We're on to the OFF-Season

[gitgronked82]

He lists Wynn as a High priority UFA. Aside from that, he only lists 2 High end starters, both on defense. None on offense. I would consider Onwenu a high end starter and drop Dugger. One on D and one on O. That's it.

Yeah, not a lot of elite talent but a good number of talented (above average) players and promising young guys. That wasn’t the case two years ago.

 

[Brotherblues]

This team has very little talent and the worst coaching staff in the league. I enjoy when posters list out the "talented players" on the team.

Sounds like they should be picking top 5 then. Awesome.

 

[Stu Pidassle]

Our weapon’s production came on the worst coached offense in the league. And Henry is one of the best TE’s in the league, that’s how you become one of the highest paid free agents in the offseason… he was great on the Chargers before he came here. You’re like Captain Stoned, constantly telling us our talent sucks. The same people saying we had no talent in 2014, 2016 and 2018 outside of Brady.

I was listening to the Bengals Bills game on the radio. It was discouraging to hear the announcer call out Asiasi's blocking and effective play a number of times. It seems like TE coach is part of the problem, not part of the solution as OC.

 

[jdlboot14]

I just want this mystery to end. I hope BB (+ ownership) make a decision soon on the OC. We need some hope.
It's time to get to work!

 

[Toofy]

Looking at how san fran wins with purdy looks like you can win with average QB talent if you have playmakers on both sides of ball. How do you do that?
Tank 1 season and go all in in Fa for a 5 year period.

I dont think Jones will be the QB of future unless he turns to a burrow. Rinse and repeat QB till you hit mahomes or burrow might be mantra. Seeing Dak and Cousins fold during adversity makes me believe that probability of winning with QB outside top 5 is remote unless you have all star team like 49ers or rams of last year . Looks like the window to maintain Superbowl consistently will be a challenge going forward .

Shanahan and McVay seem to have figured out some mantra and Bengals and eagles timeline is for next 2 years before they pay for burrow and hurts .

As for draft don't draft any position outside of OT,WR,DE in top 2 rounds every year unless you get a generational QB that you will be picking in top 5 .

Irrespective of need whichever OT or Wr has pro bowl / all Pro potential needs to be drafted in first round every year .

Groom talent so that you can trade them in final year of rookie contract if we have surplus so that we can maintain consistency .

 

[DaBruinz]

I was listening to the Bengals Bills game on the radio. It was discouraging to hear the announcer call out Asiasi's blocking and effective play a number of times. It seems like TE coach is part of the problem, not part of the solution as OC.

Could also be that Asiasi is finally healthy..

 

[SlowGettingUp]

The Bills have $150m committed to their top 10 players; for the Patriots it's their top 20 players. So Bills really sold out for this year while the Pats still have a lot of dry powder. We actually sold out some in the last years of Brady, trading draft picks for players which ultimately hurts in terms of cap space as you don't have the cheaper players on their initial contract.

 

[patfanken]

Why does OBrien want an OC gig with Patriots when he could probably snag a HC job with Arizona or Cardinals?

Has he interviewed for that job? A job that has been pretty much a morass and a career stopper fort just about every HC before. This is the place HC's go to die.

Why NE? He's one of us at heart. Maybe in his mid 50's its where he wants to live. I don't know. It's where I want to live, Good luck to Monte.

 

[patfanken]

PHI run game is based on RPO schemes. I saw many times NYG LBs totaly confused on where the ball was going because of it.

All due respect Ken but that system worked great w/ Brady/Welker/Edelman/White/Gronk. Who do we have that can match their production? We need to stop living in the past or start bringing in elite talent. Something has to give.

Well we have to disagree on the level of "talent" that is currently on the team, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

I'm NOT living in the past and I recognize the changes to the game. Football has ALWAYS been a game that has evolved over the years. Change is in the very DNA of the game. It has NEVER been static. All that being said, I believe that the worst guy at the end of the bench is a great athlete. The talent is THERE on every team. But what is so unique about the game of football is that how that talent is developed, put together and coached. In the game of football, more than ANY OTHER team sport, does coaching matter or effect the game more.

