Pats Went 1-4 to End Season. What Was The Cause of Implosion?

[DropKickFlutie]

I would rather see a seismic shift in the way the team is built. I agree that Bill should stay on his head coach assuming he has interest and actually beefing up his assistants otherwise it may be time for him to go.

Best move would be to sign Eliot Wolf as GM.

Ziegler can go sit on the front office bench.

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[StrawHatPatriot]

The truth is the Pats started and ended the season ****ty and the 7 game win streak was a mirage. Look at who they beat.

1. The Jets who are one of worst teams in the league

2. The Chargers. Who are a bubble team that still has a lot of issues and ultimately couldn't seal the deal

3. The Browns who were a massive dissapointment this year who we hyped as a good win because of their expectation going into the season. Who also lost OBJ the week they played us which upended their team

4. The Panthers who had a good start but ultimately impoded and turned into a trash team by the time we got to them.

5. The Falcons who were one of the worst teams in the league, certainly bottom 5

6. The Titans right after they lost both Brown and Henry and they had to readjust to their offense.

7. The Bills in a game that was heavily impacted by the weather. Like no **** you can beat a pass first team if you remove their passing game via weather conditions that have nothing to do with you.

We were a lot closer to the bad team that started and ended the season. We just got a break from a stretch of teams that were either awful and in some respects overrated at the time we played them or were dealing with some serious issues with signature players on the team, or got the weather gods helping us.

We never beat a good a team straight up with no excuses or crazy scenarios happening to them.

Injuries. Injuries, that was the biggest factor.

Christian McCaffrey had a bad hamstring that he just barely recovered in time for that Panthers game, and he had a limited snap count. Sam Darnold had a shoulder injury that sidelined him for the next month. Gilmore was rusty as well.

The falcons didnt have Cordarelle Patterson or Calvin Ridley.

Browns missed Nick Chubb and ODB - and Baker (with his own shoulder injury) is a QB who NEEDS everything perfect around him to play well.

And Titans missed Derrick Henry and AJ Brown.

I hate how many Patriots fans willingly ignored this, then got surprised we struggled down the stretch (when we played good teams that were HEALTHY), and then played damage control with "hey guys, we were rebuilding anyways" like as if we didn't spend $100m in free agency and collapsed a number 1 seed playoff spot.

correct. this team is more like a 6 or 7 win group, but you play the schedule. they're going to have 5 or 6 bad teams on the schedule every year. but they can't beat any good teams or quarterbacks. but I think it will be a step back next year. the defense is an absolute joke and they play a bunch of good quarterbacks next year - burrow, Allen 2x, Carr, Jackson, Rodgers, Murray.... that's 7 losses off the bat if the defense doesn't improve bigly or the offense suddenly turns into a 30 ppg outfit. in the last 3 years this defense has not beaten ONE good legitimate pro bowl level quarterback in the last 3 seasons.... before you jump back with Prescott in 19 and L Jackson in 20....those were BOTH in the rain and schitt weather and limited the offenses ..so similar to Allen this year in the hurricane. that's very disturbing. in short, Coach Bills defenses from 2019-2021 are O-fer vs good upper tier qbs, I may give you the win over Allen in 2019 (coincidentally I'd rank this as the last quality win for the new england Patriots)

Notice how it goes back to 2019 - when the Pats offense was garbage.

It goes to show you that the Patriots defenses have been a product of our offense for awhile now. They can't really carry the team to wins by themselves. They don't ever really confuse good QBs at all anymore.


This is what makes the Bills game so devastating. It basically confirmed that this Patriots team was truly a 7-8 win team that should have missed out. It basically exposed the team.

Will we get those same injury breaks again? And even if we do, what'll happen if Baltimore is healthy next year (we forget that they were 8-3 at one point despite having a decimated running backs group, which is important to their offense)? What if the Browns are healthy? What if WE get injury bugs next year?

Our whole defense needs to be revamped, AND we need to get a real number 1 receiver. Do we have the draft wherewithal and cap space to achieve this?

