Rebuilding on the fly is tough. Things feel worse than reality partly because BB the local and national media is has it out for revenge after so many years of being on top and all of the cheating allegations. He is also a very easy target because he is GM and coach. He got too much credit for personnel during the good years and too much blame during the rough patches.
2019 - Brady left because he could see that the cupboard was bare and did not want to participate in a rebuild at that stage of his career. It was hard to take as a fan, but probably the right thing for Brady and starting the rebuild.
2020 - The team was probably caught off guard by the timing of Brady's exit and had to scramble to start the rebuild. Stidham proving not to be a starting QB, dead money and COVID conspired to make it a lost season.
2021 - Year 1 with a new QB went about as well as could be hoped. Teams figured out Mac at the end of the season. Assuming a three year window to develop a franchise QB, things looked pretty good.
2022 - JMD left and BB made the horrendous decision to go with MP as OC, likely as a bridge year to BOB. Mac regressed and BB lost the trust of the locker room because of the OC decision. Drafting a guard in the first round and missing on a WR created more doubt that BB was the guy. His contract extension in the offseason is a good indication that RKK was in on the plans.
2023 - All of the promise of the offseason was undermined by a ridiculous number of injuries on the OL. Coupled with no high end weapons on offense further exposed Mac's limitations. His decision making and leadership are the real gaps in his game. Losing Judon and Gonzo took away the teams strength and doomed the team to failure. With Mac failing to develop into a franchise QB and no good alternatives on the roster we are looking at starting again next year.
How many teams in the NFL consider winning half your games as being a terrible failed team? The reality is that in the 3 years after Brady, we were in the playoff hunt EVERY year, and made the playoffs in one of the three seasons. Personally, I think that coaching, most especially by Bill made a bid difference last year. But, still, we were in the hunt at the end.
However, I understand that we are where we are. It is unlikely that we will a playoff game until we solve the QB issue. Some teams accomplish this in one year, some in ten, some never.
Some posters seem to believe that it is reasonable to expect to get a top 10 QB in the 2nd or 3rd. I suppose that if we drafted QB's every year, and were good at coaching and evaluation, we might expect that strategy to work. I think that it is much more reasonable to FOCUS on the QB position. We NEED a QB to start in 2024. I think that we need a youngster and experienced veteran backup. If we don't get one of the very top QB's in the draft, we should be prepared to draft one again in 2025 and in 2026 until we get a top 10 QB.
As a side note, Kraft has always taken the position that he is committed to making the team competitive every year. That is, before every season, he expects to have a reasonable chance to make the playoffs. So don't expect Kraft to tank or to dump players. And yes, we being 50% and being in the playoffs 1/3 of the time is indeed being competitive, not good enough, but competitive inded.