I was NOT among the objectors to what we saw during the Patricia/Judge experiment. .....And I was dead wrong. It failed and failed miserably. But I still believe that good coaches can coach any position or position group. Joe Judge failed as a HC and OC, but was a great ST's guy. Dante, wasn't an OL type, but might have been the best OL coach of his generation. And of course, the GOAT was a better lacrosse player than football player, but PROVED he could coach/teach ANY position (Tom Brady's first position coach) well, as well as build teams that could win consistently.

So I truly believe that the talent EXISTS (plus what they bring in over the off season to BUILD a team that will be competitive and have the CAPACITY to win games in what will be a VERY tough division/conference. They simply have to develop the talent that exists.

On your "that worked well w/Brady/Welker/Edelman/Gronk" comment. The fact you mentioned JUST offensive players, denotes the prevalent attitude that it is offense that wins "Championship", when we should KNOW that it was the defense that was prevalent in most of ours. but lets take the 4 players mentioned. Brady- didn't come into the league as the GOAT. It took SEVERAL years before he lost his "game manager" title. He WAS a clear product of "the system". A guy who didn't come into the league as a guy with GOAT potential, but a JAG who by individual force of will developed INTO the GOAT. Being in the right place and the right system that exploited his talents was VERY important. There is no question in my mind that Tom would have EVENTUALLY become a successful QB where ever he landed, BUT it might have taken a lot more time for it to have happened, and it might NEVER have had the career long arc of success.

Welker had 3 years to develop in Miami before he landed here, and it to Edelman 4-5 years in development before he became a functioning WR and become Welker's replacement. Both great players, but BOTH were the product of how they were so effectively used and how it might have been much different if they both hadn't wound up here.

Gronk....well Gronk is the outlier. He was great here, he would have been great anywhere he went. In his prime he was a pure difference maker. We lost 3 superbowls and had several AFCCG losses that could VERY well been reversed if Gronk had been there. He was THAT impactful to an offense.

Well we DON'T have a Gronk-like talent on the roster and you can only hope that we can add one. When we drafted Gronk, my basic recollection is how so many were mad we reached so high for a TE will a bad back who couldn't even play his last season in college. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be just plain lucky.

IMHO building a superbowl winning team is all about "opportunities". It's about how you take advantage of those time where luck, fortune, or preparation present you with opportunities to win games. The entire 17 game season is a war of attrition just to get to playoffs and have an OPPORTUNITY to be 3 or 4 games to a title. Then once you get there the margin of victory, which is always small, becomes that much smaller. Often just whether a tipped ball falls to the turf or is caught lies between victory and defeat. The best teams SEEM to get more of this "luck" than others. I believe it's because they are PREPARED better for these events over time. They take fewer penalties, they are rarely caught making bad substitutions, they make the best half time adjustments, etc.

I expect Bill to take FULL responsibility for what happened to the offense this year on offense and I expect him to fix it, because that is what he's done for the last 22 years here. THis isn't like Shula where the game DID pass him by (and wasted the majority of Marino's career) because Bill is STILL inquisitive about the game and ALWAYS looking and adjusting to the ebbs and flows of the evolution of the game.

 

[venecol]

Well we have to disagree on the level of "talent" that is currently on the team, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

All that being said, I believe that the worst guy at the end of the bench is a great athlete. The talent is THERE on every team. But what is so unique about the game of football is that how that talent is developed, put together and coached. In the game of football, more than ANY OTHER team sport, does coaching matter or effect the game more.

