Tyquan Thornton thanks us for all the hate and doubt

[Wozzy]

When Kraft fired Belichick he cited Belichick having too much control over all football operations and it being unfeasible to take control from him. You can't use it both ways where you use Kraft's words to say the supposed collaboration absolve Belichick and also then ignore that he thought Belichick had too much control when he fired him.

The reality is "the collaboration" is just a smokescreen to take some critciism off Belichick drafting.

Even if you accept it

1. At some level Bill Belichick was involved and a major part of the collaboration.
2. He was drafting very poorly years before that.

Bob announced collaboration at the end of 2020 and start of 2021 at the owners meeting. This is a fact. The haters here pretend it never happened…. a weird delusion. Bill said in an interview months ago that personnel was taken away from him the last four years in New England… or the exact same timeline as collaboration.

Just because Bob insisted Bill had complete control in his documentary hit piece after the entire thing crashed and burned doesn’t erase what he and Jonathan said and did in 2021. That doc was a revisionist fever dream.

 

[Wozzy]

So then Kraft gets the credit for drafting Brady and having him start over Bledsoe. Gotcha BB was lucky he had Kraft making all those decions for him

Bill had total control of football operations until 2021… but you know this. Facts are less important than your feelings.

 

[sb1]

The delusion from the Bill cult is comedy gold

 

[Wozzy]

The delusion from the Bill cult is comedy gold

You’re literally pretending shared life experiences and press interviews never happened… but the delusion is on this side. Sounds legit.

 

[203Pat]

So you're saying Belichick signed Mayo to that succession contract then? It's undeniable that there were some things going on that were out of Bill's control.

That was a terrible move by Kraft who seemingly got duped by Mayo and I agree it was completely unfair to put Bill in that position.

 

[Rob0729]

It’s week 4, he barely played in game one and field stretchers only get a handful of targets a game. They’re not slot receivers.

Why is is so hard to say “I was wrong” for the haters? Oh yeah, because it’s more important that Bill was wrong. We don’t even know who made the draft choice there, it was a collaboration.

This has nothing to do with Belichick was wrong. It is about people overinflating how good Thornton has been thus far. I still don't regret the Pats moving on from him. I am not saying that to blame Belichick for drafting him. I am saying that because I don't think he is better than most of the WRs on the Patriots roster and that is not setting the bar that high.

I don't care who is responsible for drafting Thornton anymore. He was useless here. He is ok with the Chiefs. Nothing special. Not really all that reliable. He will be demoted to third or fourth or fifth WR when Rice and Worthy get back.

You are the one who is obsessed with Belichick and brings him into most threads you post in no matter how irrelevant he is to the conversation.

 

[Rob0729]

So you're saying Belichick signed Mayo to that succession contract then? It's undeniable that there were some things going on that were out of Bill's control.

I actually don't have a problem with it. If Belichick was 60 years old, I would have. But he was 70 when the Kraft decided to start a succession plan where didn't really expect to put Mayo in as head coach for about two or three years later than they did. Belichick cannot coach forever.

The irony is that Belichick cut the same deal with the Jets under Parcells as Mayo did with the Krafts. Woody Johnson gave Belichick a bonus and a written promise that he would be Parcells' successor while Parcells was the head coach.

 

[Froob]

why wouldn’t he talk his talk? he’s delivering now

 

[Wozzy]

This has nothing to do with Belichick was wrong. It is about people overinflating how good Thornton has been thus far. I still don't regret the Pats moving on from him. I am not saying that to blame Belichick for drafting him. I am saying that because I don't think he is better than most of the WRs on the Patriots roster and that is not setting the bar that high.

I don't care who is responsible for drafting Thornton anymore. He was useless here. He is ok with the Chiefs. Nothing special. Not really all that reliable. He will be demoted to third or fourth or fifth WR when Rice and Worthy get back.

You are the one who is obsessed with Belichick and brings him into most threads you post in no matter how irrelevant he is to the conversation.

Thornton is playing well… just say you were wrong and move on.

It’s not hard, you wont spontaneously combust.

 

[lancerman]

Bob announced collaboration at the end of 2020 and start of 2021 at the owners meeting. This is a fact. The haters here pretend it never happened…. a weird delusion. Bill said in an interview months ago that personnel was taken away from him the last four years in New England… or the exact same timeline as collaboration.

Just because Bob insisted Bill had complete control in his documentary hit piece after the entire thing crashed and burned doesn’t erase what he and Jonathan said and did in 2021. That doc was a revisionist fever dream.

