The inside story of the Patriots’ fall to rock bottom in the Bill Belichick era

[FortressX]

Interesting Boston Herald article by ANDREW CALLAHAN & DOUG KYED

A year ago, such disaster caused Kraft to push for coaching changes, which led to the re-hiring of ex-Patriots assistant Bill O’Brien last January. Belichick, according to sources, preferred to keep Patricia and grow together. Instead, Belichick relented, and O’Brien returned as offensive coordinator.

The inside story of the Patriots’ fall to rock bottom in the Bill Belichick era

A year ago, the Patriots changed their coaching staff to rescue the end of the Bill Belichick era. Still, dysfunction remains. Go inside the team’s season-long fall to rock bottom under the g…

www.bostonherald.com

 

[oldrover]

Interesting Boston Herald article by ANDREW CALLAHAN & DOUG KYED

The inside story of the Patriots’ fall to rock bottom in the Bill Belichick era

A year ago, the Patriots changed their coaching staff to rescue the end of the Bill Belichick era. Still, dysfunction remains. Go inside the team’s season-long fall to rock bottom under the g…

www.bostonherald.com

 

[sb1]

The inside story of the Patriots’ fall to rock bottom in the Bill Belichick era

A year ago, the Patriots changed their coaching staff to rescue the end of the Bill Belichick era. Still, dysfunction remains. Go inside the team’s season-long fall to rock bottom under the g…

www.bostonherald.com

The story of a badly coached football team. Case in point:

Brown also opened up about changes Belichick had installed after setting the agenda for the offensive line room in Klemm’s absence. With Klemm out, the patchwork offensive line was now practicing Scarnecchia’s techniques and drills instead of those he had taught.

“I think that has to do a bit with people being set in their ways,” Brown told the Herald in December. “I think Klemm brings more of a new-age (approach).”

 

[sb1]

So here’s why Jack Jones was cut I guess.

Jones blew up on position coach Mike Pellegrino at halftime for not starting.

Belichick cut Jones a day later.

 

[sb1]

Also sounds like there’s still a divided locker room over McCorkle Jones. Even if he did get a raw deal he won’t help the team now.

By the time Bailey Zappe made his first start in December, the internal consensus was he hadn’t beaten Jones out so much as waited him out.

Thank goodness changes are coming.

 

[sb1]

In the season opener, a banged-up offense started late-round rookies Sidy Sow and Atonio Mafi at guard and swing tackle Calvin Anderson. All three arrived that offseason because Belichick and Groh believed the best available tackles in free agency and the draft had been overrated, according to one source. Instead of investing significant money or a high draft pick in a proven starter, they opted for veteran discounts in Anderson and 34-year-old Riley Reiff and three late-round rookies.

So they didn’t want to invest in actual talent up front. Awesome.

Dumpster diving usually gets you dumpster level talent. Shocking…

 

[Triumph]

Good and bad article for BB.

The finale saves his job IMO. Find a rocket arm, great decision maker, mobile QB and the Pats are rolling in the right direction again. I am not impressed with BOB at all. I see why Alabama fans were celebrating BOB moving. What a stale, predictable offense this guy runs.

Josh McDaniel's will help the offense side of the ball for sure.

 

[sb1]

Belichick, according to sources, preferred to keep Patricia and grow together. Instead, Belichick relented, and O’Brien returned as offensive coordinator.

Lol because of COURSE he did.

 

[venecol]

The inside story of the Patriots’ fall to rock bottom in the Bill Belichick era

A year ago, the Patriots changed their coaching staff to rescue the end of the Bill Belichick era. Still, dysfunction remains. Go inside the team’s season-long fall to rock bottom under the g…

www.bostonherald.com

The story of a badly coached football team. Case in point:

@Ross12 need to merge this thread with one started by @FortressX

 

[venecol]

Turmoil with offensive coaching staff. BB faking the search for OC. Overruling BoB on bringing in his own staff over his own guys. Cheapening out on the OL and skill players.

This is why Bill can't stay even with someone else at GM. It won't work. Bill is too set in his ways and will sabotage any decision made by others.

 

[archstanton543]

It's not a one-player or one-coach fix. Just as I suspected. I love that one source brought up the absolutely baffling decision to sign Anderson and Reiff and draft defense with the first three picks.

It's pretty bad when fans can see the problems, the team can see the problems and then does next to nothing to address them.

Klemm's "illness" is also called into question. It looks more and more like they just wanted him out of the way.

It's been a great ride but it's time to move on. The dysfunction on display in this article calls for a clean sweep. And that means no Mayo either.

 

[Ian]

Turmoil with offensive coaching staff. BB faking the search for OC. Overruling BoB on bringing in his own staff over his own guys. Cheapening out on the OL and skill players.

This is why Bill can't stay even with someone else at GM. It won't work. Bill is too set in his ways and will sabotage any decision made by others.

The coaching staff is probably the most puzzling. After a massive brain drain, it feels like it's a little more about building a circle of trust rather than adding quality coaches who might have questioned / challenged things. Aside from O'Brien, doesn't feel like there's much there on the offensive side of the ball and based on the player comments in the article, they didn't appear happy about it either.

