Bill Belichick’s uncertain future looms over the NFL

[lancerman]

We are going to be five years post Brady and we are trending towards being the worst team in the league and not a legitimate contender. We are five weeks into the season and the season is pretty much over.

The “best football mind in America” decided to go into this season with next to no offensive talent and wanted to rely on the defense to win games where they constantly hold teams under 20 points in an offensive focused league. Belichick is the greatest coach of all time IMHO, but he seems to committed to run the team the way he always has even if it means years of mediocrity.

The Patriots were a playoff team in 2020. Missed the playoffs last year. And are now in contention for Caleb Williams this year. Kraft is over 80. He isn’t going to stick with a head coach stuck in 2003 no matter what he did in the past

He's also going to 1 year younger than the oldest coach in NFL history next year. So for a guy that's been largely mediocre for 4-5 years, has seemingly lost his ability to coach well disciplined and mistake free teams, has shown weak drafting ability for a decade, and is currently fielding his worst team.... like how much do you want to let past success keep the team paralyzed?

Is there even a precedence for a 72 year old coach to turn around a half decade slump and return to former glory?

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/10/14/bill-belichick-patriots-future/

This could be the end of the line for Bill Belichick in New England.
Nothing lasts forever in the NFL, but Belichick’s run with the Patriots is as close to everlasting as it gets. It has been unprecedented and legendary by any standard, let alone during the rampant parity of the salary-cap era. We will never again see anything like the Belichick-Tom Brady tandem, with a ridiculous nine Super Bowl appearances, six rings, 17 AFC East titles and, somehow, 13 AFC championship game appearances in 19 years, including eight in a row from 2011-2018.

I don't think BB's future looms over the NFL.

 

[Hyped]

Ring6 refers to this as "the best organization in the history of the sport."

This is a purely historical observation, surely, or the fruit of delusion.

The idea that firing the worst GM in the league - certainly presently, arguably for some time now - is foolish. We can indeed do better than this. Statistically, in fact, in critical areas, under Bill's "leadership" as GM, we literally could not do worse.

It is the best organization in the history of all professional sports....bar none.

Ain't no question about that, IMO. There have been other dynasties like the Yankees, Canadiens, and/or Celtics...or some soccer (football) team....but name me an organization that won a championship in 6/19 years via a SINGLE ELMINATION tournament.......I'll wait...

 

[reflexblue]

I don't think BB's future looms over the NFL.

I didn't say it did

 

[Boomer B]

He's also going to 1 year younger than the oldest coach in NFL history next year. So for a guy that's been largely mediocre for 4-5 years, has seemingly lost his ability to coach well disciplined and mistake free teams, has shown weak drafting ability for a decade, and is currently fielding his worst team.... like how much do you want to let past success keep the team paralyzed?

Is there even a precedence for a 72 year old coach to turn around a half decade slump and return to former glory?

That’s what a lot of people miss when discussing this - his age.

From a Pats perspective, if we get a top 5 pick and hit the reset button it’s time to move on. Bill is gonna be 72 next year and has to be near retiring. When we reset let’s do it with a new mind/fresh ideas who can be here a while. At Bills age he won’t want to start a rebuild so I doubt what he wants would mesh with what is right for the franchise.

For a team looking at Bill, are you gonna turn the whole organization over to a 72 year old? It would take him a few years to build it with his own type of scouts/front office people and draft his own type of players. He’d be mid - 70’s before it was his type of team. Not realistic. I think if he went to a new team it would be as a coach only. Basically a 3 year run.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

I didn't say it did

I thought you were the OP and posted the thread title.

 

[reflexblue]

I thought you were the OP and posted the thread title.

the thread title is the title of the article, i didn't come up with it. I posted the article with out comment

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Ring6 refers to this as "the best organization in the history of the sport."

This is a purely historical observation, surely, or the fruit of delusion.

The idea that firing the worst GM in the league - certainly presently, arguably for some time now - is foolish. We can indeed do better than this. Statistically, in fact, in critical areas, under Bill's "leadership" as GM, we literally could not do worse.

Maybe stop listening to “the worst troll in the history of the forum.”

 

[Sam Bam Cunningham]

Wasn't Groh praised here for the last couple years of drat picks?

