Romeo and Charlie were the Checks and Balances

[R_T26]

When these guys were on the coaching staff BB trusted them, and Romeo and Charlie were able to implement their own styles. They are both gone now and BB seems to be doing his own thing and no one will question him. This 2 TE bunched up base offense is awful. It allows the D to to flood the middle of the feild and we dont have the recievers on the outside to run this type of offense. Bad personal moves, Vinateri move is starting to haunt us especially considering his contract would have never come back to haunt the Pats.The D is still vanilla, it is no longer creative or aggressive. There are no more playmakers. Watching other games makes me jealous. The pats D basically consists of 3 guys rushing the qb against 5 o0linemen, the qb sitting in the pocket dumping an 8 yard pass, the secondary letting the guys catch the ball in front of them, then tackling them. Once again their last few drafts have been questionable. Players are openly upset about some of the moves made, and the moves are haunting the Pats so far. Unless they tweak their philosophy this offseason, the Pats will be done, and the last 3 prime years of brady's career will be wasted. Then we can all watch "The Fall of the Patriots Dynasty" special on ESPN. it happens to all of them. Remember Harry Sinden was considered a brilliant hockey mind, then he got caught up in value, saying no player would be paid more then bourque etc. and the team ended up rotting away.

 

[PF1996]

I disagree with the implication that losing guys like Vinetari is the problem. All those guys we lost this year were on the team last year when the Pats also sucked on both offense and defense. All the trends you mentioned would NOT be any better with those players on the team, in fact, the situation would be WORSE, since the Pats would have more money tied up in a bunch of old/average talented/declining skill players.

The rest of your post is on target though. I also feel jealous watching the playmakers on other squads, playmakers that the Pats DO NOT HAVE, especially on defense. It's sad that clubs like Chicago, Cincinatti, Minnesota, Seattle, even St. Louis have more playmakers than we do. When you include traditionally good defenses like Pittsburgh and Denver, you realise exactly how much the Pats have fallen from the glory days.

I don't think the Pats need to tweak their financial philosophy - but they need to do something about their scouting and coaching. Their draft picks on LB, DB and WR have been poor to average, where other teams are getting quality picks, even in the lower rounds. They appear to have made very little moves in the FA market. Now, one could say "trust the FO, they're the experts", and that was my attitude in the past but I can no longer do so when the Pats sign people like Beisel, who is so awful, he wasn't even signed by another club and I see other FAs playing well for other clubs (both well known and unknown FAs). I don't know what the Pats are looking for in FA but they really do need to adjust their approach. The Pats coaching has also been atrocious, both in teaching fundamental techniques to the players and in playcalling. It's really sad that Eric Mangini has the Jets playing harder and tougher on D than the Pats have been. Makes me think the problem with the Pats is mostly the players...time for an overhaul, particularly on the D.

 

[Franchise12]

the problem with the defense is our D line is pretty good at establishing the line of scrimmage but not the great at creating pressure. Thats why qbs have ample time to dump the ball off for big gains or exploit the middle of the field. we lack a premier pass rusher at olb, colvin is a good player but he often gets stood up and loses the battle due to his lack of leverage against offensive tackes. the secondary has too many questions, asante will never be better than he is right now due to his lack of speed, hobbs has the makings of a good corner but his height could serve somewhat as a handicap. rodney is playing like a pitbull with no teeth,and eugene must have forgotten who he was two years ago.