Some Patriots news and notes on this Wednesday:
1) Henry McKenna of Fox Sports had an interesting piece on Tuesday, exploring how things might have played out had Robert Kraft opted to gamble and give Bill Belichick another season as head coach following their 4-13 season in 2023.
He believes that with all the money Belichick was stockpiling, that 2024 offseason might have played out differently. Knowing even how the 2021 and 2022 offseasons played out, it was obvious that Belichick held enough clout to draw big names here, and McKenna feels that it could have been the Patriots who made some manuevers, not Denver, to draft Bo Nix while also adding guys ahead of that draft to surround him with some help.
That’s because Nix was someone Belichick liked ahead of Drake Maye that offseason, with McKenna believing the Patriots might have seen a trade down and targeted Arizona’s Jordan Morgan and Oklahoma’s Tyler Guyton, who would have been available where they might have ended up.
“It looks like he’s pretty — nobody’s NFL-ready — but I’d say of the college quarterbacks, he’s probably pretty close to being NFL-ready,” said Belichick of Nix at the time during a conversation with Sean Payton, who ultimately drafted him. “And like you said, the best quarterback in the pocket. The best quarterback in the situations. There’s a lot to like about this kid. And he wins.”
Part of this also would have involved an earlier return of Josh McDaniels, who McKenna believes might have not spent last year away from the NFL if Belichick had remained in New England.
Other additions he feels might have happened could have included Saquan Barkley and that Belichick might have been able to tip the scale when it came to convincing Brandon Aiyuk to come to New England.
2) Meanwhile, it’s certainly a scenario that was hard not to wonder about. McKenna’s musings aside, that Monday following the end of that season saw Belichick speak to reporters wearing the same shirt he had on the day before, clearly having been there all night likely embarrassed and frustrated. Say what you want, but a 4-13 season probably humbled him significantly, and he sounded like a guy who was focused on making sure another season like that never happened again.
“I’m under contract. I’m going to do what I always do, which is every day I come in, work as hard as I can to help the team in whatever way I can, so that’s what I’m going to continue to do,” said Belichick during what turned out to be his final Monday press conference as head coach. “Today was kind of the wrap-up day for us with the players. We’ll have a meeting with them and then go from there.”
“As far as any decisions or direction or anything like that for next year, it’s way too early for that. End of the year process is, I don’t think will be fundamentally any different from the standpoint of how it’s done, the decisions, that’s a whole other conversation. But how it’s done, I’ll meet with Robert [Kraft] like I always do, meet with the staff, meet with the personnel department, kind of recap the season with the big picture, and look at some of the individual situations that are looming, one way or another, but that’s obviously a long, long way off from where we are right now. So we’ll start, at the end of the day, putting the pieces back together in terms of setting things up to go through a good detailed analysis and kind of start a reconstruction, if you will.”
He sounded like a guy ready to make major changes, and he looked and appeared dejected enough where his comments were absolutely sincere.
What he might have done from there probably would have been interesting, with likely a similar effort like we saw back in 2021 when the club was aggressive in free agency. That offseason saw the additions of Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith, Nelson Agholor, Matthew Judon, Deatrich Wise Jr., Jalen Mills, Davon Gaudchaux, and Kendrick Bourne, among others.
While not all of their additions panned out, that was still a team that went on to win 10 games and earned a playoff birth. Part of that also came following the addition of rookie Mac Jones, who took over after beating out Cam Newton.
However, Jones had physical limitations and, as Albert Breer later revealed, really had the advantage of someone like McDaniels. Breer pointed out that McDaniels working with Jones all the way down to the communications cutoff on each play quietly played a big role in the rookie’s success in that first season, and his absence in 2022 was a huge factor.
Once McDaniels was gone, that ended, and Jones was sort of on his own. But his questioning of Matt Patricia’s new offense led to some internal struggles that ultimately submarined that season, and Belichick reportedly wasn’t keen on whatever it was that happened and Jones appeared to fall out of favor from there.
We all know how that story ended.
But the next question would have been the approach that offseason, and whatever blueprint he might have put together to fix the mess that roster was on the offensive side of the football. If nothing else, there likely would have been more success in free agency with Belichick in the fold, who would have held similar weight to Vrabel in terms of his experience and the confidence in selling guys on coming here. Even a few signings better than who they ended up with might have made a difference, and the team also probably would have flipped a few more of those close games where the defense was left fending for itself thanks to some pretty horrific coaching on that side of the ball.