 

[sb1]

Best move would be to sign Eliot Wolf as GM.

Ziegler can go sit on the front office bench.

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Before someone else does.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Before someone else does.

He's interviewing today.... =(

 

[sb1]

He's interviewing today.... =(

Yep. Mistake if they let another team steal him.

 

[raduray]

This roster wasn't worse than prior Patriot rosters that won it all. Agree 100%. I am very reluctant to pin it on BB because I think he's the GOAT. Hence why all the obvious coaching issues I pin it on the OC and mediocre staff around old-BB.

But this needs to be fixed. I don't need to waste another season of BB's career to know the OC is a waste of space and stale/predictable.

Of course, Josh McDaniels was responsible for giving the Bills punter the night off.

 

[amfootball]

AND we need to get a real number 1 receiver.

We have been saying this since Moss ...

 

[Nunchucks]

Lack of talent to compete with the top level teams and mental mistakes.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

We have been saying this since Moss ...

Charlie Weiss isn't here so yes, the current mediocre OC needs a HOF receiver like Moss or Gronk to look decent. Looks terrible otherwise.

 

[TheRainMaker]

I don't agree with this at all. The Pats Offense was just fine, you had a rookie QB that put up 3800 yards, 67.6% completions, 22 TD's and 13 interceptions. Let's compare that with a few other notable rookies who are now playing extremely well:

Josh Allen
2018 - 52.8% completion, 2074 yards, 10 TD, 12 INT
2019 - 58.5% completion, 2089 yards, 20 TD, 9 INT

Lamar Jackson
2018 - 58.2% completion, 1201 yards, 6 TD, 3 INT
2019 - 66.1% completion, 3127 yards, 36 TD, 6 INT
2020 - 64.4% completion, 2757 yards, 26 TD, 9 INT

Joe Burrow (normalized to 17 game season, since he only played 10 games)
2020 - 65.3% completion, 4569 yards, 22 TD, 9 INT

Mac is right up there with these other starting QB's in the league his rookie year. The guy is going to be a stud. The NFL is hard for rookies. Year 2 will tell us a lot about Mac's growth.

You fail to recognize Allen got better with better talent like Diggs. Jackson has Brown and Andrews. Burrow has Chase who lit up the NFL this year.

Mac has Jacobi Myers, Bourne and Henry as his top guys.

I’ll ask again. Who on the Pats O would scare you if you were playing D?

Charlie Weiss isn't here so yes, the current mediocre OC needs a HOF receiver like Moss or Gronk to look decent. Looks terrible otherwise.

Weiss was my favorite. Did the most with less. Look at what he was doing with Ray Lucas and the Jets in 1999.

 

[amfootball]

You fail to recognize Allen got better with better talent like Diggs. Jackson has Brown and Andrews. Burrow has Chase who lit up the NFL this year.

Mac has Jacobi Myers, Bourne and Henry as his top guys.

I’ll ask again. Who on the Pats O would scare you if you were playing D?

Weiss was my favorite. Did the most with less. Look at what he was doing with Ray Lucas and the Jets in 1999.

We say this every year though about the offensive weapons it feels like. And in fairness to Bill he did spend like crazy on the skill positions last off season but he just didn't get any A level talent even though he paid top dollar the first week of free agency. And that's really the rub. I don't see him putting a lot of resources into those positions. In fact he may be happy with the guys he brought on with the exception of Smith I would imagine. But even he may think Smith can develop in year two.

 

[yukon cornelius]

We say this every year though about the offensive weapons it feels like. And in fairness to Bill he did spend like crazy on the skill positions last off season but he just didn't get any A level talent even though he paid top dollar the first week of free agency. And that's really the rub. I don't see him putting a lot of resources into those positions. In fact he may be happy with the guys he brought on with the exception of Smith I would imagine. But even he may think Smith can develop in year two.

if you're in a multi-year rebuild, isn't the true top shelf addition, especially the finishing touch on an offense, bound to come to the end of the build?

