The inside story of the Patriots’ fall to rock bottom in the Bill Belichick era

[signbabybrady]

That's where it starts but even if we get lucky and hit on a rookie QB Bill has shown he isn't the guy to coach and develop him. Even if Bill puts his big boy pants on and stops sulking about getting rid of Patricia and lets BOB hire his own guys if BOB has a good season with the rookie QB he's gone for a HC job somewhere soon and then were cycling through coordinators with a young QB. If we get a rookie QB that does show promise I would be nervous with Bill being the guy in charge of bringing him along.

You don't like how coached and developed Brady?

 

[VrabelJr]

Team Bill is reeling here. Better send the bat signal out to Andy to have him come in here and argue in circles to derail the thread.

Looking forward to your continued misery in a post-BB era. You're going to love it. Same amount of losses or more, but hey maybe we'll have a 1,200 yard WR and blown first rounders on OTs.

 

[Triumph]

Lol that was your takeaway from this? All we need to do is find an elite QB and we're back at it? The last 2 sentences save his job because the players haven't given up? The first 1000 words or so about Bill's poor decision making from the get go should be ignored?

So, Corky Mac isn't the problem.

Great to know. WR first pick at # 3. Who do you like?

 

[upstater1]

There were better tackles in FA than what they signed and there were tackles taken in the draft...the guy the Browns picked up from Ohio Dawand Jones was hyped and just fell to the 4th round...That is a devastating oversight

This was a huge oversight from the Patriots, but also all teams. He shouldn't have dropped to the 4th round.

Just as an FYI, 4 close family members died in Jones's family before the draft, including his very close cousin from breast cancer. He was depressed, he didn't meet with teams, he gained an enormous amount of weight. Apparently, he only told the Browns and Eagles what was going on with the deaths, no other teams:

"During the draft process, Jones was not training due to attending multiple funerals and was struggling with the recent deaths of his family members. He didn't want to be around others except his family during that time."

He said when he did interview with teams, he wasn't in shape.

 

[Nunchucks]

Because **** can happen at positions other than just Tackle and we had already signed Reiff and Anderson at that point. Roster management is risk management.

Reif an oft injured old RT who's play has fallen off and Anderson a jag swing tackle who has never won a starting job. Both those signings should have been break in case of glass type guys. Not guys you start because they are good.

 

[jmt57]

One of the head-scratchers of receent drafts has been the number of selections at certain positions, while ignoring other positions of need.

Specifically, the Patriots drafted three interior offensive lineman in 2022, after utilizing their 2021 first rounder on a guard. Meanwhile the team has not drafted an OT prior to the 6th round since 2019, when they picked a guy who played in a grand total of 17 games (Yodny Cajuste, at #101 overall).

And during that brief period of time the Pats have also drafted two punters and two kickers.

There is no legitimate explanation for that inexcusable waste of limited draft resources.

 

[upstater1]

Who the faulk cares. They should have taken a 4th round flier on the guy because of the massive holes they had at tackle.

Instead they took a kicker who sucks and a center who is MIA

OK, I agree they should've taken a flyer.

But the center who is MIA? That's a weird comment. Andrews played every snap this year. The guy they took is a clear replacement because Andrews is getting up there in years. Let's not go overboard.

 

[203Pat]

Every owner who has meddled felt it was absolutely necessary.

They were competing for a playoff spot last year in December. They were in the playoffs the year before.

Patricia was a brand new OC. Growing pains should have been expected. Continuity should have been prioritized.

What made last year look even more horrible was Mac throwing tantrums on the field and his ****ty play. The team was 2-0 when Zappe started and the offense looked competent. This year Mac is still ****ty with a new OC, Zappe at least has shown some competency, albeit inconsistently.

Kraft stepping in was absolutely unneccessary. He got spoiled with the Brady run and felt entitled to winning playoff games year in year out. That's just not the way it works in the NFL. What we had with Brady was an anomaly.

If Kraft stepped in and forced his decision on a 6x SB winning HC, you think he's not gonna meddle with the new guy who don't have the same resume as Bill? Come on.

This situation feels unsalvageable and Kraft is probably going to force BB out. He will be known as the owner who let the GOAT QB leave, and forced the GOAT HC out.

Well ****ing done.