Thanks for that long post. I don't disagree w/ you that coaching matters and that good coaching can elevate an athlete's production. Where we disagree is by how much. As a coach and former player you know and have seen players that just have raw, innate talent. Guys like Gronk, who you mentioned or AB, who is insanely (lol) talented. You've also seen athletes, which by definition are all talented, compete against each other where the more talented one just wins. Sure, there are cases where a less talented player can be coached-up to perform better against equal or better players. But when you have a dude like Jefferson going up against a dude like Mills, he's going to get smoked 9/10 times. Jefferson is a phenom. He set records as a rookie. No amount of coaching did that. I'm talking about blue chip players, pro bowlers, all pros, the best of the best, top 10. This team lacks that level of talent on offense. You can argue that Onwenu is a top 15 player and even Rham, and I wouldn't disagree but that's it. That's just not enough to make a difference when you're going up against KC, CIN, BUF, MIA and the other teams w/ a lot of elite talent.

But I still believe that good coaches can coach any position or position group. Joe Judge failed as a HC and OC, but was a great ST's guy. Dante, wasn't an OL type, but might have been the best OL coach of his generation. And of course, the GOAT was a better lacrosse player than football player, but PROVED he could coach/teach ANY position (Tom Brady's first position coach) well, as well as build teams that could win consistently.

Again, we agree in general but please explain why for the last three seasons on a consistent basis, this team continues to make a ton of mistakes on all 3 sides of the ball: penalties galore, fumbles during critical situations, blown coverages, costly turn overs, etc. We can blame it on a coaching drain, after several years of getting our coaches poached. Or we can blame it on these coaches squeezing the last drop of talent off these players and that's all they'll give. Idk, but the coaching results have not been stellar.

So I truly believe that the talent EXISTS (plus what they bring in over the off season to BUILD a team that will be competitive and have the CAPACITY to win games in what will be a VERY tough division/conference. They simply have to develop the talent that exists.

I hope you're right.

I expect Bill to take FULL responsibility for what happened to the offense this year on offense and I expect him to fix it, because that is what he's done for the last 22 years here. THis isn't like Shula where the game DID pass him by (and wasted the majority of Marino's career) because Bill is STILL inquisitive about the game and ALWAYS looking and adjusting to the ebbs and flows of the evolution of the game.

On this we disagree. Bill will be 71 in a few months. History has not looked kindly on these older coaches (some HOFers). There's only a handful of them and combined they have a sub .500 record. I strongly believe there's a generational gap between the younger players and the older coaches. Mayo alluded to a generational diversity. Several of the Patriots players have spoken about how different these younger players are then when they played. Maybe just maybe Bill can no longer get these guys to buy in. There's a reason most NFL coaches are retired by the time they reach 65-67. It's a young man's game. Let me be clear, I'm not implying that Bill has lost any cognitive ability or knows less about the game. I'm simply postulating there's a generational divide that affects the coaching & motivation of these players. That's why we need elite talent to overcome any coaching or motivational inadequacies.

 

[Ring 6]

Well we have to disagree on the level of "talent" that is currently on the team, especially on the offensive side of the ball.

I'm NOT living in the past and I recognize the changes to the game. Football has ALWAYS been a game that has evolved over the years. Change is in the very DNA of the game. It has NEVER been static. All that being said, I believe that the worst guy at the end of the bench is a great athlete. The talent is THERE on every team. But what is so unique about the game of football is that how that talent is developed, put together and coached. In the game of football, more than ANY OTHER team sport, does coaching matter or effect the game more.

I was NOT among the objectors to what we saw during the Patricia/Judge experiment. .....And I was dead wrong. It failed and failed miserably. But I still believe that good coaches can coach any position or position group. Joe Judge failed as a HC and OC, but was a great ST's guy. Dante, wasn't an OL type, but might have been the best OL coach of his generation. And of course, the GOAT was a better lacrosse player than football player, but PROVED he could coach/teach ANY position (Tom Brady's first position coach) well, as well as build teams that could win consistently.

So I truly believe that the talent EXISTS (plus what they bring in over the off season to BUILD a team that will be competitive and have the CAPACITY to win games in what will be a VERY tough division/conference. They simply have to develop the talent that exists.

