First off - BB is the best coach of all time. There is no argument to this. Belichick is one of the reasons I'm a huge Patriots fan.
The saying has always been "In Belichick We Trust", but he's made a lot of errors recently as GM. At 65 tears old we have to wonder if he's beginning to lose it. Many of you will hate on me for making this thread, but this is a discussion board and this is a big topic that most will be scared to touch because of how good Belichicks pedigree is.
- Letting LaGarette Blount go for nothing. Blount straight up said he wanted to stay. And that was after having the best season of his career with a league leading 18 TD's. Blount was an emotional leader and big part of our last 2 superbowls. He wasnt even asking for a lot of money. BB and the front office let him walk. They signed Mike Gillisslee instead, who turned out to be a huge bust. We are actually LUCKY that Dion Lewis surprised everyone and turned out to have as good of a year as he did. Otherwise our running game wouldve been terrible. Lewis and Blount are completely opposite running styles and we never had that short yardage battering ram all year.
- Letting Chris Long go for nothing. He literally donated his entire salary to charity this year. He also wouldnt have cost much to re-sign. Long is the perfect Patriots type player, good locker room guy, no character issues. He was happy to play here and then left because he felt the scheme didnt fit, or maybe he was upset that Trey Flowers passed him on the depth chart and thought he wouldnt get many snaps if he stayed. Whatever it was, I think if BB really wanted him to stay he couldve had a little last minute chat like he did with McDaniels and Devin McCourty and gotten him to stay. But they let him walk for peanuts and he went to team that had 3 losing seasons in a row. Long didnt set the league on fire, but he would've been a huge locker room guy and a leader. We could've used some veteran depth at DE this year, and he would've been a key part of the rotation.
- Knowing that Rob Ninkovich was close to retirement and Jabaal Sheard wasn't going to be re-signed. Surely after coaching him for so many years, BB must've known Ninkovich was close to retirement. We literally had one of the deepest DE rotations in 2016 with Ninkovich, Sheard, Long, and an emerging Trey Flowers. They were a HUGE part of the SuperBowl comeback... knocking the Falcons out of Field Goal range, and sacking Matt Ryan. One year later.... Flowers was the only one still on the team. Losing all that depth in one off season, and who did BB replace them with? A late 3rd rd pick and 4th rd pick. We are actually lucky that Deatrich Wise contributed as much as he did. Usually you cant count on mid-round DE's to do much. Even if Rivers were healthy, who's to say he wouldve been any good? 3rd round DE's are hit and miss (Shawn Crable anyone? Jake Bequette?). I couldnt believe it when the Pats went into this season without any sort of back up plan for losing 3 DE's. Oh, wait... we got Kony Ealy and Cassius Marsh! Kony wasnt given much of a chance and got released before the season started. Marsh was a failure and got released midway through the season. Now we are 1 year later and we still have a huge need at DE. We got lucky the Steelers messed up and let James Harrison go. He was our best pass rusher and played better than expected but it's kind of sad when you have to rely on a 39 year old cast off that signed with your team in week 16.
- Trading Chandler Jones. He led the league with 17 sacks this season. Yeah he's making a lot of money but, what's the point of drafting good players if you're never going to sign them? By trading away Jones the front office basically admits they don't want a superstar pass rusher and instead want to pick up scraps for less money. The problem with that is there aren't good scraps to be found every offseason. Last offseason is proof of that. Jones is also a good leader and locker room guy. He had one little incident but overall his character seems okay. His reputation was that he tappered off as the season went on, but the coaches also ran him into the ground and he basically played every snap. Shouldve done a better job at rotating players in and keeping him fresh. We couldve used some of that pass rush in the SuperBowl. People will also refute this by saying we got Joe Thuney and Malcolm Mitchell for him, but OG and back up WR are dime a dozen. Star DE's in their prime dont come around very often, especially for the Patriots who are consistently drafting late in the 1st.
- Letting Akiem Hicks walk right when he was hitting his prime. He was a hidden gem that the Pats picked up for basically nothing. He's turned into one of the best interior linemen in the NFL and isn't getting paid like it. He would've been a steal if we re-signed him long term. Huge talent evaluation misfire. The coaches see these guys in practice every day. They missed on Hicks big time.
- Instead, we re-signed Alan Branch at 32 years old. He was a healthy scratch for most of the season. Huge disappointment and waste of money. Got replaced by mis-season pick up Ricky Jean Francois.
- Dwayne Allen trade. Total bust. The Colts mustve been ecstatic to offload that terrible contract on the Pats. He got paid $5million this last season for a total of 86 yards. Absolutely pathetic. All these players the Pats supposedly can't afford to pay. Meanwhile they paid Allen 5million. This was a terrible misfire.
- Recent Drafts haven't been successful. Cyrus Jones, Jordan Richards, Geneo Grissom, Dominique Easley. None of them have contributed much, if at all. The only player that has panned out recently is Trey Flowers.
- Underestimating chemistry. We went into the playoffs with newly signed players in the Front 7. Ricky Jean Francois became a Patriot in November. Eric Lee signed in late November when Marsh was released. James Harrison became a Patriot in December. Marquis Flowers in his first season, after being a career special teamer. Deatrich Wise a rookie. It's fine to plug and play a few players when you have a solid core group of players, but this year we didn't. The Front office let the core walk away or traded them away. I know a lot of people are ****ting on Matt Patricia, but Belichick set him up for failure with this defense. Our D was counting on rookies and cast offs. Simply put, Phillies OLine was far superior to our DLine.
Belichick had a reputation of always cutting ties at the perfect time. Players that left the Patriots went on to be forgotten and never played as well. This isnt the case anymore. The players that have left have flourished and the Pats were left with an anemic defense that got exposed.
Going into next season the entire Defense needs help. We need a new CB to replace Butler. We need LB depth since Hightower is injury prone and Elandon Roberts is horrible. We need DT since Alan Branch is good as gone. We need DE. The draft isn't going to solve all those problems and this is a bad free agent year. We'll be lucky if we solve one of those spots in FA.
