times out of 10. I wont say much about Stevenson, as I think we can all agree it was a hit in the 4th round. What offensive difference makers did they pass up on in the draft? Well, Amon-Ra, but he went in the 4th round and everyone passed on him, so…*shrugs*. Other than that? Nico Collins went in the 3rd round. He may top 1000 yards for the first time in his career this season. Thats about it.
For the second year in a row, there was no opportunity to sign a difference maker on offense, and there was little value to be had in the draft by the time they picked. Again, someone explain what BB should do when there is no talent available?
- 2022 - The Future Looks Bright. The Patriots didnt have much cap to work with, and their draft pick was in the 20’s. But that’s OK, because the team had just made the playoffs with a rookie QB starting all 17 games. It was time to build on that success, but just for shits and giggles, lets see the bigtime offensive players the Pats missed out on in free agencythat season.
- Christian Kirk at $72M. No cap and, um…no thanks, anyway.
- Terron Armstead at $75M. No cap for this.
- Brandon Scherff at $50M. No cap for him, but I did like him…just not at this price.
Again…thats it. As
@Super Nomario has stated a billion times, top tier skilled players aren’t floating around free agency all that often.
They also realized their error with Agholor, so Bill tried to address it by bringing in Parker. Didnt work, but he tried to address the issue with a trade, as it was the only option available to him at the time.
Draft time! Strange, Thornton, Strong, Zappe. Meh. Patriots traded back from 21st to 29th to get Strange. There was no offensive players taken in those picks that came back to bite them. Its only been 1.5 seasons since this draft, so its hard to say if they missed out on any offensive difference makers. A few offense linemen may be decent, but we probably won’t know that for another season or two. Christian Watson had a good rookie year with Aaron Rodgers but has fallen off a cliff since. Feel free to
check out the list yourselves. Any offensive player we’re kicking ourselves over?
- 2023 isn’t as bright as we thought. And that brings us to this season. We knew for sometime that the Patriots future was going to be decided by Mac Jones. As shown above, there were very few options through free agency, returning players, or the draft that were going to be able to move the needle for the Patriots offense. Its Mac or bust.
And he busted. We can argue about free agency and whether we should have brought back Jakobi, signed JJSS, gone after Hopkins (I was an advocate)...but none of those players would have moved the needle much for this offense.
All that said, Belichick smartly began pivoting away from his mistakes. He traded Jonnu, eating $12.5M in dead cap this season to open up the cap again for next season. He hired a real offensive coordinator to patch the damage done by his previous choices. He brought in an up and coming offensive line coach to replace whatever the hell they tried to throw in after losing Scar.
So, why should we trust Belichick the GM for next offseason?
Like I stated at the start of this diatribe…context matters. As cited above, it’s not like there was offensive talent falling from the skies for him to work with. When he made poor offensive signings, it wasn’t at the cost of better offensive signings. When he made poor draft picks, it wasn’t at the cost of better offensive players. If BB were simply picking bad offensive players while everyone else is signing/drafting good ones? Sure, take the keys. But the player pool is what it is.
What BB HAS done is create a top defense that is young, cheap, and signed through 2024 while having the 4th most cap available heading into 2024 free agency. He drafted a promising QB, and gave him 3 full seasons to prove himself - which is the only option this team had available. Hes shown the willingness to be agile and pivot away from his mistakes - which is an amazing quality for anyone in any profession because nobody is perfect, but being able to acknowledge a mistake and quickly move on from it is all we can do.
TL;DR - Im fine with BB staying GM this offseason.