On your "that worked well w/Brady/Welker/Edelman/Gronk" comment. The fact you mentioned JUST offensive players, denotes the prevalent attitude that it is offense that wins "Championship", when we should KNOW that it was the defense that was prevalent in most of ours. but lets take the 4 players mentioned. Brady- didn't come into the league as the GOAT. It took SEVERAL years before he lost his "game manager" title. He WAS a clear product of "the system". A guy who didn't come into the league as a guy with GOAT potential, but a JAG who by individual force of will developed INTO the GOAT. Being in the right place and the right system that exploited his talents was VERY important. There is no question in my mind that Tom would have EVENTUALLY become a successful QB where ever he landed, BUT it might have taken a lot more time for it to have happened, and it might NEVER have had the career long arc of success.

Welker had 3 years to develop in Miami before he landed here, and it to Edelman 4-5 years in development before he became a functioning WR and become Welker's replacement. Both great players, but BOTH were the product of how they were so effectively used and how it might have been much different if they both hadn't wound up here.

Gronk....well Gronk is the outlier. He was great here, he would have been great anywhere he went. In his prime he was a pure difference maker. We lost 3 superbowls and had several AFCCG losses that could VERY well been reversed if Gronk had been there. He was THAT impactful to an offense.

Well we DON'T have a Gronk-like talent on the roster and you can only hope that we can add one. When we drafted Gronk, my basic recollection is how so many were mad we reached so high for a TE will a bad back who couldn't even play his last season in college. Sometimes it doesn't hurt to be just plain lucky.

IMHO building a superbowl winning team is all about "opportunities". It's about how you take advantage of those time where luck, fortune, or preparation present you with opportunities to win games. The entire 17 game season is a war of attrition just to get to playoffs and have an OPPORTUNITY to be 3 or 4 games to a title. Then once you get there the margin of victory, which is always small, becomes that much smaller. Often just whether a tipped ball falls to the turf or is caught lies between victory and defeat. The best teams SEEM to get more of this "luck" than others. I believe it's because they are PREPARED better for these events over time. They take fewer penalties, they are rarely caught making bad substitutions, they make the best half time adjustments, etc.

I expect Bill to take FULL responsibility for what happened to the offense this year on offense and I expect him to fix it, because that is what he's done for the last 22 years here. THis isn't like Shula where the game DID pass him by (and wasted the majority of Marino's career) because Bill is STILL inquisitive about the game and ALWAYS looking and adjusting to the ebbs and flows of the evolution of the game.

These are the kind of posts this board needs more of. 2 of this type have more value than all the posts combined most days.

 

[Foxypats]

We're on to the off season and so are the Bills !!! That makes me giddy....

 

[SlowGettingUp]

In the game of football, more than ANY OTHER team sport, does coaching matter or effect the game more.

And where in the game does coaching matter most? I'd argue it's where multiple players have to work together - so OL, defense and maybe some aspects of special teams. Only so much a coach can do to teach a receiver to track and catch a ball (or run faster). I'd argue our OL debacle for most of the pre-season and season was a big part of Mac's struggles.

 

[patfanken]

But when you have a dude like Jefferson going up against a dude like Mills, he's going to get smoked 9/10 times. Jefferson is a phenom. He set records as a rookie. No amount of coaching did that. I'm talking about blue chip players, pro bowlers, all pros, the best of the best, top 10. This team lacks that level of talent on offense. You can argue that Onwenu is a top 15 player and even Rham, and I wouldn't disagree but that's it. That's just not enough to make a difference when you're going up against KC, CIN, BUF, MIA and the other teams w/ a lot of elite talent.

