Belichick wanted Jakobi. Was convinced out of it by the new guys picking players

[upstater1]

The point of posting this isn't so much to rehash what could've been when Belichick is gone. After all, the buck stops with Belichick. He was the one who made the final decision. It's more to look at the future. We now have a new wave of analytic people running the team, and they will look at JuJu's superior numbers. Meyers was a prototypical Belichick WR: not fast, but he excelled at finding space, and he put his body on the line. Tough guy.

(By the way: Is it absolutely known that Belichick was the one watching Baylor games on tape 3 years ago?)

 

[turkeyneck]

FF stat sheet evaluators. JJSS put up flashy numbers in a sandlot/broken play environment with the ultimate sandlotter throwing to him.

 

[BUSTAMOVE]

BB had final say.
Saying that it would be stupid to think he looked at a draft board and said I want him,him and him
I think he deferred to Player personel advice a lot more than we think.

Because he had final say the results were on his back. He excepted that whether it was him or not
Kraft on the other hand has skated for 24 years
Now the results are on his back. I am hoping for the best because the Pats are my team
Just will be interesting to see if it was all BB for the falloff and how great an owner RK really is

 

[Hammer of Thor]

Looks like Belichick’s friends are releasing his defense today, with this and with the Mac Jones info. If true, your broader point is correct - BB has been responsible for some bad decisions but the rest of the team has been no better, so we should be concerned about the front office remaining intact.

 

[Sam Bam Cunningham]

Bill’s army of leakers are out there trying to repair his reputation.
It won’t work. As a GM without Brady he screwed up period.
No amount of anonymous sources will fix it.

 

[upstater1]

BB had final say.
Saying that it would be stupid to think he looked at a draft board and said I want him,him and him
I think he deferred to Player personel advice a lot more than we think.

Because he had final say the results were on his back. He excepted that whether it was him or not
Kraft on the other hand has skated for 24 years
Now the results are on his back. I am hoping for the best because the Pats are my team
Just will be interesting to see if it was all BB for the falloff and how great an owner RK really is

I totally agree with this.

But this is Belichick trying to save face maybe. Consider this:

CONFIRMED: Mac Jones was NOT a Bill Belichick guy: Per:
@jeffphowe
“Belichick appeared content to wait for Davis Mills, who fell to Caserio’s Texans in the third round, but relinquished to the staff’s strong push for Jones, according to league sources. After previously vowing to be more collaborative, Belichick recognized he couldn’t go back on his word with his first selection under the new approach.” Wow.

Now, I know all this is second hand coming from Belichick, and I don't trust Howe and Callahan anyway. BUT ... I think these may be the decisions made by the front office guys. Belichick may have buckled to pressure.

This is maybe a little more concerning.

I wonder what Belichick's pal Saban really had to say about Mac Jones.

 

[archstanton543]

Link to the original article?

 

[Lagaffe_07]

Looks like Belichick’s friends are releasing his defense today, with this and with the Mac Jones info. If true, your broader point is correct - BB has been responsible for some bad decisions but the rest of the team has been no better, so we should be concerned about the front office remaining intact.

Bill didn’t want Mac Jones, he wanted David Mills. Don’t think it makes him look better

 

[masterbouncer]

Bill didn’t want Mac Jones, he wanted David Mills. Don’t think it makes him look better

the difference is that with 15 they might have had a chance to pick a player that actually was a valid round 1 talent (as mills would not have been taken in round 1) so yeah we will never know...or maybe we will rather soon when the ****ty drafts continue without BB and he is not there to blame anymore, it will be a fun ride with Jonathan and the Pats

 

[upstater1]

Looks like Belichick’s friends are releasing his defense today, with this and with the Mac Jones info. If true, your broader point is correct - BB has been responsible for some bad decisions but the rest of the team has been no better, so we should be concerned about the front office remaining intact.

I was not against taking Mac Jones, and hardly anyone was, BUT I wonder what BB learned from Saban. How could he go against his friend's advice?

To this day, I still say the lack of a QB really hurt the team more than anything, and though I think Mac's impact on the Patriots has been disastrous, I have never blamed Bill OR the front office for taking him at #15. It was the right decision.

Unless BB was dissuaded from the pick by his friend Saban.

I've been in the professional position of getting backroom intel on a candidate from a trusted source, and then trying to deliver that info to the ultimate decision makers, but it's not an easy thing to do when you consider the chances of them coming in are 50/50. It's a bad start when the new QB comes in and you already know the coach, for whatever reason, doesn't want him.

 

[upstater1]

Bill didn’t want Mac Jones, he wanted David Mills. Don’t think it makes him look better

?? Mills was a later round draft choice. Not a first.

