Counterpoint...
After almost 20 years, it’s not a message, it’s a philosophy. Over all other things I think that one reason that NE is so consistently successful is that BB/TB and Co. absolutely DO believe that all the teams in the NFL have good players, can come up with a game plan that can beat them, and need to be taken seriously, week by week. And they’re right. They lost to some inferior teams both early and late just last season. It was a bit of a weird year, ended up changing their offensive approach by the postseason to maximize personnel and all that, but if it was as easy as “Tom is great and Jules will get open and BB is coach so...W” they would have been undefeated every year. Adam Gase probably sucks and is vastly undermanned here for sure but everyone thought that when he walked a checked out and recently unretired (and soon to be retired again) Jay Cutler out there against us in late 2017 too. The other guys get paid too, as the saying goes.
We chalk it up as lip service when the matchups seem this lopsided, and I think there are games where you could point to the players and/or coaches letting up on that even a little bit (Miami ‘17 and ‘18, Jets ‘15, Jets playoffs ‘10, Giants SB42, etc), and it ends poorly. But saying he’s just “sending a message” implies he’s trying to trick them or play psychological games to get them to take the Jets seriously. He’s not. He’s being literal and serious to both players and coaches - be prepared, execute well, and you will win. Don’t...and you’ll lose.
