Pats fans, conspiracy theories, & my guesses

[sean10mm]

I feel like there's this bizarre tendency for people here to come up with convoluted, borderline-conspiracy theory explanations for anything the Patriots do. The Patriots 100% might be screwing up here, but the thought process behind their decisions seems incredibly straightforward.

Belichick got fired because he stopped winning. The NFL is a "What have you done for me lately?" business, and Bill himself has been one of the most cold-blooded practitioners of whacking people the second he thinks the return on investment is about to go the wrong way, regardless of prior performance. While Bill seemingly wanted to stay and might have thought he had a little more slack to turn it around, I don't think he's so delusional to think he could keep failing to win and coast on past performance forever. Action talks and BS walks. As Parcells said, "You are what your record says you are." Kraft acted accordingly.

Kraft and Belichick have had friction before, but when the team won 12+ games every year nobody gave a crap. The losing is the difference.

He wasn't fired for his coaching. He was fired for turning the offensive roster into a trash fire and showing zero signs he'd figured out how to turn it around. Losing Bill the coach was collateral damage of feeling like Bill the GM was killing them. They didn't take away his GM powers and keep him as HC either because he wouldn't actually do it (regardless of how people read the tea leaves from his Monday press conference), or becuase they thought it wouldn't actually work and would just make a dysfunctional drama crapshow between him and the new GM the second they disagreed.

Mayo isn't expected to be a better tactician than 2001-2018 Belichick. That's insane and I can (almost) guarantee nobody believes it. They think he can develop into a GOOD coach, and that combined with a GM who can build a better roster than 2019-2023 Belichick could manage (especially on offense) will add up to being overall better for the team than what 2020-present Belichick has actually delivered. They might be full of crap about Mayo and/or the future GM being the right people to do that, but the basic logic isn't some whackadoo hambanannas madness that requires Telenovela-level behind the scenes melodrama to explain away.

Mayo was hired right off the jump because they had a succession plan already in place, and he was it. The Patriots did the thing they didn't do with Brady that pissed everyone off - they had prepared for the changeover in advance. They had a plan and followed through.

They didn't bother with doing a bunch of HC interviews becuase he's been there for years, they've been evaluating him that entire time, and they think they know what they have. Again, they might be wrong, Mayo might stink to high heaven as a head coach. But if they think he's the guy, why waste everyone's time? Why delay rebuilding the organization and leave everyone twisting in the wind for longer than you have to if you think you have the answer already?

But what about hiring the head coach before the GM? BLASPHEMY! CATASTROPHE! LOUD NOISES!

Well, maybe.

If they end up flopping around a long time because they hired Mayo first and nobody wants to play GM with him, I'll 100% say that was a big mistake. The GM improving the roster is going to make this whole thing sink or swim in the next 2-3 years. I'm a lot more worried about the new GM upgrading the talent over the long haul than the first post-Belichick head coach if I'm honest. The roster is just that bad and the personnel side of things has just been terrifyingly aimless for years.

My GUESS (yes, this part is me just guessing, sue me), is they already know who the next GM is and they haven't announced it yet because they have to jump through all the hoops with league rules first before making it official, and that guy is already onboard with Mayo as HC. My GUESS is they whack Groh for being too much of a Bill puppet and hire Wolf, who actually had a track record working in personnel outside the Patriots from 2004-2019. So he's in the organization, but his career hasn't been just as a Belichick guy like Groh.

tl,dr: RLKAG

 

[fourhour]

Hambananas for the win!

 

[archstanton543]

tl;dr

 

[upstater1]

They were in the middle of a rebuild.

In 2021 when they lost to the Bills in the playoffs, their defense showed itself to be old and slow. It needed an overhaul

A lot of young speedy players were brought in.

You're going to lose during a rebuild. If you don't have the patience for it and can't accept losing, you're going to enter the coaching ferris wheel that every team but a few seem to experience.

The best team in the league this year is the Ravens. One playoff win in 10 yrs. Same coach. After their last playoff victory 10 years ago, they went 5-11, 8-8, 9-7, missed the playoffs all 3 years. They stuck with him.

The lack of patience and all the meddling shown here is a huge concern.

The only bright spot is that I'm excited for Jerod and I think he'll be excellent -- if the Krafts let him be. I fear based on recent news they'll meddle too much and screw things up badly.

 

[TommyD4207]

I feel like there's this bizarre tendency for people here to come up with convoluted, borderline-conspiracy theory explanations for anything the Patriots do. The Patriots 100% might be screwing up here, but the thought process behind their decisions seems incredibly straightforward.

