Ted Johnson was talking about this year's team on 98.5 tonight. They discussed how they compared the last 3 drafts for Buffalo and the Patriots. It's laughable how few contributors from the last 3 are on the Pats and Buffalo is chock full of players from those drafts. I've been singing from the mountaintops that if there is ANY chance the Patriots get back to a contending team - and they are MILES away now - they absolutely need to nail the 2021 draft and hope Duggar, Uche, Jennings, Asiasi OR Keene, and join Onwenu in being a real CONTRIBUTOR. I'm not talking about playing 25% of the snaps 1 week, 65% the next week, then 30% the following week. Coach Bill needs to ****ing draft guys that MAKE him play them. Enough with the draft picks who play 2x more special teams snaps. Wonderful - they had a great special teams unit in 2020 - what did it get them? Remember Coach Bill's special teams from last year? He believed in them more than he believed in his offense as he frequently went for blocked punts with no returner instead of trusting his offense to make an 80 yard td drive.
The 2019 draft could be the one the cripples this team, ESPECIALLY if Bill the GM blows another draft in 2021. 2019 brought us Harry - bust, JoeJuan Williams - bust, Winovich - jag at best but won't be on the team after his rookie contract, Harris - not totally sold on him. definiitely has shown flashes of potential, but he's only played 12 of a possible 32 games in his career. Stidham, Cowart, a punter....you see where this is going. You had NINE picks in the first FIVE rounds in 2019 and Bill the GM drafted drafted maybe ONE player worth re-signing after his rookie contract - Harris, but we know how the NFL eats up running backs so odds are Harris will be elsewhere in 3 or 4 years.
I'll go back even further - look at the 2017, 2018, 2019 drafts - these players should be making impacts on this Team NOW, but there is garbage soup from those drafts. You need to go back to 2015 to find the last time Bill the GM drafted an SKILL POSITION IMPACT PLAYER - Trey Flowers, and I know some might not call DE a skill position, but I will here. 2015 was there last mildly successful draft with Flowers, Richards (he was a reach at second round, but stuck around for 5 years and made some contributions - should've been better for a 2d rounder, but not an abject failure like JoeJuan), Malcolm Brown was decent, Shaq Mason is good, and Cardona has been your long snapper for 6 years in the 5th round.
Contrast the bags of crap from the last 4 or 5 drafts with the early 2000s - 2001 (seymour, light), 2002 (branch, graham, Jarvis green, givens) 2003 (ty warren, eugene wilson, assante samuel, dan klecko, koppen, banta-cain). That's TWELVE CONTRIBUTORS over 3 drafts. If Bill can hit on this 2021 and 2022 there is hope, epspecially if Duggar and Harris keep developing and Onwenu keeps it up. There's 3 potential contributors from 2020. Get 3 more guys who can play this coming draft and we could be in business...