Depends on what you mean by contend. 11-6 and maybe winning a playoff game or (if you're lucky) two has always been -- and in this fan's opinion remains--a realistic possibility.
Pats trade Gilmore to Carolina
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Took a fresh look at the remaining schedule and really I think they are only really going to be favorites against the Texans, Jets and Jaguars. Maybe Falcons. It's a bit of a stretch to get from that to 11.
It's a stretch to get to 9 wins unless McD and Mac somehow get the offense routinely putting up more than 25 points/game.
Right, it seems a bit revisionist history to suggest that Bill went into week 1 either last year or this year intending for either to be a blow it up type rebuild year. If you could force him to tell the truth, I imagine he'd be pretty bearish on either team's Super Bowl outlook, but the post Brady moves - including holding onto Gilmore too long - suggest more of a rebuilding while attempting to fringe contend strategy. It doesn't strike me as entirely all that different than how they approached defensive roster construction the years in between 2008 and 2014, only now there's no GOAT to hide the team's deficiencies.
I agree with others' pessimism about this year's outlook now that the team is 1-3, but I'm fairly confident the outlook was different when decisions were being made.
Totally agree. I think this team may win just 6 games this season. They are clearly lacking in talent in tons of areas.
The second Brady walked out that door BB should have started the full rebuild right there. The fact he wasn’t honest with himself probably set the organization back probably at least a year.
If BB is going to blow up the culture he created here (and a “full rebuild” of the sort you are describing would do that), I think he’d rather retire or coach someplace with a better talent/cap situation. So the choice was between having BB fix the car while he’s driving it, or having someone else lead a full rebuild.
I don't necessarily disagree, but are we sure they've messed all that much about the long term outlook up? They were never tearing it down to the point where they could have gotten Lawrence, so attempting to compete last year didn't hurt getting the next QB. And they spent a lot of money this year, but I'm not sure it was that big of a waste. I wouldn't rule out any of the free agents being a valuable contributor yet.
At the end of the day I'm frustrated about Gilmore, but as a relatively rare mistake I'm not that broken up that because they tried to be competitive, a hypothetical 2nd round return ended up a 6th.
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Other than Gilmore, unclear what, if any, tradeable assets the Patriots had that could accelerate a rebuild. The rest of the vets had little if any trade value, and the younger players like JC Jackson were exactly the type of players the Pats needed to keep on board. And it's quite possible that Belichick & Co thought, wrongly in this case, that they could work something out with Gilmore to keep him as a bridge to the rebuilt team.
Last year was clearly a bridge year; Belichick admitted as such. The salary cap situation dictated it; the CoVid opt outs exacerbated it. The salary cap money was available this year and perhaps too tempting to use it all at once. A 6 win season this year would be disappointing given the new contracts, and I don't think Belichick or Kraft were planning on such a result after spending the dough this offseason.
Last year was clearly a bridge year; Belichick admitted as such. The salary cap situation dictated it; the CoVid opt outs exacerbated it. The salary cap money was available this year and perhaps too tempting to use it all at once. A 6 win season this year would be disappointing given the new contracts, and I don't think Belichick or Kraft were planning on such a result after spending the dough this offseason.
I think you’re definitely right, but I also don’t think they necessarily thought “well, we’ve spent more in free agency this year than ever before, so we’re definitely going to be good.” As discussed at the time, a lot of the off-season activity appears to have been driven by the fact that they had a lot of cap space when many other teams didn’t, and that the cap is likely to rise significantly in the future making what might at the time seem like “big” contracts more reasonable in future years.
A 6-win season would be without question disappointing because that would mean they made zero progress (in terms of W-L record) from last year, but that alone doesn’t mean their off-season spending spree was a failure or may not pay off in the longer term.
Obviously he's not here anymore but trading Thuney last off season after tagging him probably would have been another wise move to make. Trading Thuney and Gilmore would have given them more draft capital the past 2 drafts. I think BB made a mistake in holding onto both.
I do believe that after acquiring all the new faces that they were hoping to at least be in playoff contention at the end of the season. As in 10-7, perhaps 9-8 worst case. If they fall just a bit short at 8-9, OK, so be it. But I can't see Bill being pleased with a 6-11 season, and that's when I start getting officially worried about what Old Man Kraft thinks. Agree that such a season may not be the worst outcome in the long term. Too many of their recent draftees were not or will not be here for their second contracts, and that may take some time and a couple more good drafts to correct. But few people around the NFL actually think that way, so it could get kind of ugly.
When you cut someone, it's not as simple as just walking away from a player, there are salary cap issues to deal with.
My point was more about you sign a top of the market deal and are thrilled, then over time the market changes, so you want to renegotiate? Just honor your deal; if at the end of it you and the team part ways and you go elsewhere for a bigger payday, good for you.
