Why the hell did we not try harder to keep TB12?

203Pat said:

The arrogant "YOU OWE BILL!!" crowd thinks they get to be the gatekeepers on what is discussed here. We should just have 30 threads talking about the progression of Jakobi and what player we will take at 15.

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When you’re wrong you’re wrong, it has nothing to do with “owing Bill.” You and the rest of the negative nancy’s are blaming Bill for providing 6 rings, 3 in the last dynastic run... because you expect more. Entitlement is the word...

Wozzy said:

We’re here because it’s impossible to “go all in to win now” with a 42 year old QB in a sport with 53 man rosters for six years, while simultaneously stocking the cupboards with young players for the future.

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Of course they could've. Had Bill invested more at WR in 2018 or 2019 drafts which would've eliminated the trade for Sanu and possibly signing Brown, not used 2nd rounders on DB's that weren't needed (2018 and 2019), etc. Brady would probably still be here. We'd be either discussing a playoff loss or possible Super Bowl birth.

Bill had two chances to keep the train moving and he couldn't get it done.

203Pat said:

You really want to get into TEAM records? Like Bill's record without Brady? How about Brady's record without Bill? If we just want to throw TEAM numbers out there then Bill doesn't look so hot.

Yes and the most important position on the TEAM is the quarterback. Especially when the QB is playing at an MVP level.

For the 30th time Bill hasn't always been a bad drafter. The last 5 or so years he has.

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You use the word "team" but continue to focus on individual statistics. Brady's record without Belichick, Belichick's record without Brady - individual statistics that are meaningless without context, because said statistics are dependent on so many other people.

Look, this conversation goes one of two ways:

1.) Tom Brady is responsible for all of the Patriots' success, and he alone
2.) Tom Brady is a really fantastic player but some amount of the credit for the team's success belongs to Belichick and the rest of the team.

If your argument is that Brady struggled in 2019 because the Patriots lacked talent, and that the Patriots struggled this season because they lacked talent, then what follows from such a statement is that they didn't lack talent in the previous seasons when they won Super Bowls, right? This means that Brady, at some point during his career, had to be surrounded by good players, right? And what follows from that, is, Belichick is capable of evaluating and acquiring talented players, yeah? It's not like the team is going to collapse under Belichick's command in Brady's absence, as your 'look at Bill's record without Brady' remark seems to imply.

Brady's performing really well in Tampa Bay because, a.) he's a damn good quarterback, and b.) he's surrounded by extremely good players on both sides of the ball.

Brady performed really well in New England because, a.) he's a damn good quarterback, and b.) he was surrounded by extremely good players on both sides of the ball (and, he was coached extremely well).

I agree that the Patriots have not acquired a meaningful contributor at spots in the draft that they needed one, and that has in part contributed to their recent decline in performance. Had the team 'hit' at those spots, it's possible they'd have more talent and financial flexibility and could have potentially kept Brady around -- ultimately unlikely, but possible, yes.

That said, looking at hit rate for the draft, I think the Pats have done about as much as they can. They're not perfect, but no one is, and it's not like they're hitting at a significantly lower rate than most other teams; they've found some contributors, to be sure.

My hope is that they fine-tune their evaluation process, get somewhat aggressive, and try to land sure-things. Trading a current draft pick to move up in the draft in order to acquire sure-thing talent could ultimately be a return on investment down the line, should that player bring in more draft capital via a trade before their rookie contract expires (see: Chandler Jones).

dreighver said:

You use the word "team" back but continue to focus on individual statistics. Brady's record without Belichick, Belichick's record without Brady - individual statistics that are meaningless without context, because said statistics are dependent on so many other people.

Look, this conversation goes one of two ways:

1.) Tom Brady is responsible for all of the Patriots' success, and he alone
2.) Tom Brady is a really fantastic player but some amount of the credit for the team's success belongs to Belichick and the rest of the team.

If your argument is that Brady struggled in 2019 because the Patriots lacked talent, and that the Patriots struggled this season because they lacked talent, then what follows from such a statement is that they didn't lack talent in the previous seasons when they won Super Bowls, right? This means that Brady, at some point during his career, had to be surrounded by good players, right?

Brady's performing really well in Tampa Bay because, a.) he's a damn good quarterback, and b.) he's surrounded by extremely good players on both sides of the ball.

Brady performed really well in New England because, a.) he's a damn good quarterback, and b.) he was surrounded by extremely good players on both sides of the ball (and, he was coached extremely well).

