An Independent Patriots Blog
Patriots lock up first round draft pick Chandler Jones.
Good news and I have to say I am very much enjoying the lack of rookie signing drama across the league this year.
Just not sold on the 95 number selection. Yet. If it’s even permanent.
Only Hightower (see above, as well as at OTAs this week) and Bequette remain unsigned.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/patriots-sign-chandler-jones/
Patriots will struggle in post-Tom Brady era – AFC East Blog – ESPN
Not even a Hoodie Head like myself is going to argue that the Pats will simply keep on chugging once Brady and Belichick leave, but I would argue that Belichick is the more important piece of the puzzle, by a nose.
Look, Brady’s probably going to be the greatest QB of all time by the time he hangs them up. You can’t minimize the player he is, but the precedent is there with the 49ers for a team to maintain a level of dominance through a quarterback transition. Belichick has spoken admirably of what San Francisco did going from Montana to Young, and with his sense of history it wouldn’t surprise me to see him try to do the same thing in New England.
There’s also the matter of the currently much-maligned Patriots defense. In a few years they will start to hit their peak, and with the talent that has been added over the last few seasons there’s no telling what their ceiling is. So that should also help. Just look at how long Baltimore has gotten by with a great defense and just average quarterback play.
Finally there’s Belichick. In football the coach is king and BB affects every facet of the Patriots football organization. Some will point to the Matt Cassel year as an example of how the Pats can survive without Brady, but that was a team that simply won the games the should’ve and lost to the every good team they played. That makes 2008 a little deceiving. Still, there’s no arguing that the Pats were prepared when Brady went down, and there’s plenty of reasons to believe that Brian Hoyer and Ryan Mallett would be capable if put in the same situation. Last year’s Colts team shows just how badly things can go if you don’t have a viable back up quarterback plan.
Ultimately Belichick and Brady are so intertwined it’s hard to make definitive statements about what one would do without the other. But as long as the Belichick system is in place the odds seem decent that the Patriots will remain competitive after Brady retires.
“Call Me Brady”
Seriously, listen. It’s great.
I still like mine better but bravo young Pat fan!
This one is still the champ.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/newenglandpatriotsbecause-call-me-brady/
I know we lost the first two to the Giants, but reality check, they still only have one more SB than us. If BB/TFB can get ONE more it will tie the franchises for Lombardis and cement BB/TFB’s respective places in history.
You need a little bit of luck to get to the big one, but it’s not like our defense can get much worse against the pass. With the off-season additions it’s hard not to be excited.
Six Super Bowls. Four Lombardis. BB/ TFB FTW.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/i-know-we-lost-the-first-two-to-the-giants-but/
Breaking: Junior Seau found dead in San Diego home
Such sad news today that Junior Seau is dead. It was an honor to watch him play parts of four seasons with the Patriots. It just goes to show how much Bill Belichick thought of him as a person and leader.
As we wait for the details to emerge I’m just going to enjoy these images of Seau raising the AFC Championship Trophy, the final championship highlight of a Hall of Fame career.
https://www.patspropaganda.com/breaking-junior-seau-found-dead-in-san-diego/
The Unemployed Academic: Mocking the Mockers
Nice work here from Michael Talarski who dives into the professional vs. amateur draft pundit predictions.
If you’re fan of only one sport the off-season can be long and arduous. So you have to find ways to keep yourself entertained. For NFL fans the NFL draft adds a break from the wait. As such it becomes a tad insane. Following the draft can be fun, though it’s hard to educate yourself. The “best”…
The biggest focus of my last five years of blogging about the Patriots has been Bill Belichick’s chance to rebuild his defense from scratch and with total authority. While Belichick deserves a great deal of credit for the Patriots defenses that won three Super Bowls, ultimately those defenses were not hand picked by him.
Sure, he took the draftees of the previous regime like Bruschi, McGinest and Milloy, along with a collection of castoffs from other teams like Vrabel, Phifer and Harrison, and put them in positions to succeed, but those years just proved his coaching genius. Those players were not going to play forever, and now Belichick has a chance to prove his scouting and development genius.
It’s rare that a coach has the kind of control and vision that he gets to construct a defense from scratch, but that’s exactly what Belichick began doing in 2008 with the selection of Jerod Mayo.
Thus, one of my most favorite times of year is the draft, especially when Belichick takes defensive players. So you can imagine my excitement after this year’s haul, and in fact it’s taken a few days for it all to actually sink in. It’s safe to say it left me speechless. Until now.
The Patriots struggles with pass defense over the past few seasons are well documented. It’s ironic that on the offensive side of the ball they were one of the teams leading the charge for the new pass-dominated NFL, but on the defensive side of the ball they’ve been continually lit up through the air.
I’ve often joked that I can’t imagine what it has looked like when Tom Brady went up against the Pats defense in practice, but quite frankly it was frustrating. Belichick knows football evolution, and usually he’s ahead of the curve, but on defense they just couldn’t seem to solve the problems that have haunted them for the last two seasons.
We can talk about how they still won a lot of games and didn’t allow a lot of points despite giving up a lot of yards and third down conversions, but the simple truth is this: The Patriots have not had a dominant defense since the dynasty years. They didn’t have a defense that could take over games. They didn’t have a defense that made quarterbacks uncomfortable. They made some big plays at times, got some key stops at times, but consistently week in and week out they were at best an average defense that needed more talent, specifically more game breakers in their front seven especially.
In that regard the 2012 draft was the one we were all waiting for. At least on paper. The Patriots traded up to take two front seven players and spent three more picks on defensive backs, leaving just a single offensive selection with their last pick.
As we’ve been saying this whole off-season the great 3-4 vs. 4-3 debate is moot. The nickel defense is the new base. If you cannot pressure the quarterback with four rushers in today’s NFL you are going to get torched. If you have trouble stopping the run well…you’ll probably still be able to outscore them so who cares. Pondering the 3-4 vs. 4-3 is like pondering what their goal line defense will look like. It really doesn’t matter.
This Patriots draft could be best summed up as “Defensive Diversity”. Every player they selected specifically for their defense can do a number of things, meaning the days of over-specialization are done. Remember 2010 where there would be whole-sale substitutions on defense whether they were playing pass or run? There will be no more of that.
First and foremost this will be a defense with a number of new players who can get after the passer, but also with enough athleticism to play in space, in zone or man-to-man, or anything else that Belichick wants to do to exploit an offense. It also means that opposing quarterbacks are going to have a lot harder time deciphering pre-snap what the Patriots defensive intentions are.
It’s impossible to predict how everything will flush out in training camp this summer. And even then we’ll still have no idea who will be where on a week to week basis. But there’s reason to be excited that the Pats not only replaced the 20 sacks they lost with Mark Anderson’s departure and Andre Carter’s uncertain future in the short term, but that they have diverse pass rush and coverage solutions lined up for the long term.
The Patriots have gotten off the “one year and done” cycle with pass rushers. They now have quite a few edge players that they can develop and nurture within the system, who also aren’t restricted to being one-trick ponies.
I’ve always had a long term view on the defensive rebuild. While it was somewhat of a surprise to get back to the Super Bowl in 2011, I think the real story to be told is how the major elements are in place for this to be a dominant defense until 2020.
And one day I think we’ll look back and see the 2012 draft as the one that was the final major piece in the second Patriots dynasty defense.