Horrible is a strong word. They haven't hit on enough players but I'm not sure that makes the drafting "horrible". Bad team building ... yeah, I don't think so. You seem to be chalking up their roster issues this year to Belichick and nothing/no one else. A fair, objective person, would not all the variables present. COVID, opt-outs, dead money/cap issues. And yes, to an extent, the drafting.
What would your succession plan at QB have been? Who would you have drafted, when, and where? Which FA would you have targeted? You can't just whip up a succession plan out of thin air, especially during a completely abnormal, wacky season, missing core players and without any cap space.
Look, I get your allegiance is to Brady before the Patriots or Belichick. I don't know any sane Patriots' fan that would complain about Belichick's performance to date over the last 20 years. Has he made mistakes? Yes. So has every other coach/GM in the history of the game, even the most successful ones.
If you want to use this one season as your barometer and declare Belichick is useless (despite the past 20 years of evidence), go ahead. But most Patriots' fan I know would not be tossing Belichick to the curb based on 14 games in a vacuum. Hell, even an objective observer with no dog in the fight would note that 14 games is not enough time to reach any conclusions about the post-Brady era ... and they'd almost certainly acknowledge the unfortunate circumstances surrounding this season.
The drafting has been poor at times, but beyond that, I'm not sure what there really is to complain about.
Some of you Belichick loyalists on this forum make me laugh trying to come at Brady/Pats fans with all this superiority and "Belichick dug us out the gutter 20 years ago" bs. Facts: Belichick continued to keep them in the gutter until Brady showed up and saved his job, so sit down somewhere with that mess.
Relevance to all those questions about who, why, what somebody would've done in Belichick situation? The user is not a GM or a coach, so why are you pressing them about something they can't answer? Those are Belichick's specialities, and by my own observation, he sucks at the former. All he does is draft a bunch of temporary jags from the draft or pay some seasoned vets on the verge of retirement to fill in. The surprisingly GREAT players are often phased out to be low-balled by him and Kraft or traded to some scrub team for not following the "Patriot Way," which is demanding your worth. When he had Brady to cover up that suckage, he looked genius... without him, he looks exposed. But again, I've been seen through the smoke and mirrors of this team.
Dead cap money? Gee, how did that happen? A-Hern, I been telling y'all for years that they knew about his problems and covered them up to keep him on the field. They got former feds keeping tabs on these boys; A-Herns' police reports are all public records, TMZ also reported two stories: (1) the time he was being sued for allegedly shooting some hood-rat in the face, (2) some disturbance at his home in LA, these were all well reported before the murder allegation; they knew what was going on. They just didn't care as long as he produced. They opted to cover it up and paid him a boatload of cash hoping for change, and then acted brand new when A-Hern got caught up in some witch hunt. I lost respect for old Kraft and Belichick back then, out here lying about what they knew. A-Hern's family deserved and deserves every dime.
Dead cap money on AB? They knew his situation too and opted to protect themselves when AB's problems started hitting the public. Instead of backing his player, Kraft opted for good PR and tried to act like he was any different on those trips to FL to get his junk massaged by some illegal foreign concubines who were forced into their line of work, but I digress. AB deserves every dime he continues to get out of Kraft.
Dead-cap on Brady. All Brady wanted was for TB12 to thrive, which would require loyalty from his coach and owner. He wanted to play til he was 45, they want to do some year-by-year bs. Brady realized the owner and his coach were not loyal, so he refused to take cheap contracts and work his tail off to make the dream work anymore. They called his bluff, he got out of dodge and took his boys with him. Now Belichick and Kraft deserve every lost dime on Brady and every game loss they've suffered this year as a result of poor offense and no Brady.
They thought the system was greater than Brady but failed to realize that Brady was the system. McDaniels, without Brady, can kiss those potential HC jobs goodbye too. Scrub should've left for Indy when he had the chance, and yes, I've been questioning his suckage too for years, and he absolutely do suck!
COVID opts-outs? What a tired excuse built in by the press and blindly repeated by fans who need reasons to excuse Belichick. Who did they lose during opt-outs that would've put points on the board or changed anything this season? Now compare that to the players he lost to Tampa. Why do you think Brady opted out for Tampa in the first place? I'm definitely not convinced his departure was expected or planned, hence the poor, last minute plan at QB.
and poor Cam, I've always said he sucked too, but dang, he definitely committed career suicide signing up for the job.
Pride always go before the fall. Belichick started believing his own hype, and Brady gave him a reality check. I've repeated this mess over and over for years. It was always Brady. Yeah, they accomplished a lot together and both deserve a ton of credit. However, in order for a roster void of any real talent offensively to thrive, they are going to need Brady or someone like him. Without him, they are just another average defensive team, like the rest of the East who were always a QB away from being real competitors, but hey -- Tampa is on the verge of clinching a playoff birth, and if we're lucky, we might even win the division. How cool would that be? Let's gooooo!!!!!!