Bill and Patricia basically faced a near mutiny last year over how poorly Patricia was coaching. According to the reports he basically didn't know how to install a gameplay. Didn't understand play sequencing and when he was asked about various scenarios that may come up he dismissively told players don't worry about it. Understandably some of the players balked at having a coach who clearly didn't know what he was doing and spoke out. Due to Bill's ego he took that personally and now we no longer have Jakobi Meyers and wasted a dead cap on Brian Hoyer. A grownup had to step in and that grownup was Kraft. Now it turns out Bill sulked and just brought back a familiar face and then hamstrung the guy but not letting him pick his staff. Bill really seems to be made of teflon at this point with how far some will go to defend him.

 

[mike_usagisan]

Reif an oft injured old RT who's play has fallen off and Anderson a jag swing tackle who has never won a starting job. Both those signings should have been break in case of glass type guys. Not guys you start because they are good.

I'm not saying it was the right decision, but they had Brown and McDermott and drafted Sow. They felt like they needed one of those three guys to take the RT spot opposite Brown and the rest could be backups. They went for quantity over quality and it was a disaster.

 

[203Pat]

Because **** can happen at positions other than just Tackle and we had already signed Reiff and Anderson at that point. Roster management is risk management.

So we should fill holes for potential needs instead of immediate needs. Got it.

 

[Nunchucks]

OK, I agree they should've taken a flyer.

But the center who is MIA? That's a weird comment. Andrews played every snap this year. The guy they took is a clear replacement because Andrews is getting up there in years. Let's not go overboard.

They had problems at guard all year. Jake couldn't play guard?

 

[upstater1]

Quite the BB dunk fest in here. Personally, I find the whole thing unfortunate, disturbing, and a bit sad.

All of the following requires a caveat that we do not know for certain the veracity of the article, even if there is likely at least a reasonable degree of truth:

1. BB has overseen increasing and unforgivable dysfunction in the staff dynamics. Whether it is because of his increasing paranoia after so many high-level guys have left over recent years, or paranoia stemming from the various NYFL witch hunts over the years, or something else, the focus on a "circle of trust" rather than a competent coaching staff is a massive failing.

I used to be on the "Keep BB as coach, not as GM" train, then wavered back and forth on whether we should keep him as a coach. I mostly settled on "I have no ****ing idea". If all of this is true, you would probably have to put me on the side of offering him a chance to resign, out of respect for his achievements. I don't see how he can come back from this.

2. That said, if we think sending BB into retirement will help anything in the near term, it's highly unlikely. We will likely lose key pieces of the braintrust that put together a pretty decent defense, and we still have a massive talent issue on offense and special teams. I hope we catch lightning in a bottle and can contend for the playoffs in the next few years, but it is almost as likely that we may wander the desert of disappointment for a decade or more.

It's the price we're paying for unprecedented success, I suppose. I'm personally throwing all expectations out the window at this point.

3. Perhaps, one of the more interesting things to come to mind is that it really feels like people are bursting at the seams to air the dirty laundry inside Foxboro. It's a sign that BB has truly lost his iron grip on that building. We are not even done with the season (officially) and postmortems are coming out, the likes of which we haven't seen since Brady's departure. I would argue these reports exceed the level of candor in the wake of that craziness.

We are likely going to see more and more coming out, especially if BB is gone as HC of the NEP. If nothing else, it'll be fascinating and a little sad to watch. I'm going to rewatch the 2014 playoffs and SB49 this year on Sundays to wash the bad taste out of my mouth. I'm officially becoming one of those guys who lives in the past.

#3 is an excellent point, but I think this come from management, not Belichick's circle of trust.

 

[upstater1]

Every owner who has meddled felt it was absolutely necessary.

They were competing for a playoff spot last year in December. They were in the playoffs the year before.

Patricia was a brand new OC. Growing pains should have been expected. Continuity should have been prioritized.

What made last year look even more horrible was Mac throwing tantrums on the field and his ****ty play. The team was 2-0 when Zappe started and the offense looked competent. This year Mac is still ****ty with a new OC, Zappe at least has shown some competency, albeit inconsistently.

Kraft stepping in was absolutely unneccessary. He got spoiled with the Brady run and felt entitled to winning playoff games year in year out. That's just not the way it works in the NFL. What we had with Brady was an anomaly.

