I didn’t expect a middling season. I was hopeful that Patricia was the problem, that the offense would become more dynamic, that the defense would be good, and that paying a QB millions less than many top teams would allow money to be well deployed. I didn’t think we were the Chiefs or Bills, but hoped for better than middling.
At least for me, it’s not really about the Cowboys game. Every team gets blown out sometimes (see: Bills 31-0 to start the 03 season). But we’re now we’ll into the post-Brady era and they’ve been mediocre to bad throughout.
And it will never happen, because BB has contractual autonomy over the entire football operation. You get all of BB or nothing at all, that's the deal we all signed up for decades ago. I'm not sure why people think there's a world where BB only works on one part of the team. Because he'd resign as HC of the NEP on a fancier napkin this time.
I know about the contract, that’s why I said “dream scenario” and “allows Kraft.” I know it would never happen, maybe I should’ve said pipe dream to make that more clear.
You're clearly the biggest BB thumper on here, but in the nicest of words, you're absolutely delusional as to what's going on here.
Well Bill O’Brien is supposedly a top notch offensive guy so bringing him on board should, in the next couple of years, bear fruit when it comes to improving the offense, yes?
All of it. Aside from the Pats not having a top QB. You get that one. Everything else is wrong.
You think 15 teams draft better than him?
Are you planning to contribute anything useful to these threads?
I don't think an average QB does much better than Mac in the first two games with the line they had. He basically put up average numbers, everyone on here was defending him (mostly correctly) by pointing out his stats relative to the league.
Average probably not, but Top 5-10 QB probably does, and in reality that’s what you need in order to end the Futility Cycle in the NFL. Really, you can argue Top 5 is needed based on results the past 30 years or so.
This sums it up for me. I've said this elsewhere, but all of the trademarks of a well-coached Pats team that seemed independent of having a GOAT QB seem to be gone - the false starts, the excessive penalties, the conservatism on 4th down. This team gets out-coached in addition to its talent discrepancy week in and week out. If BB isn't coming up with creative ways to work with the talent he's given himself, then I just don't know what advantage he's bringing anymore. This isn't a one-year thing, this team has been poorly coached for several years on both sides of the ball.
I think these posts are made with the idea that BB is going to characteristically find this team and they're going to manage 8-9 wins and look respectable. I think both of your tunes will be different if this team wins in the 4-5 range and we see more games like this. Yesterday was the performance of a bottom-five team, and if their two best defensive players miss any significant time, it could be even worse than that.
The FG down 3-0 at 4th and 1 was a chickenshit call. Maybe we get stuffed but you absolutely have to try for the TD there.
Yesterday’s Miami performance was that of a 4-5 win team as well, getting utterly blasted by Buffalo, turning it over twice, and committing 8 penalties for 98 penalty yards.
I’ve been pondering the “well coached teams don’t make those mistakes” notion for a long time now. Not just about the Pats, but for several teams I follow.
Is he a top 15 drafter? In recent years?
This past year we’ve had a long, in depth discussion about the Patriots and the draft (and the NFL as a whole). Every single team has lots of failure in the draft. But BB tends to have less failure than most. I know it doesn’t feel that way to us because we see the failures up close and they’re right in our face, but we’d feel even worse if we were fans of most other teams. He may not be THE BEST at drafting, but he’s better than most.
Where would you rank the talent level of this team overall, 1-32? Would you call it top 15?
Special teams are good. Lots of really nice talent on the DL and in the secondary. I think Bourne and Parker are solid NFL WR but they have no elite players at the skill positions, which shows up BIG TIME.
Kraft didn’t get us Parcells. That was Orthwein. Kraft and Parcellas clashed and that’s why he fled for the Jets. Kraft then got us Carroll.
Now this is an interesting question, and I think it depends how you grade, do you prioritize the most important positions? If so, this team is in the mid to low 20s somewhere because QB is that important.
This is something I have been thinking about recently.
Is BB on a year to year deal? I know this is notoriously opaque, but that could be a factor. Maybe he decides he wants to leave and tests the market for himself.
Right there with you. I know there are several posts about "keep BB the chef, stop letting him get the groceries" and I think that is impossible. BB isn't accepting a demotion. And in that case, I would be in favor of clearing the slate. BB is a legend and GOAT coach, but this isn't working any more.
You're right, it really does depend on whether you want to weight positions, and it's tough to answer. But as someone else pointed out, there are at best a small handful of teams you wouldn't trade the skill position players for, and that drags down the entire team. This is really just trying to evaluate the assertion that BB is a top-15 drafter. I'm not sure that he is, but he's definitely not above average.
I don't think the Krafts have been cheap. The problem is the guy they put in charge of spending that money (BB) just isn't very good at that. And moreover, he has to pay a premium in FA because his drafts have been largely horrific the last several years. I'm glad he can turn a UFDA into the 7th CB on the roster or whatever, but if you're missing on your picks at the top of the draft, consistently, that is going to cause problems.
Hope is an important element here.
The problem is that BB has gotten outcoached frequently over the last several years. We all marvel at games like the Buffalo wind game, but a coach with a fast offense and a mobile QB simply runs circles around his schemes these days. That coaching advantage is virtually non-existent at this point.