I agree that the Patriots have not acquired a meaningful contributor at spots in the draft that they needed one, and that has in part contributed to their recent decline in performance. Had the team 'hit' at those spots, it's possible they'd have more talent and financial flexibility and could have potentially kept Brady around -- ultimately unlikely, but possible, yes.

That said, looking at hit rate for the draft, I think the Pats have done about as much as they can. They're not perfect, but no one is, and it's not like they're hitting at a significantly lower rate than most other teams; they've found some contributors, to be sure.

My hope is that they fine-tune their evaluation process, get somewhat aggressive, and try to land sure-things. Trading a current draft pick to move up in the draft in order to acquire sure-thing talent could ultimately be a return on investment down the line, should that player bring in more draft capital via a trade before their rookie contract expires (see: Chandler Jones).

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I agree with most of what you said and I am not really big on the Bill's record without Brady thing but when someone is bringing up how it is the team that won to discredit Brady you have to look at the team without Brady as well.

I would never try and claim that Brady doesn't owe some of the team's success to Bill. Bill is the greatest coach to ever do it and even with his recent down years I think his GM career as a whole as been pretty good. I won't get into his recent draft batting average vs other team's because I don't know their situations well enough to speak on the other teams but if you hold the first 3/4 of Bill's GM career against this last 1/4 it isn't even close. Yes they won games which is the ultimate goal but things started to snowball personnel wise once he started missing more in the draft and hopefully that snowball reached the bottom of the hill already as the 2020 class looks to have some promise outside of the TEs.

What's the going rate for a diva?

Teej said:

What's the going rate for a diva?

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No one truly knows Bill's salary.

203Pat said:

I agree with most of what you said and I am not really big on the Bill's record without Brady thing but when someone is bringing up how it is the team that won to discredit Brady you have to look at the team without Brady as well.

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here's the thing... No one is trying to discredit Brady. Not one person.

Saying Bill surrounded Brady with good players does not discredit Brady. But people are definitely trying to tear the siht out of Belichick & Co... The threads are littered by people railing against the Coach GM & his cap management, against his drafting, against the OC, against the position coaches, against the scouting... Like it or not Bill is the architect of the Patriot Dynasty. And not one word of that sentence denigrates Brady.

The fact that there have been only soft resets of the roster in the past 20 years speaks to how well the roster has been built and managed, how deep the teams have been; and that's a huge part why the second half of the Dynasty was so much better than the first, despite not having the cream of the crop players at each position.

bresna said:

To pay Brady $25 Million this past year, he would have counted as $38.5 Million on the cap ($25 Million in salary + $13.5 Million bonus from previous contract). Now, obviously, they could have spread that bonus money out over more years but how many more years? They just couldn't keep kicking that deferred money to future years with a (soon to be) 43 year old QB. Next thing you know, in two years, we'd have $25 Million in dead QB money and still be rebuilding.

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Yes, the idea is they should have kicked the deferred money into the future another 2-3 years. Brady's performance this year shows that if they did that they could have been successful with him.

luuked said:

That is absolutely meaningless. The year to year cap is the only thing that matters to answer that question.

As has been discussed ad nauseum already because the payroll numbers are distorted through signing bonuses, incentives and whatnot.

I challenge you to find a year they didnt max the cap up to the usual amount of 5-6m they carry over to the next year. You wont be able to find one because they have been going all in every year.



This narrative just keeps coming up despite 2018 and 2019 showing the opposite. It is not only dumb but also disrespectful to players like Gronk, Edelman, Dola, Hogan, White & co.

Until 2019 he consistently had HoF level talent around him each year since 2007. If you take borderline HoF players like Edelman and Welker even multiple players at the same time. Saying he did it alone is nothing but fanboyism.

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Seriously this is delusional. HOF talent around him on offense since 2007? No one said he had no talent. He had good receivers most years, but not "hall of fame talent" with the exception of Gronk. Compared to other top QBs it's not close. The cap is what is manipulated. Actual cash paid is a real number. The Pats managed to stay around the cap year in and year out because Brady allowed them to out out a championship offense without HOF receiving talent. Going forward they are unlikely going to be able to compete for championships doing this. They will be like most teams going all in for a few years and then having to cut talent to get under the cap. The Pats were able to do that by moving from players early and my view is that Brady's talent made this possible. Hogan and Dola were good, not great. 2018 and 2019 shows that even Brady needs some WR and TE talent to win.

skinnydog said:

Yes, the idea is they should have kicked the deferred money into the future another 2-3 years. Brady's performance this year shows that if they did that they could have been successful with him.

