NEW ARTICLE: With Belichick’s Future in Question, Sunday’s Patriots Showdown Against Jets Has an Ominous Feel

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With Belichick’s Future in Question, Sunday’s Patriots Showdown Against Jets Has an Ominous Feel
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With just days remaining until the New England Patriots close out the 2023 regular season at Gillette Stadium against the Jets, it feels like this one certainly has an ominous feel, given what may also soon follow.

The post With Belichick’s Future in Question, Sunday’s Patriots Showdown Against Jets Has an Ominous Feel appeared first on PatsFans.com.

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[Spiral]

I for one will be sad to see Bill go if it happens The Patriots will never have a better coach. Their drafts have been below average recently, but that's part of what happens when you draft near the bottom of every round for 20 years. I think the 2023 draft was pretty good. There were too many holes to fill on this team going into last year's draft. Couldn't fill all of them.

For those who think that Bill is a bad GM, consider this: Bill was the second GM hired by Kraft. The first was Bobby Grier. And the guy Kraft fired to hire Grier was Bill Parcells. So if you think Kraft will fire Bill and hire a GM who will turn this roster around, my question is: Based on what?

 

[archstanton543]

I for one will be sad to see Bill go if it happens The Patriots will never have a better coach. Their drafts have been below average recently, but that's part of what happens when you draft near the bottom of every round for 20 years. I think the 2023 draft was pretty good. There were too many holes to fill on this team going into last year's draft. Couldn't fill all of them.

For those who think that Bill is a bad GM, consider this: Bill was the second GM hired by Kraft. The first was Bobby Grier. And the guy Kraft fired to hire Grier was Bill Parcells. So if you think Kraft will fire Bill and hire a GM who will turn this roster around, my question is: Based on what?

Teams find starters in the lower first round and in the second (and even third) round. They haven't been picking at the bottom the last 4 years. They've been picking higher than they were than during the Brady Era.

 

[Spiral]

Patriots first round slot in the past ten drafts:
2023-17
2022-21
2021-15
2020-23
2019-32
2018-23,31
2017-32
2016-forfeited
2015-32
2014-29

Sure, teams can and do find starters in every round of the draft, but there are premium players in every draft that never fall much past the top ten. You hardly ever hear anyone say there are more than a handfull of top players in any draft. The Patriots have never been in a position to draft any of those players in the past ten years.

 

[upstater1]

Patriots first round slot in the past ten drafts:
2023-17
2022-21
2021-15
2020-23
2019-32
2018-23,31
2017-32
2016-forfeited
2015-32
2014-29

Sure, teams can and do find starters in every round of the draft, but there are premium players in every draft that never fall much past the top ten. You hardly ever hear anyone say there are more than a handfull of top players in any draft. The Patriots have never been in a position to draft any of those players in the past ten years.

To reinforce your point, one of the top scouts for ESPN, Miller, has 1st round grades on only 14 players in this year's draft.

We can look at the 2022 draft when the Patriots were picking 21st, and probably looking for a LT.

All 6 were taken before 21, so the Patriots had to trade down. They parlayed the trade down into several picks.

But if you look at the players who went after 18 and into the 20s and 30s, there's not much there. There really was a lot of 2nd round value that year. And you also have a bunch of players who haven't done much yet in the NFL, and a lot of busts too (like Treylon Burks and Kaiir Elam).

This is the side of drafting people rarely talk about.

 

[lancerman]

I for one will be sad to see Bill go if it happens The Patriots will never have a better coach. Their drafts have been below average recently, but that's part of what happens when you draft near the bottom of every round for 20 years. I think the 2023 draft was pretty good. There were too many holes to fill on this team going into last year's draft. Couldn't fill all of them.

For those who think that Bill is a bad GM, consider this: Bill was the second GM hired by Kraft. The first was Bobby Grier. And the guy Kraft fired to hire Grier was Bill Parcells. So if you think Kraft will fire Bill and hire a GM who will turn this roster around, my question is: Based on what?

The Patriots have had low first round picks Bill's entire tenure. The top teams make it work for years. We were constantly in the playoffs when we had that 2009-2013 run that set up the team for the most recent set of titles. We were constantly drafting at the bottom when the 2007 team was built.

 

[lancerman]

Patriots first round slot in the past ten drafts:
2023-17
2022-21
2021-15
2020-23
2019-32
2018-23,31
2017-32
2016-forfeited
2015-32
2014-29

Sure, teams can and do find starters in every round of the draft, but there are premium players in every draft that never fall much past the top ten. You hardly ever hear anyone say there are more than a handfull of top players in any draft. The Patriots have never been in a position to draft any of those players in the past ten years.

Players picked after the Patriots first pick in each of these drafts.

2014: Demarcus Lawrence, Joel Bitonio, Davante Adams
2015: David Johnson (who I thought we should pick), Frank Clark, Erik Kendricks, Landon Collins

2016: forfeit but after the second pick you had Austin Hooper, Yannick Ngakoue, Kevin Byard, James Bradberry.

2017: Budda Baker, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, Cooper Kupp

2018: Lamar Jackson, Shaq Leonard, Nick Chubb (we actually got a damn RB and didn't get him who was taken right after), Courtland Sutton, Harold Landry hell we could have even got Fred Warner.

2019: Deebo Samuel, AJ Brown, Mecole Hardman, DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson (plenty of Pro Bowl WR's instead of Nkeal Harry).