He didn't want Mills in the first.

Mills is better than Mac anyways.

 

[jmt57]

Link to the original article?

NFL notes: Why the Patriots let reliable receiver Jakobi Meyers walk and what went wrong

Days before free agency opened last March, Jakobi Meyers found himself stuck in the NFL’s version of the friend zone. Front-office evaluators viewed the ex-Patriot as good, not great. Solid, …

www.bostonherald.com

 

[upstater1]

Link to the original article?

It's all tweets or else the Athletic

 

[Betterthanmost]

BB had final say.
Saying that it would be stupid to think he looked at a draft board and said I want him,him and him
I think he deferred to Player personel advice a lot more than we think.

Because he had final say the results were on his back. He excepted that whether it was him or not
Kraft on the other hand has skated for 24 years
Now the results are on his back. I am hoping for the best because the Pats are my team
Just will be interesting to see if it was all BB for the falloff and how great an owner RK really is

To some point in time. The Krafts after 2020 started to question him after Brady left and won a superbowl in a covid year. What they and most people are not factoring in is that the Bucs had the luxury of picking low in the draft for like 10 years in a row and had the pieces in place. They put this stupid team together to make selections once the Harry experiment failed.

It always goes back to the Mac pick and comments Kraft made about a more collaborative approach or some **** like that prior to that draft.
BB has been unhappy but he believed he could fix it. I am among a few who believe this was not a 4-13 team, their record makes them look terrible but they were a solid team. Sure had some issues but they are not as big as they appear . They were handicapped by the QB position.
Hand job Kraft and his son have started meddling, leaking stuff to media. This is a slippering slope they are on. If Mayo also contributed to the leaks, then he better watch his back. What goes around comes around.

 

[Peachhead]

Another example of eyes being better evaluators than naked stats. Moneyball may work in baseball, but I hate it in football.

 

[Hammer of Thor]

Bill didn’t want Mac Jones, he wanted David Mills. Don’t think it makes him look better

Blowing a 2nd round pick on Mills looks a ton better than blowing the #15 overall pick on Mac. I mentioned in the other thread, it explains why the Jets jumped us to 14 to pick Vera-Tucker thinking we’d take him. I suspect ultimately BB left to his own devises would have traded back to the 20s, picked up a 3rd, have selected Barmore with the 1st rounder and Mills with the 2nd. Who knows what he does with the extra 3rd and the pick he did trade to move up for Barmore.

 

[Ross12]

Link to the original article?

How Bill Belichick's mishandling of Mac Jones, offense, led to demise with Patriots

Belichick's inability to develop Jones and build a competent offense around him cost him his job in New England.

theathletic.com

 

[lancerman]

the difference is that with 15 they might have had a chance to pick a player that actually was a valid round 1 talent (as mills would not have been taken in round 1) so yeah we will never know...or maybe we will rather soon when the ****ty drafts continue without BB and he is not there to blame anymore, it will be a fun ride with Jonathan and the Pats

No they wouldn't. They would have had to trade up to get anyone good at 15, that draft sucked and taking Mills meant sacraficing either Barmore or Stevenson. Which were the only players worth grabbing in that draft for us. Mills had 2 and 3 wins over his 2 seasons before he got benched. Bill was NEVER trading up. So his best case scenario was get a worse QB later on and essentially lose one solid player to maybe get another solid player.

 

[archstanton543]

NFL notes: Why the Patriots let reliable receiver Jakobi Meyers walk and what went wrong

Days before free agency opened last March, Jakobi Meyers found himself stuck in the NFL’s version of the friend zone. Front-office evaluators viewed the ex-Patriot as good, not great. Solid, …

www.bostonherald.com

This article is from October of last year. They keep talking about "the first five games" of the season. This isn't BB's defenders coming out post-his firing to defend him.

 

[upstater1]

Belichick is to blame for the inability to build a competent offense, as Howe puts it.

But I'd say it's not for lack of trying. 16 picks on offense since this draft in the article, 11 on defense. A bunch of FA WRs (4) signed to decent contracts. 3 TEs to decent-sized contracts. 6 picks on the interior OL.

And it wasn't a competent offense. Because of the OCs. Because of the players themselves (though Jonnu is doing just fine elsewhere). Because of the QB. Whatever.

The concern is how do we build a competent offense while throwing all these resources at building it (there have been a lot of resources expended).

This is more of a draft question, but I truly doubt LSU'd Daniels is going to succeed in the NFL, but we may have this same ("QB is the face of the franchise mentality") and we may take him with our #3 pick (which will be disastrous, IMO).