9 out of 10? THAT my friend is the very definition of hyperbole. In the NFL, with the kind of athletes they find, with the kind of training and coaching that is available to them 365 days a year, the athletic difference between a JAG and what we would consider a good player is about 5% and between a JAG and a great player up to 10%. I saw a stat that the BEST rusher in the LEAGUE put pressure on the QB, that's the BEST one, 40% of the time. And then just who is defining what a pressure is? If I am blocked past a QB and he has to step up into the pocket, is that a pressure? Even though by running past the QB I am losing contain. It's just so subjective. But even under those definitions it means that the best rusher in the league was successfully blocked 60% of the time and didn't get a sack about 95% of the time.

So no V, Jefferson vs a healthy Mills is probably open only 3 out of 10 times. Of course catches are made vs even the best coverage, AND coverage schemes can minimize any WR including the best in the league. While there IS a gap between a quality CB and a GREAT WR, its not nearly as big as you would like to make out. If it was a big as you'd like to think, then those guys would have 3000yds per year and every game would be in the 60's. This year the top team in the league averaged 29ppg. The Pats were 16th at 21.4 and just 2 ppg away from being in the top 10., and 12 teams averaged UNDER 20ppg. Doesn't sound like offenses are exacting taking over

And with all that elite talent the Bills scored 10pts. and only ONE team of the top 8 hit 30+

Again, we agree in general but please explain why for the last three seasons on a consistent basis, this team continues to make a ton of mistakes on all 3 sides of the ball: penalties galore, fumbles during critical situations, blown coverages, costly turn overs, etc. We can blame it on a coaching drain, after several years of getting our coaches poached. Or we can blame it on these coaches squeezing the last drop of talent off these players and that's all they'll give. Idk, but the coaching results have not been stellar.

Well I wish I had a good answer for THAT one because it wasn't like we've seen the prior 18-20 years But while the Pats were tied with 4 other teams with 104 accepted penalties this year (6.1pg) which would put them between #21 or 25 depending on whatever tie breakers they had. They could have improved into the top 3rd of the league by just have one fewer penalty a game.

Still you are right that so many of those penalties seemed to kill drives, make makeable 3rd downs into hard long yardage down, or allow opposing teams drives to continue. Too many, it seemed, were unforced like delay of game, or from getting plays in late or substitution issues. Some of this is on the players and some on the staff. Now it DOES happen to EVERY team, but maybe because it happened so rarely in prior years it because so noticable to us. It's like we became like "everyone else"

Hopefully when BOB gets here and makes HIS hires, this WILL get ironed out. We can only wait and see.

I hope you're right.


On this we disagree. Bill will be 71 in a few months. History has not looked kindly on these older coaches (some HOFers). There's only a handful of them and combined they have a sub .500 record. I strongly believe there's a generational gap between the younger players and the older coaches. Mayo alluded to a generational diversity. Several of the Patriots players have spoken about how different these younger players are then when they played. Maybe just maybe Bill can no longer get these guys to buy in. There's a reason most NFL coaches are retired by the time they reach 65-67. It's a young man's game. Let me be clear, I'm not implying that Bill has lost any cognitive ability or knows less about the game. I'm simply postulating there's a generational divide that affects the coaching & motivation of these players. That's why we need elite talent to overcome any coaching or motivational inadequacies.

I heard today that while Mayo hasn't signed his deal yet, he is fully participating in the OC job hiring process. Bill has NEVER felt the need for fearing young coaches. He proves it over and over again with guys like Mayo, Flores, and McDaniels, guys who had a LOT of responsibilities relatively young. Just like he has no fear of the old like Dante and Fears. He is looking for good teachers who can lead, teach, can put players in positions to succeed and make them better.

He had done a great job at it over the years, and while his "tree" hasn't had the greatest luck in producing HC's, he has put a LOT of successful assistants onto a LOT of teams.

You make feel the need to go "younger", but I say be VERY careful what you wish for. Being a HC in the NFL is a lot more complex than being the cool coach with the great offensive system. Let Matt Rhule and Kliff Kingsberry be cautionary tales for THAT scenario.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

The key to winning is to not have elite offensive players.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Everyone loved Randy Moss and Rob Gronkowski, but if Bill fails to draft/develop a superstar pass catcher, then not having one is the divine path to success.