Don't go away mad, just go away.
Gilmore has already come out and said if he needed to, he could have been ready for camp, he also has already agreed to play out the remainder of his deal at the current number, something he was not willing to do here.
So after 6 weeks when he was ready to come off of the PUP, what was he going to do, tell the Patriots "I'm good, I'm not playing."
And per usual, Felger the moron was roasting the Patriots for this last night on his nightly program.
Such a troll.
If the season ticket base starts to erode, then Old Man Kraft is going to be pretty upset; they spend a small fortune in the off season rebuilding the roster, something pundits at the time were saying is not how you win in the NFL.
So the combination of him spending a small fortune/them missing the playoffs two years in a row after a one and done in 2019 and the possibility of the season ticket base eroding could indeed cause things to get kind of ugly.
“The team shouldn’t cut a guy simply because they aren’t living up to their contract. They agreed to that deal. Just honor your deal; if at the end of it the team wants to part then do it after the deal is all paid as agreed”.
Except teams don’t do this. They renegotiate and cut contracts short all the time. Players should extract the max whenever they can as the team is always doing the same.
Eroding? The season ticket wait list is years long, you think they’re gonna have unclaimed season tickets nobody will buy?
Yeah in the NFL more than any sport, with it's garbage union players should use every ounce of leverage they have. Sucks that it hurt the Patriots this time, but that's the game. If the NFL didn't want guys to do stuff like this they could go to guaranteed contracts. This is the tradeoff that the NFL decided, the right to not pay guys if they don't perform or get hurt, for the knowledge that guys who outperform their deals are gonna hold out and ask for new ones.
"Ugly" in what sense? As in Belichick being on the hot seat? I don't think Kraft is that short-sighted. I mean maybe if there was like a 5-year span of under-.500 seasons, but at that point Belichick would probably just retire on his own initiative anyway.
Have you ever had season tickets for the Patriots?
Because I have; twice.
And guess what; when the team starts to lose year after year and does not make the playoffs, the cost and the commitment of time to attend games starts to come into question, it did with myself and my friends.
Twice.
I'm sure there is a good percentage of season ticket holders that tailgate prior to the game, tailgate after the game......oh yeah, and they go inside the stadium and watch the game too. Attending a football game for a lot of people is an all day affair.
Let's say they finish 6-11/8-9 this year; that's two years in a row of sub 500 records and no playoffs. I would venture to guess a percentage of season ticket holders are going to do a hard pass on their tickets.
When the team was finishing 12-4/13-3/14-2, getting a first round bye and hosting the AFCCG, that ticket was the hottest thing in town, sure there's a waiting list a mile long and why not, everyone loves a winner.
Not sure how long you've been a fan, but this team was a laughing stock for a long time, they played in a third rate shithole of a stadium that was in the middle of nowhere and rarely made the playoffs, they went to two Super Bowls in 40 years and lost both times, went to the AFLCG and got demolished. The Patriots were fourth fiddle around here until Brady and Belichick came along.
This was always a Red Sox town first, then Bruins, then Celtics or Celtics/Bruins, they go back and forth......................................................................then Patriots.
My best friends boss has had season tickets since they opened the new stadium, his company did work there, he already told him if they do not make the playoffs this year, he's giving them up.
His boss gave him and his son tickets to the Tampa game; they got home at 3:00am..........and he's got to get up at 5:00am to go to work, he was quite the ball of energy on Monday.
And I'm sure there is waiting list for tickets; if the team is not performing well and tickets become available, will those people step up?
Now that Brady is gone, how many of those fans are actually still fans of the team vs being fans of Brady and started to follow the team after they won their first Super Bowl?
And if you read what I wrote, I started with "IF" as in "If the season ticket base starts to erode" because at the end of the day, that's mostly what Kraft cares about.
Just like the owner of any business.
I was also speaking to the point of "cause things to get kind of ugly ".........what's uglier than a season ticket base that "might" start to erode?
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Howe with a fairly clear rundown of how things went down in The Athletic (subsc). Sounds like there were two AFC teams in the mix for his services as well:
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1446087941579755529?s=21
View: https://twitter.com/jeffphowe/status/1446087941579755529?s=21
The offer the wanted never materialized though. So, if you think you aren't getting value, do you simply ship out to the highest bidder or perhaps hope that you can renegotiate and bring him back?
From The Athletic:
Peak value does not mean, at least to me, that you take the highest offer out there.
And then, once he got hurt, the offers dried up.
Don’t have the link handy, but I’d read recently that the waiting list has about 60k names on it, so it’d likely take a few awful years to whittle that down.
Good point on Thuney. No comp pick for him due to the FA bonanza this year, correct?
