Patriots have to part ways with Bill Belichick
Hardly anything in life lasts forever and almost nothing in the NFL lasts for 23-years.Yet, the latter is exactly what Bill Belichick has accomplished as head coach of the New England Patriots – among other things. Six things, in particular. That time has come to an end, however, or at least it should. The Patriots […]
Hardly anything in life lasts forever and almost nothing in the NFL lasts for 23-years.
Yet, the latter is exactly what Bill Belichick has accomplished as head coach of the New England Patriots – among other things. Six things, in particular.
That time has come to an end, however, or at least it should. The Patriots are entering an offseason where they have the third overall pick in the draft, along with a full slate of draft picks and more than $72 million in cap space. Those, factors, along with a draft filled with quarterback talent, have the Patriots on the cusp of a new era – a chance to start anew with a signal-caller that can hopefully bring back the Tom Brady days, to a certain extent.
2024 is not like drafts in the past where there are just one or two guys (or none) that teams view as franchise-changing prospects. There are several quality options that could easily reverse the direction of a franchise. In New England, the QB position has been the bane of Belichick's existence over the last few years, but all that could easily change if the Patriots play their cards right in April.
And that's the key, here, with Belichick and the Patriots moving forward: New England can't put another young QB's future in the hands of the greatest coach of all-time after the Mac Jones debacle.
Trust me, I understand how odd that last sentence comes off. "We don't want the new face of our franchise to be coached up by a six-time Super Bowl champ", isn't the kind of phrasing you'd expect to hear. Ever.
But that's where we are and that's how egregious Belichick's mistakes were still are.
Belichick absolutely killed Jones' development when he decided to make Matt Patricia, an established defensive coach, the offensive coordinator in 2022. Jones was coming off a very solid rookie year and had good momentum in terms of his development and Belichick just took it and smashed it against the wall like an egg.
Patricia had no clue what he was doing, yet Belichick signed off on the move. The end result was another year of tape for teams to use against Jones, but zero development, which is obviously not an ideal situation. Belichick and Patricia essentially set Jones up to fail and it doesn't look like the soon-to-be fourth-year player is getting back on track in the near future.
The Krafts cannot run the risk of something like that happening, again. Especially with one of the top QBs in this draft. Even if Josh McDaniels were to return to the team – the 2022 decision was mismanagement, at its finest, and it's why the Patriots are where they are, right now.
Along with multiple, bad personnel decisions by Belichick. Yes, he's said he'll relinquish those duties in order to stay on as head coach, so that wouldn't be a problem moving forward, anymore. But the damage has been done, at this point. And, he'll still have say over staff hires, which is the problem with this whole situation. No one is going to come in and make staff decisions for him, therefore, the risk of ruining a franchise quarterback still runs quite high.
And with a fresh new start that includes all the options in the world to get your franchise on track, the Patriots need new blood. They need a new process, a new way of doing things. It doesn't look like Belichick has "lost it", or anything like that, but at the same time, the poor decisions he's made would've gotten any other coach or GM canned, by now. He's dug too deep a hole and his way of doing things just isn't conducive to getting out of said hole.
New England, with the position it's in, would be borderline foolish to keep this going and reject starting over. It's been a great run, but all things must come to an end, eventually. And considering where things are and where they could go – that time has to be now.