Belichick got fired because he stopped winning. The NFL is a "What have you done for me lately?" business, and Bill himself has been one of the most cold-blooded practitioners of whacking people the second he thinks the return on investment is about to go the wrong way, regardless of prior performance. While Bill seemingly wanted to stay and might have thought he had a little more slack to turn it around, I don't think he's so delusional to think he could keep failing to win and coast on past performance forever. Action talks and BS walks. As Parcells said, "You are what your record says you are." Kraft acted accordingly.

Kraft and Belichick have had friction before, but when the team won 12+ games every year nobody gave a crap. The losing is the difference.

He wasn't fired for his coaching. He was fired for turning the offensive roster into a trash fire and showing zero signs he'd figured out how to turn it around. Losing Bill the coach was collateral damage of feeling like Bill the GM was killing them. They didn't take away his GM powers and keep him as HC either because he wouldn't actually do it (regardless of how people read the tea leaves from his Monday press conference), or becuase they thought it wouldn't actually work and would just make a dysfunctional drama crapshow between him and the new GM the second they disagreed.

Mayo isn't expected to be a better tactician than 2001-2018 Belichick. That's insane and I can (almost) guarantee nobody believes it. They think he can develop into a GOOD coach, and that combined with a GM who can build a better roster than 2019-2023 Belichick could manage (especially on offense) will add up to being overall better for the team than what 2020-present Belichick has actually delivered. They might be full of crap about Mayo and/or the future GM being the right people to do that, but the basic logic isn't some whackadoo hambanannas madness that requires Telenovela-level behind the scenes melodrama to explain away.

Mayo was hired right off the jump because they had a succession plan already in place, and he was it. The Patriots did the thing they didn't do with Brady that pissed everyone off - they had prepared for the changeover in advance. They had a plan and followed through.

They didn't bother with doing a bunch of HC interviews becuase he's been there for years, they've been evaluating him that entire time, and they think they know what they have. Again, they might be wrong, Mayo might stink to high heaven as a head coach. But if they think he's the guy, why waste everyone's time? Why delay rebuilding the organization and leave everyone twisting in the wind for longer than you have to if you think you have the answer already?

But what about hiring the head coach before the GM? BLASPHEMY! CATASTROPHE! LOUD NOISES!

Well, maybe.

If they end up flopping around a long time because they hired Mayo first and nobody wants to play GM with him, I'll 100% say that was a big mistake. The GM improving the roster is going to make this whole thing sink or swim in the next 2-3 years. I'm a lot more worried about the new GM upgrading the talent over the long haul than the first post-Belichick head coach if I'm honest. The roster is just that bad and the personnel side of things has just been terrifyingly aimless for years.

My GUESS (yes, this part is me just guessing, sue me), is they already know who the next GM is and they haven't announced it yet because they have to jump through all the hoops with league rules first before making it official, and that guy is already onboard with Mayo as HC. My GUESS is they whack Groh for being too much of a Bill puppet and hire Wolf, who actually had a track record working in personnel outside the Patriots from 2004-2019. So he's in the organization, but his career hasn't been just as a Belichick guy like Groh.

tl,dr: RLKAG

 

[PaulThePat]

I didn't know Greg Bedard posted on this forum.

 

[Aussie Patriot]

I feel like there's this bizarre tendency for people here to come up with convoluted, borderline-conspiracy theory explanations for anything the Patriots do

Unfortunately that extends far beyond the Patriots and is just a part of the modern world.

No idea why but conspiracy theories are rampant these days.

 

[archstanton543]

Unfortunately that extends far beyond the Patriots and is just a part of the modern world.

No idea why but conspiracy theories are rampant these days.

It's the breakdown of the social institutions we used to rely on.

 

[VectorPrime]

It's the breakdown of the social institutions we used to rely on.

It’s more about how social media allows people to burrow into echo chambers which tell them what they want to hear and made far worse by increasingly effective ways for algorithmic sorting to keep you there.

 

[ralmat55]

I feel like there's this bizarre tendency for people here to come up with convoluted, borderline-conspiracy theory explanations for anything the Patriots do. The Patriots 100% might be screwing up here, but the thought process behind their decisions seems incredibly straightforward.

Belichick got fired because he stopped winning. The NFL is a "What have you done for me lately?" business, and Bill himself has been one of the most cold-blooded practitioners of whacking people the second he thinks the return on investment is about to go the wrong way, regardless of prior performance. While Bill seemingly wanted to stay and might have thought he had a little more slack to turn it around, I don't think he's so delusional to think he could keep failing to win and coast on past performance forever. Action talks and BS walks. As Parcells said, "You are what your record says you are." Kraft acted accordingly.

