Let’s preface this with “last year everyone thought we nailed the draft and off season and we were actually horrible”.
On paper (another caveat) this off season is an F.
1. Our amazing defense lost Collins, Ebner, Roberts, Shelton and Van Noy.
2. On defense the only sure thing upgrade we made was Dugger replacing Ebner. But in the draft he had multiple opportunities to get the guy considered the best safety in the draft and one of the better defensive players. So it’s hard to take that as a win..... AND Ebner was a 3rd safety. We extended McCourty. So unless you are assuming Belichick is wrong and both McCourty and Chung decline soon, then he’s basically just being groomed. Compound on top of that, secondary is far and away the strongest unit we have anyways.
3. WR was our weakest position last year. We lost Dorsett who was at least something stable for awhile. However we went into an amazing WR draft. We had draft capital to trade around. We let a whole WR run happen right before us and didn’t bother to get anyone and then obviously decided to be the first team to trade out of the first round. We signed two JAG’s who combine for 1027 yards despite both being on league for 5-6 years a piece.
4. We lost Collins who is a really good linebacker and Van Noy who is a really good linebacker. We got Uche and Jennings to the replace them. That’s not the worst thing. But they aren’t going to come out and be as good as those two right off the bat. You were better off trying to keep one of them (Van Noy)and then still drafting those guys. And you could have done it by not franchising Thuney.
5. The TE’s are basically projects like the last TE’s. Just slightly higher draft stock but not sure things. Probably not going to come out the gate as big time contributors even if they end up being good
6. I have nothing against the kicker’s talents. He was not a draft graded kicker. We spent a 5th on him. He would likely have been there in the 6th round.
7. You lost Tom Brady. I don’t care how you try to justify it. Any QB outside of Mahomes or Jackson is a clear downgrade. Stidham would be defying odds to adequately replace him and we need a good experienced QB with this offense
If you judge an off season by the degree the team improved, on paper the team got worse and is hoping a bunch of guys can be adequate replacements for some really good talent. That’s an F grade.