Pats Posits: Speculation Season Begins

Yes, I’ve taken a week or so off of blogging to just enjoy the Patriots latest championship. When this blog started the driving question was whether or not Belichick could rebuild the defense around Brady to get him more Super Bowls.

Well, the answer is in. Yes. Yes he could and he did, adding a perfect run of three more Super Bowls and bringing things full circle. There’s just a level of no more worlds left to conquer now, which is both satisfying and slightly demotivating.

Every year it gets a little harder dealing with three-straight months of “WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY!?”

Here, in the void between the end of season and the start of free agency, there’s plenty to speculate on and that’s what drives the day. You’ve already seen it — OBJ, Antonio Brown, Colin Kaepernick, Gronk’s potential retirement… there’s plenty to consider but not a lot of cold hard facts that will actually impact the 2019 season at this point.

And let’s face it, agents live to say “the Patriots are interested” because they know that will catch everyone’s attention. If the Pats are interested in Kaepernick, shouldn’t everyone be? In theory, of course.

Then there’s the hundreds of draft prospects to consider, most of of whom won’t last more than a season or two in the NFL, much less actually ever spend a second inside Gillette Stadium.

So let’s take things as they actually come instead of just trying to pump out a soon-to-be useless post every single hour about any and everyone the Pats might possibly consider adding.

The plan is to focus on internal free agency first, putting together a plan for Flowers, Brown and all the mid- and low-level free agents who have already donned a Patriots uniform. Then we’ll take the remaining needs and focus on external free agency, with a primary look at the veterans willing to take prove-it deals. Finally we’ll get into the draft and once again whittle things down to a Top 50 Big Board.