If we’re going back in time I think the issues were not trading either Gilmore or Thuney before the 2020 trade deadline. Belichick believed his guys were close to competing for a playoff spot. I was hoping he’d trade them for draft capital either in 2021 or 2022. It never happened. They were 2-5 before the deadline and 5-4 after so Bill was right that they weren’t as bad as their record at the time but he was wrong that they could be competitive for the playoffs. Bill has never been one to tactically retreat probably because it’s bad for culture, but maybe it’s just not in his nature. But sometimes that’s the right answer. Without Tom at QB the equations change. I thought getting a 2nd for Gilmore would have been nice - same for Thuney (or a 3rd).
Listening to Phil Perry's podcast on the way to work and he made a point that I had not considered. The team trading for Gilmore would need the cap space to accommodate his salary for 2021. I guess most of the contenders who would want Gilmore have little cap space. But of course, the cap is a bit of fiction and teams could make room if they really needed to.
I will be very distressed if this team does not get better over the course of this season. BB teams have historically played their best football in December. The 2020 team seemed to get worse over last season, they were uncompetitive versus the Rams, Dolphins, and Bills last December. The 2021 team has much more talent, but it does have a rookie QB. Still, I expect this team to be pretty sharp by the end of the year.
I will be very distressed if this team does not get better over the course of this season. BB teams have historically played their best football in December. The 2020 team seemed to get worse over last season, they were uncompetitive versus the Rams, Dolphins, and Bills last December. The 2021 team has much more talent, but it does have a rookie QB. Still, I expect this team to be pretty sharp by the end of the year.
Thanks......................it will take a lot more than back to back playoff misses (if that happens, we all hope that's not the case) to whittle that down is right.
Everyone loves a winner, so we'll see.
I’m pretty sure they genuinely pushed to re-sign Thuney, but KC came over the top. Ie, unlike Gilmore I don’t think they knew last year that they would be unable to keep Thuney.
I was fine either way with trading/not trading Gilmore.
I don’t think it will take that long. Between the diehards from the 80s and the massive amount who bought them with Parcells, there’s a lot of older generation ticket holders. I know many are families and passed down but with the rise of HD over that time and now 4k, going to the game is not as appealing. I went to only 1 game in 2019 and I used to go to at least 6 regular season plus all playoffs every year for 20 years. This isn’t a quitting on it but I’m just tired of going to games, have a family and it’s awesome on TV. Even in 2016-2018 it was becoming a chore.
For work we had a bunch of the Week 3 tickets and no one wanted them for free. Part of that is COVID but demand for tickets is way way down.
I had season tickets in my mid 20's with five of my friends, we had a ball at the games, would get there at 10:00am when the gates opened, tailgate and have some adult beverages, go to the game, tailgate afterward and go home, it was a long day, but again, my 20's.
The second time we had them, we were down two guys to four and we were in our mid to late 30's.......tailgating was still fun but it was becoming a chore, some of us were married with families, we'd cut short the post game tailgating to get home quicker, it wasn't as much fun.
Last game I went to was the AFCCG vs the Colts........in that monsoon.......................a long night...............a nightmare getting out of the lots and home..............
One of my group built an incredible outdoor bar in his back yard, fire pit, huge TV, there are about 20 of us who get together for games, it's a much better viewing experience.
I wouldn't go to a game if the tickets were free at this point.
We’re not far off on timelines. I sat there at home thinking you couldn’t pay me to sit there in the rain at 11pm on Sunday. I’m turning 40 soon with a family, sucks to get old!
I don't think this is true anymore. The Pats first season was in 1960. Generations of Bruins and Red Sox fans had already come and gone by the time they even played their first game. The Cs are the only franchise that is remotely comparable in terms of how long people in town have been rooting for them, and they went and became a dynasty in the 60s while the Pats were nomads, playing home games in Alabama and then in the shittiest fucking pro facility you can ever imagine for 20+ years.
Also there were tons of Giant fans at the start because that's the team people in New England rooted for before the Pats existed.
Now we have an entire generation of fans who only view the Pats as perennial winners, and two sub-par seasons isn't going to chill their devotion. My 15 year old son asked for one thing for his birthday, Pats tickets.
That is not to say that if they put up a bunch of 2-14 seasons that attendance won't suffer. Eventually it will, just if like the Bruins, Sox or Cs were stringing together terrible seasons. I've been a season ticket holder for the Sox since 2000, the ability to unload unused tickets now is light years more difficult than it was in the mid-2000s. Things wax and wane. But I think at this point the Pats are on equal footing with the Bs and Cs at least (I'll stipulate that the Sox will always be on another level). Add to that the 17 game/once a week nature of the games and I don't think that season ticket list is going to get substantially shorter any time soon.
