I'm not in disagreement with you. I'm just trying to understand how someone as regarded as Bill with so much power and freedom. How does the roster erode like this? The rams success isn't even in the same stratosphere as ours. The moral is all great coaches need great players, all great players need great coaches no if and or buts about it. Period!
I'm comparing the Patriots of those years to the Rams in the sense that both teams sold the future in order to win. All those draft picks given up by both teams to bring in vets.
Both teams won Super Bowls with that approach.
But then when 53 new players join the team after Mac joined in 2021, and you only have a few bit role players left from the glory years (Andrews, Slater, and Wise who didn't even play back then), that's a total rebuild.
Belichick's strategy from 2021 was easy to see. We were woefully slow on defense. The Bills embarrassed us in the playoffs (no punts) not by throwing over us, but by running reverses and short passes. Van Noy, McCourty, Chung, Bentley!! could not do anything. Our CBs couldn't tackle (remember young Myles Bryant).
He had to rebuild the defense, which meant drafting BPAs on D where available (Barmore, Gonzalez) but also bringing in speed: Mack Wilson Jr., Peppers, Dugger, Marcus Jones, even Jennings is an undersized DE with speed.
Did he neglect the offense? No he drafted badly (Tyquan and Mac Jones) but he expended a lot of picks on that side. Especially on the OL, who are all relatively young: Onwenu, Sow, Andrews, Strange, Mafi.
He brought in a lot of FAs on O for big money, WRs and TEs.
I'd argue this is a smart and good way to build a team.
Unfortunately, the opportunities to bring in a #1 WR and a LT fell through (Tyquan instead of Pickens, the washout of the 2022 draft when it looked like a LT would be available).