 

[Ian]

Lol because of COURSE he did.

Patricia blew it there. Had he shown an ounce of humility and maybe brought the players together and included them more in the process as they built the offense, that might have actually worked out better. Instead, he gave them the "let me worry about that" response when they questioned him about potential scenarios and ended up alienating them, setting up a really bad situation when they started encountering adversity. He has no one to blame but himself for that one.

 

[sb1]

The Herald could not confirm whether O’Brien wanted to remake the offensive staff, but O’Brien’s frustration with the wide receivers and offensive line coaches began bubbling as soon as the late spring. Both position groups feature underdeveloped high draft picks and rank among the league’s worst units. Klemm oversaw the offensive line until he took a health-related leave of absence in late October, while Douglas and longtime receivers coach Troy Brown handled the wideouts.

Members of the front office shared O’Brien’s frustration with the lack of development as the season wore on.

“It’s just a lot of bad s—,” another team source said. “Bad coaching.”

So is this the real WR problem? If we can't develop them what happens to MHJ if we use our top pick on him.

 

[Sciz]

Weird how the articles complaining about the lack of investment at tackle fail to mention that the author’s proposed free agent signing was Jawaan Taylor, simultaneously the most expensive and worst of the FA tackles. That’s the second in three days, following Graff (The Athletic) a couple days ago. No, the Patriots’ plan at tackle didn’t work out. It’s still significantly less bad than signing Taylor to that contract.

 

[Ian]

Weird how the articles complaining about the lack of investment at tackle fail to mention that the author’s proposed free agent signing was Jawaan Taylor, simultaneously the most expensive and worst of the FA tackles. That’s the second in three days, following Graff (The Athletic) a couple days ago. No, the Patriots’ plan at tackle didn’t work out. It’s still significantly less bad than signing Taylor to that contract.

The hardest part is the Gonzalez pick. I sort of said this at the time, but that pick was more of a luxury than an absolute necessity, as we've obviously seen. They haven't been great, but they've been adequate there even with him out of the lineup.

Don't get me wrong, they absolutely will benefit by having a shut-down corner to build around, and I love Gonzalez as a player. I'm sure that one will pay dividends down the road, especially given that they'll have him under contract for the foreseeable future. But at the same time, it's tough, because tackle was a bigger need.

It's rare that every single gamble doesn't pay off, but aside from Vederian Lowe - who has struggled - they whiffed on every other stopgap attempt they made, to the point where it took Onwenu panning out to stop what could have been an even worse situation, all things considered. Just a crazy situation that is still hard to believe worked out as badly as it did.

 

[Steve102]

The coaching staff is probably the most puzzling. After a massive brain drain, it feels like it's a little more about building a circle of trust rather than adding quality coaches who might have questioned / challenged things. Aside from O'Brien, doesn't feel like there's much there on the offensive side of the ball and based on the player comments in the article, they didn't appear happy about it either.

What a mess.

Klemm's illness: he's sick of Belichick. No help on offensive line, no true coaching, reverting to old ways because that's what they know as opposed to trying to adapt. Without any consistency on the OL, nothing else matters.

QBs: no leadership. 2 followers. Should have had a vet here to be, essentially, another coach.

Coaching staff: too busy building a circle of trust than trying to build a winning staff.

In the end, Bill has reverted to who he is, a brilliant defensive mind. Clearly he can coach, but he should not have any input to staff building or player acquisition. He's got buy in on the defensive side of the ball, and he's got help. Offensively, he's completely eff'd it up.

I don't see a way out for Bill. Do you keep him and the defensive staff, and then give BoB full autonomy, while bringing in a GM who Bill works for as opposed to the other way around? I don't see that being a viable solution in real life.

It's time.

 

[Snooky97]

Just read the article, its pretty damming at points.. The biggest issue i feel is the coaching staff from the offensive side of things, sounds like O'brien wanted to change the whole staff, and was denied. We all felt needed to be done especially the WR coaching, which sounds horrendous. Does it also feel like Matt Groh has more control in the Front office than we realised?

 

[Steve102]

Just read the article, its pretty damming at points.. The biggest issue i feel is the coaching staff from the offensive side of things, sounds like O'brien wanted to change the whole staff, and was denied. We all felt needed to be done especially the WR coaching, which sounds horrendous. Does it also feel like Matt Groh has more control in the Front office than we realised?

Certainly damming as far as Troy Brown goes.

 

[mike_usagisan]

Weird how the articles complaining about the lack of investment at tackle fail to mention that the author’s proposed free agent signing was Jawaan Taylor, simultaneously the most expensive and worst of the FA tackles. That’s the second in three days, following Graff (The Athletic) a couple days ago. No, the Patriots’ plan at tackle didn’t work out. It’s still significantly less bad than signing Taylor to that contract.

Yeah, the FA tackles that were available were overrated. Also, unless they moved up in the draft, they weren't going to get a good one. The real problem was that by ignoring tackle in the draft for the last few years, it left the team in a place where tackle was an absolute need but they weren't able to get one.