Bedard basically broke this story a year ago and posters here said he was trash, a click-bater with no connections to the Patriots. We now see that pretty much everything Bedard was saying throughout the offseason and season was true. His take on the bridge year master plan nonsense.
"Yeah, this was part of Bill's plan. Patricia was just a placehold-ah. He knew he had Billy O'Brien in his back pocket the whole time, kid. Bill's still playing chess."
If you really believe that, we should have a Santa Claus discussion.
It's complete and utter rubbish. Fantasy-land stuff.
With
Tom Brady off still doing his thing (mostly), the Patriots have to still be special in some way, even though they are just 24-25 since TB12 went out the door, and are now closer to the AFC East basement on an annual basis than the top. The talent level largely doesn't make the Patriots one-of-a-kind anymore, so belief must fall on the Altar of Belichick for the faithful that refuses to admit the new reality that the Patriots are just another NFL team, no matter how many penalties, blocked punts, screen passes and game management screwups they see on a weekly basis. When you've enjoyed 20-plus years of superiority over the rest of the NFL, it must be difficult to adjust to the new NFL-world order. I get it.
But in the real world, the Patriots are no longer special — especially Belichick, although as a coach he's still pretty damn good.
The O'Brien stuff, though, is a crock of something.
1. If this was just a one-year bridge year — especially to O'Brien — you don't do anything the Patriots did this year.
If O'Brien was the guy all along, that meant
Mac Jones and the rest of the offense would be running the Patriots' offense in 2021 and 2023 (and beyond). You do not spend the bridge year of 2022 wasting an entire training camp — and your first-round QB's entire second season — learning a mostly new scheme with new terminology. You don't take away a veteran center's ability to work with the QB — always a bedrock of the Patriots' system — to make sure the protection was sound, and the run blocking on point.
If this was just a one-year thing, then Belichick would have promoted the most senior offensive coach,
Nick Caley, and had him continue to build on what Jones and the 2021 free agent class learned in their first seasons. Belichick wouldn't have cared if Caley was just waiting for his contract to run out and leave because he had O'Brien coming back. Belichick would have wisely used Caley for continuity's sake, and this season would have been much better on offense. Then it was time to be a real contender again in 2023. You also would have had
Matt Patricia concentrate on the offensive line to aid that dumpster fire more.
Instead, we're supposed to believe the Patriots just wasted a year — going
way backward — because of some Belichick masterplan? It literally makes no sense."
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