Again you can't keep saying "Bob talked about the collaboration" to use it as a shield from Bill's bad decisions and then ignore "Bob saying Bill had too much control and that's why he was fired" and "Bill saying that he had the final say".

Either you put weight in their words or you don't. If he was untrustworthy and we shouldn't put stock in what he said later then he was untrustworthy when he said the quote you like to repeat.

Beyond that....

1. BILL BELICHICK WAS PART OF THE COLLABORATION. He wasn't just being led around by Wolf and stuck with everything Wolf wanted. There is zero evidence there was a single decision Wolf made that Bill wasn't onboard with. There's zero evidence Bill was ever stopped from making a decision he wanted because of Wolf. Until you can point to something that Bill didn't want to happen because of the collaboration HE WAS PART OF, there is no point in using it to dismiss Bill's role in all of this.

2. Belichick's drafting has been bad by league standards for years before the phrase collaboration was ever uttered. The problems that started in 2019 were the result of extremely poor drafting going back to 2014-2015. It was an open secret that the Patriots were going to pay the piper at some point because of how bad the last half 6 or so drafts of the 2010's went. You can't pin that on the collaboration. The state of the team is a result of a decade of bad drafts.

 

[signbabybrady]

I actually don't have a problem with it. If Belichick was 60 years old, I would have. But he was 70 when the Kraft decided to start a succession plan where didn't really expect to put Mayo in as head coach for about two or three years later than they did. Belichick cannot coach forever.

The irony is that Belichick cut the same deal with the Jets under Parcells as Mayo did with the Krafts. Woody Johnson gave Belichick a bonus and a written promise that he would be Parcells' successor while Parcells was the head coach.

I acknowledged that it was something that Kraft had every right to do and would have been silly not to consider. That said some of his choices didn't exactly end up helping set up Bill for success.

I don't want to start playing a hypothetical game and start speculating on exactly how much this impacted things. I don't even want to use it as an excuse it's the sort of thing that every coach/GM has to deal with.

We were fortunate for 20 years that we could ignore these sorts of things because the pursuit of ultimate success was always so present. That we could just push this type of stuff to the back burner very easily.

Until it suddenly couldn't be ignored.

That said there's also no reason to ignore this stuff existed and added to the already difficult task of replacing Tom and rebuilding.

It was a badly timed conversion of events between trying to reset the cap, giving Bill a chance to rebuild, and then also trying to have an eye towards post Bill. In the end I think all 3 things wound up working against each other (and not in some clandestine negative way it just was what it was).

The reset cap year just wound up wasting 1 of Bills last year's.

Then Bill maybe spent some of that reset money a little to urgently.

Having Mayo in direct conflict with Stephen didn't help anything and since he failed so miserablely as the succession plan this clearly should have been avoided.

No one was intentionally trying to harm anyone but the focus just wasn't singular and at a minimum didn't help and very likely worse than that.

It's easy to sit there now and say that if Bill felt he was being treated unfairly he could have left but A) he was under contract so couldn't exactly just do that without consequences. And B) at the time I'm sure he felt confident he could balance it all. And he darn near did he did manage to get to the playoffs before it really started to crumble.

 

[Rob0729]

Thornton is playing well… just say you were wrong and move on.

It’s not hard, you wont spontaneously combust.

He has had a couple really good plays. He isn't playing all that well. He is only 50% on his targets. Are you saying if he had a better QB that he would be even better? The guy has 9 catches in three games. He has been ok.

Back in the day, Brady made a lot mediocre WRs look better than they were. Mahomes does the same thing.

 

[Rob0729]

I acknowledged that it was something that Kraft had every right to do and would have been silly not to consider. That said some of his choices didn't exactly end up helping set up Bill for success.

I don't want to start playing a hypothetical game and start speculating on exactly how much this impacted things. I don't even want to use it as an excuse it's the sort of thing that every coach/GM has to deal with.

We were fortunate for 20 years that we could ignore these sorts of things because the pursuit of ultimate success was always so present. That we could just push this type of stuff to the back burner very easily.

Until it suddenly couldn't be ignored.

That said there's also no reason to ignore this stuff existed and added to the already difficult task of replacing Tom and rebuilding.

It was a badly timed conversion of events between trying to reset the cap, giving Bill a chance to rebuild, and then also trying to have an eye towards post Bill. In the end I think all 3 things wound up working against each other (and not in some clandestine negative way it just was what it was).

The reset cap year just wound up wasting 1 of Bills last year's.

Then Bill maybe spent some of that reset money a little to urgently.

