So here's where we are.
- BB has his future locked up, with a long-term extension signed this off season. I am sure he CAN be fired, but it's built for "fire Belichick" to be a chant for fans not an actual strategy or solution.
- Supposedly BB and the Pats are super-loose in Germany right now, cracking jokes about how it's an opportunity to drink beers with the guys, etc. I guess at 2-7, all the hardass stuff is just hard to be intense about.
- We've been through where we are on talent. I think we actually lost this season in the trenches, via O-line, and Mac's quite low ceiling for managing the game and "making everybody better" has been exposed. He's just not very good. No predictions, but barring some second-half tear on his part, I've had it. That doesn't likely mean Zappe. It means actually hit on a QB selection like we thought we had done with Mac.*
* Since I am always wrong, this means he will be in the pro bowl again in 2024, or whatever they do instead of the pro bowl now.
- Realistically we could catch fire and make the playoffs but it's so infinitesimally unlikely that chances are better that I'll be asked to play a skill position. I'm 61. I plan to play under the nom de guerre John BigBoutte.
The actual Boutte, it should be noted, is now the sole bright spot among the WRs, now that Demario Douglas has joined the cool kids in the injury tent...
I had higher hopes than this for this season. I do agree that last year we had a self-inflicted coaching wound, but that masked the other messes. How could the O Line be any good without a competent O Line coach? Okay, now we at least have Klemm, who knows O line, coaching O line... oh wait we still suck? It's okay you say, the injured guys are pretty good? I hear good things about Trent Brown, but how do you know. ****. The last pic of Trent Brown was a grainy shot of him walking off looking over his shoulder in the woods. He's spent more time on the milk carton's back than you're mom's, and that's saying something. At least Sidy Sow has been back, if only to facilitate impressions of the City Wok guy from South Park. In any event, we need to start thinking about O-line guys as not viable if oft-injured. You just can't carry enough backups for injury proneness across the O line.
I think to get in tune with the basic premise of the thread, yeah we suckkkkkkkk. This is something that happens when you don't have the greatest football player of all time as your QB, and you start having to imagine solutions (I remember we'd lose 2 games in a row and guys here were ready to trade Brady... but we're finally at a point where there's no more "there" there in terms of balancing the sunk costs.) Sure JuJu and Parker (for what it's worth) aren't holding up, and we can argue about how much of that is Mac, and then we can argue how much of Mac is the O Line....but clearly, the sunk cost fallacy can't be sustained any longer on a lot of this roster. I've been fine explaining why various strategies were (apparently) good bets, and they still are in some cases. But there's no explaining a 2-7 season as "crazy like a fox."
Kraft has decided that BB has the keys (and BB haters, understand it's not RK's first rodeo either.) He's going to get another shot at this rolling rebuild/cluster... but I don't think the phoenix rises this year or even comes close. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
Maybe the looseness at the podium is everybody's break from things like talk of buy-in... who knows... Or maybe it's even the leading edge of an "unthinkable" "Tank for [your name here]" moment.
We all need a poster of a kitten unable to get into something or out of something with the slogan "Mama said there'd be seasons like this."
