Look, I'll be reasonable this time.
If we're going to compare the talent between this year's team and 2004, the natural question to ask is why there has been such a drastic decline in talent since then.
I offer a few suggestions:
1) The failure of the front office to replace the starting 3-4 linebackers before they left the team. This directly led to a decline in performance and, eventually, a scheme change in 2011. This was a problem as early as 2006, and became a lot more obvious in 2007.
2) Reluctance to invest significant resources in the front seven, possibly due to the high miss rate involved when drafting and signing those players.
3) The team's insistence to continue running a two-gap defense, which not only makes finding adequate players more difficult. It also exacerbates the problem by demanding a longer learning curve for new players, who are almost universally familiar with one-gap schemes.
As for the secondary, the team has just missed on too many draft picks.
These are all ideas I've thought about for a while. I stand by Belichick as one of the better GMs in the league, given the team's continued success since the end of the "dynasty" in 2007, but I think it's fair to ask what he's been doing with the defense.