 

[TheRainMaker]

We say this every year though about the offensive weapons it feels like. And in fairness to Bill he did spend like crazy on the skill positions last off season but he just didn't get any A level talent even though he paid top dollar the first week of free agency. And that's really the rub. I don't see him putting a lot of resources into those positions. In fact he may be happy with the guys he brought on with the exception of Smith I would imagine. But even he may think Smith can develop in year two.

The problem is they have so many needs now, so it will be hard to address this position again. A perfect example of what happens when you botch a draft in 2019.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

We say this every year though about the offensive weapons it feels like. And in fairness to Bill he did spend like crazy on the skill positions last off season but he just didn't get any A level talent even though he paid top dollar the first week of free agency. And that's really the rub. I don't see him putting a lot of resources into those positions. In fact he may be happy with the guys he brought on with the exception of Smith I would imagine. But even he may think Smith can develop in year two.

It's hilarious to hear whining about needing more talent on offense after shelling out $200M.

How about the staff needs replacing. The offense actually has a ton of talent. Offense under-performed, defense carried the team all season via smoke and mirros, and the team needs a new offensive coordinator, someone whose last name isn't McDaniels.

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[DropKickFlutie]

The problem is they have so many needs now, so it will be hard to address this position again. A perfect example of what happens when you botch a draft in 2019.

Exactly. So many crappy drafts. You slightly make up for it by overpaying in free agency several times. But the key is drafting well.

It sounds weird but the defense carried this team despite major deficiencies at a couple positions via smoke and mirrors. The offense actually had a ton of talent but diminished due to crappy OC work.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

Mac Jones is regressing with the current OC.


How pathetic is it when a QB gets worse because of the OC? See the work Josh McDaniels did with #1 pick Sam Bradford below, when he had the worst offense in the NFL in 2011 after getting fired for leading a pathetic 2010 Broncos team:

 

[Pats2000]

You fail to recognize Allen got better with better talent like Diggs. Jackson has Brown and Andrews. Burrow has Chase who lit up the NFL this year.

Mac has Jacobi Myers, Bourne and Henry as his top guys.

I’ll ask again. Who on the Pats O would scare you if you were playing D?

Weiss was my favorite. Did the most with less. Look at what he was doing with Ray Lucas and the Jets in 1999.

You fail to recognize that Mac did really well his first year with the talent he had. No there is no #1 guy, but they are consistently open. Mac would go to his checkdown too quickly. They can put up points on any team, Mac just needs to get better at recognizing the longer throws that are open.

 

[Rob0729]

Take it for what it is worth, but according to Greg Bedard, his sources say after the bye there was a disconnect between the players and coaching staff and the players stopped to buy into the defensive strategy. His take on the information he got is that Bill took over the game after the Cowboys' loss and after the bye he gave the defense back to Steve and Mayo.

That makes more sense than the mirage crap people are saying. During the seven game win streak the defensive was aggressive they were more of an attacking defense. After the bye, the defense turned into mostly a soft defense with players playing off the line and giving up the short and intermediate stuff.

 

[DropKickFlutie]

You fail to recognize that Mac did really well his first year with the talent he had. No there is no #1 guy, but they are consistently open. Mac would go to his checkdown too quickly. They can put up points on any team, Mac just needs to get better at recognizing the longer throws that are open.

Mac was phenomenal given that his stale, predictable OC hasn't learned anything new on offense since this OC learned option-route WR spread shotgun offense from Urban Meyer in 2005...

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[TheRainMaker]

Take it for what it is worth, but according to Greg Bedard, his sources say after the bye there was a disconnect between the players and coaching staff and the players stopped to buy into the defensive strategy. His take on the information he got is that Bill took over the game after the Cowboys' loss and after the bye he gave the defense back to Steve and Mayo.

That makes more sense than the mirage crap people are saying. During the seven game win streak the defensive was aggressive they were more of an attacking defense. After the bye, the defense turned into mostly a soft defense with players playing off the line and giving up the short and intermediate stuff.

We seem to hear this regularly but then nothing comes of it.