 

[venecol]

9 out of 10? THAT my friend is the very definition of hyperbole.

Yea a bit exaggerated. Jefferson caught 9 of 11 targets for 139 yards / 1 TD.

In the NFL, with the kind of athletes they find, with the kind of training and coaching that is available to them 365 days a year, the athletic difference between a JAG and what we would consider a good player is about 5% and between a JAG and a great player up to 10%.

I don't know about those numbers. The top LBs in the league have more than double the number of tackles than the JAG LBs. Same goes for WRs in yards or TDs, it's way more than 10%.

I saw a stat that the BEST rusher in the LEAGUE put pressure on the QB, that's the BEST one, 40% of the time. And then just who is defining what a pressure is? If I am blocked past a QB and he has to step up into the pocket, is that a pressure? Even though by running past the QB I am losing contain. It's just so subjective. But even under those definitions it means that the best rusher in the league was successfully blocked 60% of the time and didn't get a sack about 95% of the time.

Sure, it's like in baseball where a good hitter fails about 75% of the time to get a hit and a great hitter 67% of the time. It's the nature of the sport.

So no V, Jefferson vs a healthy Mills is probably open only 3 out of 10 times. Of course catches are made vs even the best coverage, AND coverage schemes can minimize any WR including the best in the league. While there IS a gap between a quality CB and a GREAT WR, its not nearly as big as you would like to make out.

I shouldn't have used Mills since I believe it was Jonathan Jones (CB#1) who was mainly covering Jefferson. Jones allowed 7 of 9 completions (78%) for 99 yards and a TD w/ a rating of 110. Jones is better than Mills. Mills allowed 80% completion rate (4/5) a TD and a 130.4 rating.

Still you are right that so many of those penalties seemed to kill drives, make makeable 3rd downs into hard long yardage down, or allow opposing teams drives to continue. Too many, it seemed, were unforced like delay of game, or from getting plays in late or substitution issues. Some of this is on the players and some on the staff. Now it DOES happen to EVERY team, but maybe because it happened so rarely in prior years it because so noticable to us. It's like we became like "everyone else"

Hopefully when BOB gets here and makes HIS hires, this WILL get ironed out. We can only wait and see.

Yea, let's hope so.

Bill has NEVER felt the need for fearing young coaches. He proves it over and over again with guys like Mayo, Flores, and McDaniels, guys who had a LOT of responsibilities relatively young. Just like he has no fear of the old like Dante and Fears. He is looking for good teachers who can lead, teach, can put players in positions to succeed and make them better.

You make feel the need to go "younger", but I say be VERY careful what you wish for. Being a HC in the NFL is a lot more complex than being the cool coach with the great offensive system. Let Matt Rhule and Kliff Kingsberry be cautionary tales for THAT scenario.

Well, Bill was between the ages of 49 to 52 when he won his first 3 SBs so "younger" doesn't preclude success.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

The first step is officially done with bob back, that was the easy part.

Now the tougher work comes. Resign jon jones, splash trade for a go to wr (hop, evans, jeudy, higgins, aiyuk), splash signing at lb (edmunds?), draft ot/cb. We have the cap space and draft capital to accomplish this.

 

[jdlboot14]

I bet Mac is breathing a sigh of relief. This BOB move also shows a commitment to Mac for at least another year or two.
He'll get his (short) window to prove whether or not he's the guy.

 

[jdlboot14]

After seeing the Dolphins and Bills flame out in the playoffs, I'm encouraged for our chance to compete in the division next year.
I'd love to see BOB commit to the fullest capacity of our WR's (Meyers, Parker, Bourne, Thornton + FA/Draft) and let Agholor walk.
And really maximize the potential of Henry + Smith.
I honestly think Meyers will be one of the first 2 UFA's re-signed here. (along with J. Jones)