If Kraft stepped in and forced his decision on a 6x SB winning HC, you think he's not gonna meddle with the new guy who don't have the same resume as Bill? Come on.

This situation feels unsalvageable and Kraft is probably going to force BB out. He will be known as the owner who let the GOAT QB leave, and forced the GOAT HC out.

Well ****ing done.

I agree 100% with this.

 

[mike_usagisan]

They had problems at guard all year. Jake couldn't play guard?

Every decision at OL has been a WTF. One of the biggest signs of the dysfunction is how long it took them to kick Owenhu out to tackle, which made things better (for a short time). People on this board wanted it to happen during camp. When this board can see solutions long before the coaching staff, that's a really bad sign.

 

[AQPE]

It is the Thursday before the final game of a horrendous season. When articles like this get published at this point it is obviously intended to serve someone’s agenda. The people whose agendas are to be served want plausible deniability as they know that this will ignite a firestorm irrespective of the decision made about BB.

As I’ve stated before I am expecting this to be the time when Jonathan Kraft, approaching age 60, comes out of Daddy’s shadow to leave his mark. I am not a fan of his but if I were in his position I would look at this as the best opportunity to do so.

I will always be grateful to BB for the incredible success they’ve had for most of the past 24 years. I do not think they would have had anything close to that much success with anyone else as their HC. However, I think the record speaks for itself now and they would all benefit from a change. My private hope these past couple months is for BB to retire or just stay on as an advisor to the Krafts, with no power but as a voice to be respected.

 

[upstater1]

One of the head-scratchers of receent drafts has been the number of selections at certain positions, while ignoring other positions of need.

Specifically, the Patriots drafted three interior offensive lineman in 2022, after utilizing their 2021 first rounder on a guard. Meanwhile the team has not drafted an OT prior to the 6th round since 2019, when they picked a guy who played in a grand total of 17 games (Yodny Cajuste, at #101 overall).

And during that brief period of time the Pats have also drafted two punters and two kickers.

There is no legitimate explanation for that inexcusable waste of limited draft resources.

You're going to have to list the tackles they missed on.

I do believe the interior was a huge need.

It was a need created by giving Shaq Mason money instead of Joe Thuney. That decision lead to a roller coaster of draft picks expended finding a replacement.

I think they need all these guards and centers personally.

BUT--they also needed to draft tackles.I just don't know who they missed out on. Jones from Cleveland has already been discussed. Who else?

Clearly they thought Sow was a future tackle (right tackle?) because he played the position in college.

 

[upstater1]

They had problems at guard all year. Jake couldn't play guard?

He's not sized like a prototypical guard. He's 300 and 6'3

Mafi and Sow are 6'5" and 330 pounds.

So, my answer is no

 

[RobertWeathers]

Every decision at OL has been a WTF. One of the biggest signs of the dysfunction is how long it took them to kick Owenhu out to tackle, which made things better (for a short time). People on this board wanted it to happen during camp. When this board can see solutions long before the coaching staff, that's a really bad sign.

Add the OL coach selection to that.

I would have chosen Wendy over Klemm.

 

[condon84]

Bill and Patricia basically faced a near mutiny last year over how poorly Patricia was coaching. According to the reports he basically didn't know how to install a gameplay. Didn't understand play sequencing and when he was asked about various scenarios that may come up he dismissively told players don't worry about it. Understandably some of the players balked at having a coach who clearly didn't know what he was doing and spoke out. Due to Bill's ego he took that personally and now we no longer have Jakobi Meyers and wasted a dead cap on Brian Hoyer. A grownup had to step in and that grownup was Kraft. Now it turns out Bill sulked and just brought back a familiar face and then hamstrung the guy but not letting him pick his staff. Bill really seems to be made of teflon at this point with how far some will go to defend him.

So was that mutiny put on halt when Zappe started for those two games? Because everyone seemed to know what they were doing for those 2 games.

 

[upstater1]

Every decision at OL has been a WTF. One of the biggest signs of the dysfunction is how long it took them to kick Owenhu out to tackle, which made things better (for a short time). People on this board wanted it to happen during camp. When this board can see solutions long before the coaching staff, that's a really bad sign.

It happened around the time Strange came back from injury.

The thinking might've been having 2 rookie guards in there, especially since Sow was also injured at the time.