Having Mayo in direct conflict with Stephen didn't help anything and since he failed so miserablely as the succession plan this clearly should have been avoided.

No one was intentionally trying to harm anyone but the focus just wasn't singular and at a minimum didn't help and very likely worse than that.

It's easy to sit there now and say that if Bill felt he was being treated unfairly he could have left but A) he was under contract so couldn't exactly just do that without consequences. And B) at the time I'm sure he felt confident he could balance it all. And he darn near did he did manage to get to the playoffs before it really started to crumble.

I am getting tired of the Belichick argument. He is gone. Best of luck to him down here in NC. I have a lot of friends down here who are big UNC fans. So I do wish him the best. But I will respond to you,

I still feel that Belichick used all of his good will from his past with the failed Patricia/Judge experiment. He should have been fired for that. So I don't believe that he should have been given a chance to rebuild. He had that chance in the three previous seasons.

And Belichick some of his own blame to his last year. What he did with Mac by repeatingly starting him and benching him not screwed wit Mac head, it hurt the offense from ever being cohesive. He should have just benched Jones and moved onto Zappe or just continue to play Jones. Those were his options. He chose neither.

But we are still seeing down UNC that Belichick seems to be driven by other motives other than winning (the way he allows his 24 year old girlfriend to be involved with the team) and pettiness (blocking Patriots scouts from the facilities hurting own players more anyone else). I think the Mayo situation was much Belichick's fault as Kraft. Belichick probably wanted to handpick his own successor and was pissed off and petty that the Krafts selected Mayo.

 

[1960Pats]

Oh boy. Just what we need. Another thread being derailed by the back and forth about Belichick's "greatness."

 

[TheRainMaker]

Most people in this thread get and see through what Thornton is doing, but we'll try again. In 2013, 2nd round pick Aaron Dobson and undrafted Kenbrell Thompkins didn't start on the outside due to their outstanding achievements. It was because nobody stood in their way. Fast forward to 2019, 1st round pick N'Keal Harry had the red carpet rolled out for him to be the starting WR, but he was looking mediocre before his injury.

 

[XLIX]

I actually don't have a problem with it. If Belichick was 60 years old, I would have. But he was 70 when the Kraft decided to start a succession plan where didn't really expect to put Mayo in as head coach for about two or three years later than they did. Belichick cannot coach forever.

The irony is that Belichick cut the same deal with the Jets under Parcells as Mayo did with the Krafts. Woody Johnson gave Belichick a bonus and a written promise that he would be Parcells' successor while Parcells was the head coach.

+1 +1 +1

The Patriots with Mayo were not the first time a team had a succession plan in place so if Belichick got all butthurt because of it, that’s 100% on him.

 

[condon84]

Oh boy. Just what we need. Another thread being derailed by the back and forth about Belichick's "greatness."

It's the same posters going back and forth too. smh.

 

[signbabybrady]

But we are still seeing down UNC that Belichick seems to be driven by other motives other than winning (the way he allows his 24 year old girlfriend to be involved with the team) and pettiness (blocking Patriots scouts from the facilities hurting own players more anyone else). I think the Mayo situation was much Belichick's fault as Kraft. Belichick probably wanted to handpick his own successor and was pissed off and petty that the Krafts selected Mayo.

I don't think Bill cared that much about his successor but Krafts decision did directly impact how he managed his DC position. And that likely trickled into other areas too.

But now you're starting to force me into speculating and I'm not a fan of that game. It's all the made up narratives that annoy me the most. I'd rather just keep it vague and not make things up but it's easy to imagine how this to put it lightly could unintentionally create some lack of singular cohesion amongst the whole staff and if you wanted to play conspiracy theory way worse.

Personally I think everyone was smart enough to recognize that everyone was trying to do what they felt was best short term/long term regardless of which might benefit them the most and tried to make it work and it just didn't for various and numerous reasons.

 

[signbabybrady]

+1 +1 +1

The Patriots with Mayo were not the first time a team had a succession plan in place so if Belichick got all butthurt because of it, that’s 100% on him.

No one said anything about butthurt(that's your own bias) it's just a very clear piece of evidence that not everything was solely about allowing Bill to rebuild unfettered. No deep throat conspiracies everyone was still working hard to be successful just some things didn't align as we hoped.

 

[Bill Lee]

He rode out his 20 million per contract, a job near his house on Nantucket and near his young hottie… but I’m sure you would have walked away due to your extraordinary principles. Laughable…

Turns out hotties travel and real estate sells. but am glad that you're okay with pointing out that he's nothing special when it comes to having principles, even if that upsets the Cult of Bill.