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They "should have" ???

Do you think that Brady had ANY intention of coming back in 2020? I don't. But yes, the team could have NOT franchised Thuney, and had Brady's 3 year contract have a fake Year 3, pushing a lot of the cap hit into Year 3.

Harriet over Brown/Metcalf
Michelle over Chubb
ASSiasi
Keane

would you stay with that offensive mess?

How many more years of poor drafting until people finally hold BB accountable?

mgteich said:

They "should have" ???

Do you think that Brady had ANY intention of coming back in 2020? I don't. But yes, the team could have NOT franchised Thuney, and had Brady's 3 year contract have a fake Year 3, pushing a lot of the cap hit into Year 3.

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I think Brady was willing to come back if he knew the team was willing to put some semblance of a real NFL offense on the field in 2020.

skinnydog said:

Yes, the idea is they should have kicked the deferred money into the future another 2-3 years. Brady's performance this year shows that if they did that they could have been successful with him.

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Throwing to who? Behind a line without Thuney?

Given the rumors of next year's cap, why on earth would the Patriots be happier with more dead money in a lean cap year? Their dead cap money was over 16% of a ~$200 Million cap.

Removing the emotional aspect of losing your star QB, it really was a no brainer to hit the reset button in 2020, especially with 20/20 hindsight about COVID. COVID really messed up a lot of games. I still can't believe they got a whole season in. I even wonder if some day there might be an asterisk next to the 2020 Super Bowl winner in the NFL records book.

skinnydog said:

So your only measure for player success is winning SBs?

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Why is Brady the GOAT?

Why were the Pats a dynasty? Winning seasons? Making the playoffs? Impressive statistics?

Triumph said:

Why is Brady the GOAT?

Why were the Pats a dynasty? Winning seasons? Making the playoffs? Impressive statistics?

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Have you been watching for the past 20 years?

XLIX said:

Well if Tom Brady is not a success this year then Bill Belichick is an absolute abysmal failure, right? Right? Hello....?

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No, 7 - 9 is a primo spot for trading down on draft day.

Choosing 8 TD Cam was a great choice. Stidham ready to take over worked out fantastic. The Pats pretty much have the worst WRs in the NFL. Pats TE position has been manned by a ghost for 2 straight seasons.

bresna said:

Throwing to who? Behind a line without Thuney?

Given the rumors of next year's cap, why on earth would the Patriots be happier with more dead money in a lean cap year? Their dead cap money was over 16% of a ~$200 Million cap.

Removing the emotional aspect of losing your star QB, it really was a no brainer to hit the reset button in 2020, especially with 20/20 hindsight about COVID. COVID really messed up a lot of games. I still can't believe they got a whole season in. I even wonder if some day there might be an asterisk next to the 2020 Super Bowl winner in the NFL records book.

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Uh, Thuney is not the only R guard in the league. It's not emotional, I thought then and think now it made more sense to go all in for 2-3 more years even if in year 3-4 they would be in real cap hell and go for Ring number 7. If there isn't an asterisk for the superbowl in the strike season, there will be no asterisk now.

Tom Brady is a good kid.

Pape said:

here's the thing... No one is trying to discredit Brady. Not one person.

Saying Bill surrounded Brady with good players does not discredit Brady. But people are definitely trying to tear the siht out of Belichick & Co... The threads are littered by people railing against the Coach GM & his cap management, against his drafting, against the OC, against the position coaches, against the scouting... Like it or not Bill is the architect of the Patriot Dynasty. And not one word of that sentence denigrates Brady.

The fact that there have been only soft resets of the roster in the past 20 years speaks to how well the roster has been built and managed, how deep the teams have been; and that's a huge part why the second half of the Dynasty was so much better than the first, despite not having the cream of the crop players at each position.

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Have you seen the Tampa thread? There are people saying that if Brady doesn't make it to the super bowl this season is a failure. Have you seen that buffoon Tommybrady12's posts? You would think we had JP Losman for 20 years. There are plenty of people bashing Bill but there are also plenty of people bashing Brady. Bill deserves credit but by the end of the run Brady was overcoming Bill's shortcomings as a GM.

The wife is at the door, bags packed, and made it clear she is leaving. NE got 20 great years. It’s over. Stop grovelling. She’s gone. Move on.