How do you feel about the Pats today?
- Thread starter mwonow
- Start date
I believe so. Benedict wrote about it in his book (which I borrowed from my dad last year). I was kind of startled to read it.
But the thrust of the section was that Kraft 1) saw tensions bubbling up between Brady and Belichick every time Brady’s contract was up and 2) wanted to make sure Brady always felt he was coming back because he wanted to, not because the team had leverage over him.
Kraft gave Benedict a lot of time with that book so it def. paints an overall flattering picture of his ownership. In general, it shows Kraft to have had a pretty active role in keeping the peace between them. But I’m not sure there would be any reason for this story not to be true.
Yeah but that’s not realistic. Washington led the league in roster turnover last year and didn’t come close to 65-70%
maybe 30-40%. There’s a lot of trash on the roster Wolf will want to stick with for another year (guys he extended or drafted) to see how things pan out.
Also, plenty of the guys on the roster are worthy of NFL roster spots... just not the roles they have. Vederian Lowe is a terrible starting LT.... he's a perfectly fine 3rd/4th tackle. Layden Robinson is not NFL starter quality right now, but he's young and perfectly fine depth, the entire WR corps... rosterable players... just not starters. Same for a lot of the defense. We have a ton of cap space in part because we are not paying for starter-caliber players at a lot of positons, but are starting them there. Add the starters, slide everyone down... that's how you rebuild.
The Washington roster was in alittle better place than the Patriots though. They can clean out for next year. While Wolf is the decision maker now I’d be shocked if he had any real power once a new coach is brought in.
I don’t know. There was plenty written about it at the time that it was signed, and, too my knowledge, no one ever said that it was in Brady’s prior contracts as well.
yes this is what they need to do (and the core of almost any good rebuild) but its what they failed to do last year so I’m skeptical that this is their philosophy
last offseason they brought in a bunch of backups who had literally started a few games but weren’t actual starting quality players - Watts, Osborn, Okorafor, Leverett, Takitaki, Hawkins
they tried to get other teams’ backups and spot starters and hope they could develop (or simply didn’t want to pay for low or middle tier proven starters)
I think the issue is that the lower end starters, guys better than (e.g. Lowe and Jacobs) are either guys who get “overpaid” or guys who are on short deals because they want to play for a winner (or have many red flags etc)
Since that 2nd group probably doesn’t want to come to New England (play for a winner) or is too unreliable to be realistic upgrades (injury or character red flags) you have to pay for guys who aren’t really great. And I don’t think Wolf wants to do that. I think they’d prefer to dumpster dive or draft and develop starters and maybe take one or two targeted shots at a bigger prize
For example, I could see them trying to bring in Matt Peart (better than Jacobs but not a starter IMO) but I doubt theyll want overpay for Jedrick Wills
You can dumpster dive for depth (even fringe starters). It was a long time ago, but that was the story of 2001. But you still need a critical mass of top talent. If they go out and sign Stanley and Higgins and draft Carter or Graham, that would allow them to backfill at the second level of free agency and still field a much improved team.
Not to belabor the point but the 2001 defensive acquisitions weren’t dumpster dives (guys like Wiggins and Patten were)
Signing low end but proven starters is different than the backup guys they signed for cheap last year which is really my point.
They need depth but not the Armon Watts, Chuks Okorafor, Nick Leverett, Jaylinn Hawkins, KJ Osborn type depth. They need guys who elevate the base level of the roster. The guys they signed last year were guys who couldn’t even contribute on a bad roster. A far cry from Anthony Pleasant, Bobby Hamilton, Bryan Cox, Roman Phifer, Mike Vrabel and the like.
@rodderick said this in another (now locked) thread:
This is all fair game for criticism. I think more important that who they hired as coach is going to be whether they made any concessions on some of this stuff in the negotiations.
I think we’re done with droves of players whining to the media and on social media every week, and I don’t foresee our coach coming out the gates every loss and blaming everyone else, so that’s a great start. Overall, cautiously optimistic.
I’m feeling much better about this organization than I did 7 days ago. I think we will at the minimum see an actual professional football operation in 2025.
Just my gut feeling, but I believe that Vrabel wouldn’t take the Patriots job without assurances from the Krafts that they will spend in free agency, as well as spend on the coordinators, assistants, front office staff, facilities, etc which has been an issue in the past.
Just my gut feeling, but I believe that Vrabel wouldn’t take the Patriots job without assurances from the Krafts that they will spend in free agency, as well as spend on the coordinators, assistants, front office staff, facilities, etc which has been an issue in the past.
So they are required to spend quite a bit this offseason anyway, by skipping last offseason they put themselves in a spot where they basically have to spend to hit the 4 year floor. My concern will be whether Vrabel and Kraft want to spend on the structural stuff... will they shell out to start developing a large analysis team, building their own metrics? That costs money, and does not provide as much instant gratification as other things....
I feel about the same as I did before right now, because I assumed they would hire Vrabel. I'll feel better if they start indicating major organizational changes. I'll probably feel slightly worse if they indicate it's going to be the BB model, with a new BB stand-in. Overall... my feeling is.... optimistic they won't be complete bottom-feeders anymore, but also pretty concerned that we might be looking at the 7-10 to 9-8 treadmill status.