2020: We traded out because we let a WR run happen in front of us and didn't move. We were one spot away from Justin Jefferson and if we were aggressive at all we could have gotten CeeDee Lamb. But strictly going after our pick.... We could have gotten Jalen Hurts as a QB after Brady left, DeAndre Swift, Jonathan Taylor, Trebon Diggs, Antoine Winfield Jr

2021: I'll skip this one because it was clear we were going QB. But they sat on their asses and let the draft dictate who they got.

I'm bored at this point. They had options and there was talent to be found. And if they got the right talent they could have invested better in free agency and wouldn't have been in this mess.

And I'm only listing Pro Bowl/All Pro quality players. I'm not even talking about just solid role players who fill a need.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

2021: I'll skip this one because it was clear we were going QB. But they sat on their asses and let the draft dictate who they got.

Even in hindsight, this was defensible. All trading up would've done is give them a costlier bust.

 

[Spiral]

Yes, lots of missed opportunities. I especially agree with Chubb over Sony, and anyone over NKeal Harry. But every team misses players in every draft. There are 30 teams who missed on Lamar Jackson. Probably every team would trade the guy they picked in the 2017 third round for Cooper Kupp. Lots of people seem to think that the next GM that Kraft hires will avoid these mistakes. Based on the number of GMs that have been hired and fired in the past 20 years, I'm not so sure.

 

[*ChungFu*]

Players picked after the Patriots first pick in each of these drafts.

2014: Demarcus Lawrence, Joel Bitonio, Davante Adams
2015: David Johnson (who I thought we should pick), Frank Clark, Erik Kendricks, Landon Collins

2016: forfeit but after the second pick you had Austin Hooper, Yannick Ngakoue, Kevin Byard, James Bradberry.

2017: Budda Baker, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, Cooper Kupp

2018: Lamar Jackson, Shaq Leonard, Nick Chubb (we actually got a damn RB and didn't get him who was taken right after), Courtland Sutton, Harold Landry hell we could have even got Fred Warner.

2019: Deebo Samuel, AJ Brown, Mecole Hardman, DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson (plenty of Pro Bowl WR's instead of Nkeal Harry).

2020: We traded out because we let a WR run happen in front of us and didn't move. We were one spot away from Justin Jefferson and if we were aggressive at all we could have gotten CeeDee Lamb. But strictly going after our pick.... We could have gotten Jalen Hurts as a QB after Brady left, DeAndre Swift, Jonathan Taylor, Trebon Diggs, Antoine Winfield Jr

2021: I'll skip this one because it was clear we were going QB. But they sat on their asses and let the draft dictate who they got.

I'm bored at this point. They had options and there was talent to be found. And if they got the right talent they could have invested better in free agency and wouldn't have been in this mess.

And I'm only listing Pro Bowl/All Pro quality players. I'm not even talking about just solid role players who fill a need.

Everyone listed here was missed by every team but the one that took them. The entire league sucks?

 

[lancerman]

Everyone listed here was missed by every team but the one that took them. The entire league sucks?

That's a bad way to look at it. Other teams picked earlier and got solid players before they got a chance to pick them. The point was the Patriots almost always had solid options at the time they actually picked and usually made a bad choice.

 

[venecol]

Players picked after the Patriots first pick in each of these drafts.

2014: Demarcus Lawrence, Joel Bitonio, Davante Adams
2015: David Johnson (who I thought we should pick), Frank Clark, Erik Kendricks, Landon Collins

2016: forfeit but after the second pick you had Austin Hooper, Yannick Ngakoue, Kevin Byard, James Bradberry.

2017: Budda Baker, Dalvin Cook, Joe Mixon, Alvin Kamara, Cooper Kupp

2018: Lamar Jackson, Shaq Leonard, Nick Chubb (we actually got a damn RB and didn't get him who was taken right after), Courtland Sutton, Harold Landry hell we could have even got Fred Warner.

2019: Deebo Samuel, AJ Brown, Mecole Hardman, DK Metcalf, Diontae Johnson (plenty of Pro Bowl WR's instead of Nkeal Harry).

2020: We traded out because we let a WR run happen in front of us and didn't move. We were one spot away from Justin Jefferson and if we were aggressive at all we could have gotten CeeDee Lamb. But strictly going after our pick.... We could have gotten Jalen Hurts as a QB after Brady left, DeAndre Swift, Jonathan Taylor, Trebon Diggs, Antoine Winfield Jr

2021: I'll skip this one because it was clear we were going QB. But they sat on their asses and let the draft dictate who they got.

I'm bored at this point. They had options and there was talent to be found. And if they got the right talent they could have invested better in free agency and wouldn't have been in this mess.

And I'm only listing Pro Bowl/All Pro quality players. I'm not even talking about just solid role players who fill a need.

Just more excuses from the usual suspects that will say anything to give Belichick a pass for the terrible fall of the franchise the last 3 seasons. They of course completely ignore and gloss over the NFL record amount of guarantee $$ they dished out in '21 and the 1st Rd QB pick that "they all" claimed to be a genius move by Belichick. They also continued to defend his every move these last few seasons, and Mac, all the way until the wheels fell off.

Now, alzheimers has set in and it's all forgotten. Just the memory of those dynasty years when Belichick won all those SBs because of his defense.