Kraft and Belichick have had friction before, but when the team won 12+ games every year nobody gave a crap. The losing is the difference.

He wasn't fired for his coaching. He was fired for turning the offensive roster into a trash fire and showing zero signs he'd figured out how to turn it around. Losing Bill the coach was collateral damage of feeling like Bill the GM was killing them. They didn't take away his GM powers and keep him as HC either because he wouldn't actually do it (regardless of how people read the tea leaves from his Monday press conference), or becuase they thought it wouldn't actually work and would just make a dysfunctional drama crapshow between him and the new GM the second they disagreed.

Mayo isn't expected to be a better tactician than 2001-2018 Belichick. That's insane and I can (almost) guarantee nobody believes it. They think he can develop into a GOOD coach, and that combined with a GM who can build a better roster than 2019-2023 Belichick could manage (especially on offense) will add up to being overall better for the team than what 2020-present Belichick has actually delivered. They might be full of crap about Mayo and/or the future GM being the right people to do that, but the basic logic isn't some whackadoo hambanannas madness that requires Telenovela-level behind the scenes melodrama to explain away.

Mayo was hired right off the jump because they had a succession plan already in place, and he was it. The Patriots did the thing they didn't do with Brady that pissed everyone off - they had prepared for the changeover in advance. They had a plan and followed through.

They didn't bother with doing a bunch of HC interviews becuase he's been there for years, they've been evaluating him that entire time, and they think they know what they have. Again, they might be wrong, Mayo might stink to high heaven as a head coach. But if they think he's the guy, why waste everyone's time? Why delay rebuilding the organization and leave everyone twisting in the wind for longer than you have to if you think you have the answer already?

But what about hiring the head coach before the GM? BLASPHEMY! CATASTROPHE! LOUD NOISES!

Well, maybe.

If they end up flopping around a long time because they hired Mayo first and nobody wants to play GM with him, I'll 100% say that was a big mistake. The GM improving the roster is going to make this whole thing sink or swim in the next 2-3 years. I'm a lot more worried about the new GM upgrading the talent over the long haul than the first post-Belichick head coach if I'm honest. The roster is just that bad and the personnel side of things has just been terrifyingly aimless for years.

My GUESS (yes, this part is me just guessing, sue me), is they already know who the next GM is and they haven't announced it yet because they have to jump through all the hoops with league rules first before making it official, and that guy is already onboard with Mayo as HC. My GUESS is they whack Groh for being too much of a Bill puppet and hire Wolf, who actually had a track record working in personnel outside the Patriots from 2004-2019. So he's in the organization, but his career hasn't been just as a Belichick guy like Groh.

tl,dr: RLKAG

RE: The GM

http:http://www.espn.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots//www.espn.com/blog/boston/new-england-patriots

 

[Lagaffe_07]

They were in the middle of a rebuild.

In 2021 when they lost to the Bills in the playoffs, their defense showed itself to be old and slow. It needed an overhaul

A lot of young speedy players were brought in.

You're going to lose during a rebuild. If you don't have the patience for it and can't accept losing, you're going to enter the coaching ferris wheel that every team but a few seem to experience.

The best team in the league this year is the Ravens. One playoff win in 10 yrs. Same coach. After their last playoff victory 10 years ago, they went 5-11, 8-8, 9-7, missed the playoffs all 3 years. They stuck with him.

The lack of patience and all the meddling shown here is a huge concern.

The only bright spot is that I'm excited for Jerod and I think he'll be excellent -- if the Krafts let him be. I fear based on recent news they'll meddle too much and screw things up badly.

For starter, they didn’t rebuild the defense. They retooled it which is not the same thing.

The core players of the D were already here in 2021. Guy, Wise, Godchaux, Judon, Bentley, Jennings, Uche, JJones, Mills, Philips.

They start the rebuild on offense in 2021 with the spending spree. In year 3 of that rebuild the offense shouldn’t be the last offense in the league. In year 3 of a rebuild you should be ready to compete. They didn’t rebuild anything on offense.

What you seem to miss for whatever reason with the Harbaugh thing is that for starter Harbaugh isn’t the GM in Baltimore so if you don’t have a problem with the coaching you don’t have to fire him. You can fire the GM instead. Second, Harbaugh is 61. I don’t think the Ravens would have the patience if he was 70.

Bill has 2-3 more years coaching maximum. He wants to catch Shula. His goal is to build a roster that can win 8-9 games a year right now even if that team will be a mess in 3 years. He doesn’t care about building a team that will be good in 2-3 years.

