Very much this. Getting 7-8 wins out of a team with a bottom-5 QB situation is impressive, and the bad QB situation isn’t BB’s fault. I’m not sure there’s a path from the current state to top-tier contention in the next 2-3 years, regardless of who is at the helm, but I wouldn’t want entrust the effort to someone else.
As someone who thinks the “Belichick sucks in the draft” is one if the worst and most misunderstood narratives inside and outside of Boston with regards to sports, I don’t think this point is made enough.
I'm curious which of the 3 most recent Super Bowl titles were the fault of Bill the GM.
Good thing nobody told Green Bay that when they drafted Aaron Rodgers that they drafted a mediocre QB.
You can definitely point out the outliers, just like you can say you can draft a Hall of Fame QB in the 6th round like Brady. Facts are if you’re picking outside of the top 10, your odds of finding a good QB decrease exponentially.
His contract almost guaranteed it. Pats started Game 2 of Brady's final season here with Josh Gordon and Antonio Brown as wide receivers. It wasn't Belichick's fault that Gronk's injuries caught up to him, forcing him to "retire".
There are currently 17 starting QBs in the league drafted inside the top 10 and 1 drafted 11th (Big Ben).
I completely agree with this line of thinking. There's nothing that shows that he is in some sort of massive decline as a GM and certainly not as a coach. Look no further than the Kansas City game, where they could have easily pulled off that win. I think if there is any sort of dry spell, I think we see it come to a close next year. There's still a real solid foundation here with some talented young players that I'm excited to see grow.
Regarding the underpaying Brady / other vets thing:
How much of that is drafting and how much of that is the coach is really good at developing players and putting them in the best positions to succeed?
Yeah, Brady may have been underpaid, but for a long time the Patriots' strategy was actually to pay guys in the middle. So some top end talent was maybe taking a bit less, but on the flip side they used that to probably slightly OVERpay some guys (the special teams guys come to mind). The Patriots always had a lot of guys in that middle area that many teams don't, vets who make more than the minimum but less than a star.
It's a fair response if the question is "Will Bill be able to rebuild the Pats into Super Bowl contenders in the near future?".
The fact that there are more QBs currently starting in the NFL that were first round picks is more due to teams being willing to give them longer leashes (and later teams being more willing to give them a second look) than anything else. Your stat includes guys like Cam, Alex Smith, and Sam Darnold. And even just taken at face value your stat shows that roughly half of the NFL starting QBs were taken outside the top 10 (including some of the best ones, like Rodgers, Jackson, Wilson, and Brady).
I completely agree. I would be yes and 95%. This off-season will help. I want to see what they will do with some serious roster turnover and some cash to restock the upper-middle class of the roster.
The presumption here seems to be that this is the only philosophy Bill has for success in the NFL and that he's going to try and replicate it. I think his track record shows that he adjusts. Even with Brady, I don't think it was his plan to find a QB and hope they don't ask for top dollar. He adjusted to what he had then, and that's why I'm confident he'll find a way to adjust to the current bare pantry and re-build it in a new way.
It's semantics (although germane to your point), but I'd change "excellent" to "good" when describing their draft position. Right now, 12 teams have fewer wins than they do, and 3 have as many, and the Pats still have one likely win on their schedule. They're going to pick somewhere between 14-17, I'd say. Good, not excellent.
I think people forget how many key defensive pieces BB added in 2001 including Vrabel, Roman Phifer, Anthony Pleasant, and Seymour. Similar story in 2003 (Roosevelt Colvin, Rodney Harrison, Ted Washington, Ty Warren, Asante Samuel).
Again, the question is not whether Belichick can rebuild the Pats roster in the next few years. The question implies that there's someone better out there that would be more suited for the job.
What was the motivation for free agents to come to the Pats in the 2000 offseason when Bill was very much an unproven commodity, and the Pats had 3 playoff seasons in the prior 13 years?
Were any of those free agents high priority guys or paid really anything? They weren't. Pretty much every one of them were scrap heap pickups that worked out.
Agreed. It’s akin to saying that Millar, Ortiz, Mueller, Todd Walker, Bellhorn, Timlin, etc. signed with the Sox as low price vets to chase a ring.
Its a huge job but I'd rather bet on BB than whoever would replace him.
It is shocking to me that a QB that had all of one year under his belt for UNC was drafted 8 slots ahead of Mahomes. The only 2 negatives I could see with Mahomes' college stats are that (a) he threw a fair number of picks; and (b) his rushing average wasn't all that great (2.2 ypc his final season). 2 running backs and a safety were taken ahead of both Mahomes and DeShaun Watson.