Sorry but the 2022 draft as it looks right now was very bad

 

[TheRainMaker]

Yet he went to 4 NFCCG and made the playoffs with Alex Smith
What has BB done without TB1e

Reid had McNabb which many forget was a 6 time Pro Bowler. With McNabb healthy, the made the playoffs 8 out of 10 seasons with 9 playoff victories, 5 conference appearances (4 straight) and one Super Bowl appearance. After McNabb left, Reid struggled badly missing the playoffs two of his last 3 seasons with the Eagles and losing their only game. He was burnt out and fired. It took him an extra 3 years to win a playoff game with the Chiefs. Then Mahomes arrived and they've been to the AFCCG every year he's started, 3 Super Bowl appearances and two victories.

The common denominator was clearly the QB. But sure, if you want to argue who's done better without a elite QB play, Reid obviously wins that argument.

They weren’t mediocre. He did have several 11-12 win teams with Alex Smith at QB. That puts him in the genius category right there.

Again see above. They won one playoff game and were non threats in the AFC winning only 2 games out of 4 appearances until Mahomes arrived.

 

[lancerman]

That’s what a lot of people miss when discussing this - his age.

From a Pats perspective, if we get a top 5 pick and hit the reset button it’s time to move on. Bill is gonna be 72 next year and has to be near retiring. When we reset let’s do it with a new mind/fresh ideas who can be here a while. At Bills age he won’t want to start a rebuild so I doubt what he wants would mesh with what is right for the franchise.

For a team looking at Bill, are you gonna turn the whole organization over to a 72 year old? It would take him a few years to build it with his own type of scouts/front office people and draft his own type of players. He’d be mid - 70’s before it was his type of team. Not realistic. I think if he went to a new team it would be as a coach only. Basically a 3 year run.

Yeah. I mean let's even say hypothetically in the next 2-3 years Bill gets this team being back to talented enough to compete. It's highly unlikely he's the guy that's going to be leading that ship for the 5 or so years following to maintain consistency. So ultimately even if Bill does pull an upset and get things right, someone else is going to likely be taking his team and trying to win with it. So do we just want to rip the bandaid off and say it's more likely a 71-72 year old isn't going to break precedent and we get new blood who can build the team they want to run with and potentially be the guy the next 10-15 years on their terms? I think that's a real question we need to ask ourselves.

 

[Thelonious]

Maybe stop listening to “the worst troll in the history of the forum.”

LOL. He does have a mean streak.

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

Team Bill today

 

[raduray]

"Years of roster rot" pretty much captures it.

 

[Thelonious]

Apparently BB gets other opinions and is not surrounded by yes man as everyone believes. Maybe if he wasn't influenced by others we'd have Jakobi this year. Fact is none of us knows the inner workings of the team even though some people talk like they have it all figured out.

That's true. I guess what we do know is that it ain't workin'.

 

[lancerman]

Sorry but the 2022 draft as it looks right now was very bad

This is why it's so dumb to say a problem got fixed in the draft after one season. There's been plenty of drafts where the Patriots thought they came out of it like geniuses and then in hindsight it looked awful. Everyone thought Malcom Brown was steal for instance and that the Pats got one of the premier defensive tackles in the draft. Then he did nothing.

Like we are all calling this year a success but Gonzalez went down after 4 games and likely isn't returning this year. We don't know if he was going to maintain that consistency regardless, we don't know if injuries will start being a theme from him, and we don't know how this injury impacts his career going forward. I don't really see how it's much different from when we though Wynn would be a cornerstone piece on the line going forward and then he got injured year one and he just became a different guy and plagued.

The only consistent thing we can say about the drafts over the past 10ish years, is that ultimately we got very low production out of them when all was said and done. And in this league, it's the end result, not the intention, that matters.

 

[raduray]

Wouldn't it be a amazing surprise to see Bill as a loquacious TV analyst next year?

 

[Patsfan1958]

 

[ctpatsfan77]

This is not a "team with issues." It is a team which has been incompetently run into the ground. In important respects, it is the worst team in the league. It is, in a way not characteristic of most teams, a team run by one man. Any analysis of the way forward must begin there.

As tempting as it is to place all the blame on Belichick—and he certainly deserves the lion's share of it—the reason the offense is in its current state is bad roster management that was tipped into disaster by cosmically bad injury luck on the OL, which no one can predict.

 

[Thelonious]

As tempting as it is to place all the blame on Belichick—and he certainly deserves the lion's share of it—the reason the offense is in its current state is bad roster management that was tipped into disaster by cosmically bad injury luck on the OL, which no one can predict.

Obviously any GM will have to work around injuries, and I think that needs to be factored in as we evaluate our GM, but I don't think our injury situation is such an outlier that we can let Bill off the hook as GM. Our team is abysmally bad, particularly on offense, arguably the worst in the league. I don't see anything in the team's circumstances, injuries included, that let's our GM off the hook given this state of affairs.