Kraft in the other hand want a team that can be relevant and in playoff contention for the next decade.

Kraft extended Bill until 2024 last offseason. It’s clear the hope was that Bill catch Shula in 2024, retire and have Mayo ready for 2025. Kraft didn’t expect a 4 win season. Kraft must have told to himself that if the could win 8 games with Patricia they could do has good as with O’Brien.

Kraft has been meddling in the past but when he did it it was to keep Brady and Bill together. Otherwise the thing would have blew out a lot sooner. he started really meddling when Bill convince him to let Brady go and it blew up in their faces.

 

[Nikolai]

It's the breakdown of the social institutions we used to rely on.

It’s more about how social media allows people to burrow into echo chambers which tell them what they want to hear and made far worse by increasingly effective ways for algorithmic sorting to keep you there.

One causes the other. The breakdown of social institutions left a void filled by social media communities, with the aforementioned echo chambers causing increased polarization and a dependence on primacy bias as a means of assessing information.

I've pitched this book before, but Bowling Alone is a compelling read about the decline of the American community. It was written in 2000 and surveys the decline since 1950. This has been a long time coming.

 

[50-yard-line]

Unfortunately that extends far beyond the Patriots and is just a part of the modern world.

No idea why but conspiracy theories are rampant these days.

Social media and influencers who know how to sound smart to dumb people.

 

[50-yard-line]

For starter, they didn’t rebuild the defense. They retooled it which is not the same thing.

The core players of the D were already here in 2021. Guy, Wise, Godchaux, Judon, Bentley, Jennings, Uche, JJones, Mills, Philips.

They start the rebuild on offense in 2021 with the spending spree. In year 3 of that rebuild the offense shouldn’t be the last offense in the league. In year 3 of a rebuild you should be ready to compete. They didn’t rebuild anything on offense.

What you seem to miss for whatever reason with the Harbaugh thing is that for starter Harbaugh isn’t the GM in Baltimore so if you don’t have a problem with the coaching you don’t have to fire him. You can fire the GM instead. Second, Harbaugh is 61. I don’t think the Ravens would have the patience if he was 70.

Bill has 2-3 more years coaching maximum. He wants to catch Shula. His goal is to build a roster that can win 8-9 games a year right now even if that team will be a mess in 3 years. He doesn’t care about building a team that will be good in 2-3 years.

If that was true, the Pats wouldn’t have $100m in cap space this year and the most in the league next year.. nor would they have all their picks this year. Nor would they have so many players on rookie deals starting.

Bill’s successor is set up to win.

The biggest missing piece is QB, of course. Without a competent QB everyone looks worse and you can’t win.

 

[Lagaffe_07]

If that was true, the Pats wouldn’t have $100m in cap space this year and the most in the league next year.. nor would they have all their picks this year. Nor would they have so many players on rookie deals starting.

Bill’s successor is set up to win.

The biggest missing piece is QB, of course. Without a competent QB everyone looks worse and you can’t win.

They have the most cap space because Bill screwed up and they have no talent on the roster. Not because he wanted to setup his successor well.

 

[upstater1]

For starter, they didn’t rebuild the defense. They retooled it which is not the same thing.

The core players of the D were already here in 2021. Guy, Wise, Godchaux, Judon, Bentley, Jennings, Uche, JJones, Mills, Philips.

They start the rebuild on offense in 2021 with the spending spree. In year 3 of that rebuild the offense shouldn’t be the last offense in the league. In year 3 of a rebuild you should be ready to compete. They didn’t rebuild anything on offense.

What you seem to miss for whatever reason with the Harbaugh thing is that for starter Harbaugh isn’t the GM in Baltimore so if you don’t have a problem with the coaching you don’t have to fire him. You can fire the GM instead. Second, Harbaugh is 61. I don’t think the Ravens would have the patience if he was 70.

Bill has 2-3 more years coaching maximum. He wants to catch Shula. His goal is to build a roster that can win 8-9 games a year right now even if that team will be a mess in 3 years. He doesn’t care about building a team that will be good in 2-3 years.

Kraft in the other hand want a team that can be relevant and in playoff contention for the next decade.

Kraft extended Bill until 2024 last offseason. It’s clear the hope was that Bill catch Shula in 2024, retire and have Mayo ready for 2025. Kraft didn’t expect a 4 win season. Kraft must have told to himself that if the could win 8 games with Patricia they could do has good as with O’Brien.

Kraft has been meddling in the past but when he did it it was to keep Brady and Bill together. Otherwise the thing would have blew out a lot sooner. he started really meddling when Bill convince him to let Brady go and it blew up in their faces.