As bad as 2023 was, they never looked as disorganized or as confused as they did last season on defense. So, it’s probably safe to say, that would have been different.
We’ve also never seen a badly coached offense with McDaniels here. So had he been brought back last February, maybe things also aren’t anywhere close to as anemic as they were on offense last year.
McKenna touches on some other scenarios on this as well and it’s definitely an interesting read.
3) Either way, seeing Belichick on that Monday, Kraft – had he been willing to ride it out – probably would have had Belichick at his most motivated point as a head coach for the Patriots. He would have had some significant leverage to really push him, which given how things had gone up until things finally dipped in 2022 before they crashed in 2023, would have flipped the script in terms of Kraft being a little more in control.
Instead, we didn’t get to see it and the move to Mayo didn’t work out. His short tenure was disappointing, with what he did off the field likely being the real reason he didn’t get a chance at redemption after leaving Kraft with no choice but to move on.
It did open the door for Vrabel to come here. That in and of itself will be fun to watch.
Still, seeing a disheveled Belichick wearing the same clothes that Monday, it’s hard not to think he had hit his lowest point and would have had all the determination in the world to fix it.
While McKenna was the one who suggested it, thinking back to those final days, it’s tough not to wonder about it, especially since that was clearly the most pressure he would have been under throughout Belichick’s entire tenure.
In the end, the Patriots are just lucky that Vrabel took a year off and is here now. So far, based on everything we’ve heard since the players started getting back to work in April, the vibe has been positive, and Mike Giardi even recently said the energy may even be better than it was prior to Belichick’s last season.
So for now, the focus is on the future, which with Vrabel now at the helm certainly feels significantly brighter.
4) With that in mind, Marc Bertrand and Scott Zolak talked recently about whether or not Vrabel alone will really be the difference in what we see from the team this season compared to 2024.
Bertrand says he’s seen the win total Vegas has been putting out there, which has reached as much as 9.5 wins, and he doesn’t understand what they’re looking at.
“I just want to say that they’re crunching numbers on Vrabel’s time in Tennessee, that they’re factoring in those Tennessee teams and his records in Tennessee,.” said Bertrand. “They’re doing that. They’re also saying, You got to think the data on Jerod Mayo is one season, so it’s not like you’ve got a lot of good data on Jerod Mayo, and there’s no real great way to quantify.”
Zolak, who has quietly tried to continue giving Mayo of the doubt, still points to the coaching and personnel as areas that made last season difficult.
But still, the two spent time this week talking about the roster they have and the fact there are still too many players who likely wouldn’t start elsewhere. That’s essentially the reasoning behind Bertrand’s doubts.
“So you think close to 20 guys-20 guys, probably shouldn’t have been in the league and yet now you think the additions in free agency have gotten them to a place where they’re now a double A double-digit or close to playoff type?” asked Bertrand.
“Yes,” said Zolak. “Because that defunked team who had no coaching, no real personnel on the team, found the way to get the four wins. And we’re in a good handful of games to the end. Now, I’m not saying they should have won those games. I have more faith in the coaching staff, and I’m sitting there and I just look at your offensive line. Your offensive line is completely different. Your receiver room is going to be different. You added a pretty good running back in the second round. I think he is.”
Bertrand also believes that a lot of what’s being said when it comes to why they’ll be better is naive, and there are too many unknowns that simply go beyond a coaching change.
“I think the naive things being said about the team are the offense is going to be awesome,” said Bertrand. “[Stefon] Diggs will be ready for week one. He’s going to be on the same page as Drake Maye. The left tackle is going to pan out. The center is going to bounce back from the bad year that he had a year ago. Milton Williams is easily going to become a guy who plays on every down. Those are the naive things that are being said right now.”
Still, despite how Bertrand feels, the coaching itself should be better, which is something Zolak alluded to and it definitely played a role in some of those losses.
Granted there are still some questions in terms of the roster, but the overall number of upgrades is definitely bigger than last season, and there were mentions by Eliot Wolf this offseason when it came to the development, which applies to the coaching.
That’s something Vrabel has already said he’s a big believer in. We’ve already seen it this spring, and the odds are pretty good that we’ll see a much more positive trajectory from beginning to end than we saw last season.
That will likely lead to better results, whether the “data” agrees with that or not.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
Bertrand’s naive comment is right on. It’s hard to fathom how sports analysts whom know better, can look in the mirror and spin out statements like “let’s see if it’s all Vrable”. All? when a ton changes yearly in terms of players and coaches. The roster is way different. As BB said: “ one pound of news and ten pounds of story’s “.