List of the players on the 2000 team roster that went to future Pro Bowls while playing for the Patriots:
He’s the most interesting man in football and we have been blessed to get to follow him for 20 years.
Who are you arguing with and who has said this franchise can never recover from a lousy 2023?
Think he's making the joke that the 2000 team recovered very nicely from not having a pro-bowler.
The situation is analogous in no way whatsoever. There is no more Tom Brady. And Belichick is much older.
Ehhhhhh.Pretty damning. That BB wanted it bring back Patricia as OC should go over well here
Sounds like a terrible job building a staff and total lack of communication / buy-in across the org. Complete failure at all levels.
100% agree with SJH here. I learned a couple things. But when I clicked on the link, I expected my reaction to be "they have to move on from BB after reading this". But that really isn't my reaction.
I dunno about that either, although obviously the results this year make it difficult to argue against.
Well the offense last year under MP was better than this year's under BoB, so....
I don't like the phrase "mysterious illness", as it seems to be minimizing whatever is going on with Anderson. Could have used the term "undisclosed" instead.
The injured OL’s weren’t very good players though. Do we really think the Patriots problems this year were due to injuries to Calvin Anderson, Riley Reiff, and Cole Strange?
The article simply says according to sources on that point. Not team sources, not league sources. It's as vague as can be.
Honestly it struck me as a sly attempt to intimate that he's faking something....which is REALLY shitty thing to do if that was their intention. It's the Herald so anything is possible with them.
My take as well. Brown's WR coaching was seen by many here as an issue last year.
Cole Strange, before getting hurt late in the year, was really coming along very nicely. Not an all-pro but a solid player.
I didn't read that as a health issue but more of a philosophy issue, based on the rest of the article.
As we saw during the dynasty years, while the Pats had plenty of injuries during that time, they also had a great deal of reps together and continuity. Sure, Brandon Gorin started a Super Bowl win, as did Russ Hochstein, but when the other four guys have played a ton together it's easier to fill in one gap. A lot of these guys had never played together and they were piecing it together as they went, with guys moving to different spots each week. They basically had no chance to gel as a unit.
Right. But they had stability at LT and C during those years, and Andruzzi and Compton were very solid, etc. They were plugging one hole, not three.
Onwenu, arguably the team's best lineman, started slow, missing training camp and 2 of the first 6 games while recovering from offseason ankle surgery. Strange missed nearly all of training camp with a knee injury that clearly affected him for the first half of the season. Then throw in the fact that the veteran backups in those positions were also hurt or ineffective, you have a recipe for disaster.
Not really. I didn't like MP, but I can also understand why you don't want to give your QB his 3rd coach in 3 years with his 3rd system, same for your other young players.
Well, Onwenu is a FA. Hopefully some talent is added and the new OL coach can establish consistency from the get go, and work well with the HC.
Polar opposite for me, BBs fingerprints can be found on every aspect of this disaster, the Krafts need to clean house.
Articles like the one above always focus on all the bad things while ignoring any positive developments that may have occurred. Understandable to some extent, but just need to keep the events disclosed in these articles in context. Some people thought the 2011 Red Sox needed to clean house after chicken and beer, and the following season was a classic example of being careful what one wishes for. Then again, if 2012 didn't happen, 2013 probably never happens either, but you get the gist.
But did the article move the needle for you at all? To me it was just a rehash of what we already knew.
All things are clear in hindsight. These articles can be illuminating, but too often fall into the trap of "It turned out lousy, of course they screwed up!"
Which is interesting, because one of the key components of the article seems to be that one of the biggest mistakes was Bill caving to ownership and reshuffling the staff again.
I don't see how you get there when the new offensive coordinator was allowed only 1-2 hires with BB insisting on retaining a group that didn't have much demonstrated competency.
It's funny to think that last year they had a win-and-you're-in game at Buffalo in the last game of the year despite having MP as the OC and Mac regressing terribly, and they lost that game due to terrible special teams play and Mac throwing 3 picks.
I don't know - this part, if true, is news to me:
Capitulating but only part way was probably the worst solution - I don't know if an OC who's out of sync with most of his staff was ever going to succeed, regardless of his talent or lack thereof as an OC
Fair point, but I would need a little more context before ripping BB for that. Is it common practice for a coordinator coming into an established staff to hire his own assistants? And to some degree, isn't it incumbent on Billy O to work with effectively with the coaches already in place? And why weren't staff questions sorted out before he ever even accepted the job?
The MP hate was always about this board's copium with Mac. Everyone really, really badly wanted to believe that they hadn't whiffed on a QB, and so everything from the line, to the receivers, to especially the scheme and the coaches had let him down and set him up to fail.
Chances are, this all WAS sorted out before he accepted.
Most coordinators don't get to hire all new staff, they bring a few guys. and let's be honest, do we think the remaining guys were worse? The biggest decline has been QB where Bill and his handpicked guy are running the show. Oline you could argue (though injuries) but that was a whole new group and a new system.
I’m not quite sure it’s even a ‘rumor’, as I’ve only heard this discussed on sports talk radio snippets. It’s one of those things that gains a life of its own through periodic repetition on talk radio/social media, like a self sustaining kindling phenomenon.