I don't know where you're getting the stuff about Bill purposely destroying the franchise in the bottom of your post. If anything, it's the opposite. We've got a bunch of short-term thinkers in charge now because Kraft let it be known he has no more patience.

But about what you wrote in the first sentence, we had Chung, McCourty, Van Noy, Hightower, Jamie Collins out there. These got a lot of playing time and they were one of the reasons we made Isaiah McKenzie look like Tyreek Hill. Let me say this again: no punting by the Bills. One punt over 2 games. Compare it to the last game we just played against the Bills at Orchard Park. It's night and day.

As for these players, they are not the speedy guys we brought in. Bentley is limited, Godchuax is a run stuffer, but obviously can't run. They are there in their proper roles. The only guy you listed here who was brought on that year and who has some speed is Judon. I mean, Mills and Phillips are really just JAGS, not difference makers, Phillips hardly plays. Jennings didn't play in 2021 and neither did Uche.

The speed guys on this defense now are yes, Jennings and Uche. Barmore is 10x more mobile than anyone we had in 2021. Keion White runs a 4.7 40 and was out there flipping his hips like a CB when Josh Allen was trying to juke him. Trading Winovich for Mack Wilson was a huge gain in speed. As was having Dugger and Gonzalez step into prominent roles. Then bringing on Peppers who allowed us to play with 2 big safeties. The drafting of Mapu shows the direction this was going in. More speed, more hybrid LBs.

These 9 guys who didn't play much or weren't here in 2021 have transformed the defense.

Right now, we have only one weakness when it comes to speed in the 11 (LB with Bentley/Tavai).

 

[upstater1]

They have the most cap space because Bill screwed up and they have no talent on the roster. Not because he wanted to setup his successor well.

QBs account for $50m on the cap when teams have a good one.

A roster full of young players during a rebuild also means you typically have a lot of cap space.

You guys are incredibly impatient

 

[Peachhead]

Whackadoodle Hambananas will be the name of my next PC game character.

 

[Lagaffe_07]

I don't know where you're getting the stuff about Bill purposely destroying the franchise in the bottom of your post. If anything, it's the opposite. We've got a bunch of short-term thinkers in charge now because Kraft let it be known he has no more patience.

But about what you wrote in the first sentence, we had Chung, McCourty, Van Noy, Hightower, Jamie Collins out there. These got a lot of playing time and they were one of the reasons we made Isaiah McKenzie look like Tyreek Hill. Let me say this again: no punting by the Bills. One punt over 2 games. Compare it to the last game we just played against the Bills at Orchard Park. It's night and day.

As for these players, they are not the speedy guys we brought in. Bentley is limited, Godchuax is a run stuffer, but obviously can't run. They are there in their proper roles. The only guy you listed here who was brought on that year and who has some speed is Judon. I mean, Mills and Phillips are really just JAGS, not difference makers, Phillips hardly plays. Jennings didn't play in 2021 and neither did Uche.

The speed guys on this defense now are yes, Jennings and Uche. Barmore is 10x more mobile than anyone we had in 2021. Keion White runs a 4.7 40 and was out there flipping his hips like a CB when Josh Allen was trying to juke him. Trading Winovich for Mack Wilson was a huge gain in speed. As was having Dugger and Gonzalez step into prominent roles. Then bringing on Peppers who allowed us to play with 2 big safeties. The drafting of Mapu shows the direction this was going in. More speed, more hybrid LBs.

These 9 guys who didn't play much or weren't here in 2021 have transformed the defense.

Right now, we have only one weakness when it comes to speed in the 11 (LB with Bentley/Tavai).

i never said that Bill purposely destroyed the franchise. If you can point where in my message that would be nice. I said that Kraft was meddling back in the day to keep Brady and Bill together. If he didn’t one of them would have walked out way earlier.

Where you are completely wrong is that getting rid of Bill is not a short therm thought, the goal of the Krafts is that if everything works out Mayo is your coach for the next decade. Keeping Bill would be short sighted.

 

[upstater1]

i never said that Bill purposely destroyed the franchise. If you can point where in my message that would be nice. I said that Kraft was meddling back in the day to keep Brady and Bill together. If he didn’t one of them would have walked out way earlier.

Where you are completely wrong is that getting rid of Bill is not a short therm thought, the goal of the Krafts is that if everything works out Mayo is your coach for the next decade. Keeping Bill would be short sighted.

"His goal is to build a roster that can win 8-9 games a year right now even if that team will be a mess in 3 years. He doesn’t care about building a team that will be good in 2-3 years."