It is crazy to say Boston is more of a Bruins town than a Patriots town. With an extra long ellipse for emphasis to show the Pats are deep in last place! That is outright insanity.
There are more fans of the New England Patriots than the local hockey team. . . .in Arizona.
I'm not talking about now, my reference point was back when the Patriots played at that shithole stadium in Foxboro situated in the middle of nowhere.
No one is saying the Bruins are more popular than the Patriots are now.
Seriously, read what I wrote.
Back in the 1970's, the Bruins owned this town.
The Patriots; they were a distant fourth here, they came into the league in 1960 and didn't even have their own stadium for over 10 years until again that dump was built in Foxboro, astroturf over asphalt.....................that all changed after 2001.
So dial down the insanity talk.
No, it's not true now, but it was true back during the first 40 or so years of the history of the Patriots, which is what I was referring to.
Now, not so much.
Then why bring it up? Aren’t we discussing what we think might happen if the Pats stink for a few years in a row? What’s the relevance of the way things were 40 years ago?
Also you said the last game you went to was an AFC championship game at the start of the 2nd dynasty. I’ve been to dozens of awesome games since then. You made the decision that the hassle of going to the stadium isn’t worth it. Fine. Obviously thousands of others haven’t reached the same conclusion.
I’ve read all of your posts here and confess I don’t get what you are trying to say. If they go 2-15 every year fans will eventually stop going? I think everyone is in violent agreement.
This all started when I responded to a comment about another losing season and things might get ugly, my thought was they might start to lose season ticket holders, then I was told that won't happen as there is a long list of people waiting to become season ticket holders.
So it does not sound like everyone is in violent agreement if they start having losing seasons; 60,000 people are waiting to go sit there and watch the team regardless of record apparently.
There's a ballgame to watch, so I'm out,.
Ugly in terms of the general vibe around the team. The media will be relentless, the fans will start grumbling, and tempers will be growing short. And, yes, the season ticket demand could indeed soften. Especially if the Pats return the same team again in 2022 because they are mostly capped out and the draft is meh.
You're underestimating how fast things change. Go watch the tape of the Clemens 20-strikeout game in April of 1986. There is no one at Fenway because the Celtics were playing the same night. By the mid-90's, the Sox were by far the #1 attraction in Boston sports. By 2010, the Patriots were the clear #1. Things change.
NFL season tickets are also insanely expensive, and going to Foxboro is a massive time commitment. I don't think it's crazy to think the season ticket waiting list could dry up very quickly under the right circumstances. There's a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar, and Boston isn't Green Bay.
I think the media saturation is part of the quick change phenomenon.. The Patriots have 2 down seasons after a historic 20-year run, and all Johnny from Foxborough hears on WEEI is what a fucking moron he is for hanging onto his season tickets. Not everyone takes "sports" "talk" radio personally, but its a much bigger number now than it was even 10 years ago, amplified as it is by twitter, etc. (not to be confused with buying amplifiers at Tweeter, etc.)
Are there any metrics that back up the claim that the Sox are more popular than the Patriots?
The local TV rating for the week 2 Jets game doubled the number of the Wild Card game.
My objection was to the notion that the Pats were a distant fourth on the sports landscape in Boston, I don't think that is true at all. I agree things can and do change quickly as the teams ebb and flow. I think it'll take more than a couple of down years for the Pats season ticket list to fade away, but if they suck for a long period of time of course it will.
The media have universally condemned what the Pats did here, so I'm going to assume Belichick won this deal.
The deal itself made a certain amount of sense, but Bedard ripped the Pats for poor asset management, pointing to Garoppolo, Thuney, and Gilmore as examples and warning that the same many happen with JCJ.
And he's right about all of those guys. Bill traded Richard Seymour in his prime for a first round pick because he wasn't willing to give the deal he'd command. Why have they strayed from that recently? If you know the guy is too rich for you, just maximize value.
I would guess that he felt that the team could weather Seymour's departure in a way they couldn't Thuney's (for example).
I don't think there's a trend away from this. They traded Cooks for a first before 2018 rather than pay him, for instance, and they wound up cutting Lawyer Milloy and getting nothing for him in 2003. There are a lot of considerations here: the likelihood or re-signing, desperation / need from other teams, alternatives / needs on the current team, etc. Sometimes they trade guys a year early, sometimes at the deadline, sometimes they let them play out the contract and they leave.
Garoppolo is a weird one to point too, he got a fairly high second round pick for him.
The Athletic said yesterday that no one met their price. So unless a team is just willing to say "High bid gets him!" what should they do? They set a value and no one met it. Does that mean they should have just accepted anything else?
They clearly felt if no one met their price, they were comfortable bringing him back and seeing if they could work something out--then the quad injury.