The Fatty Liver fixes…the Patriots?!?
Gotta be honest, I never thought I’d find myself writing this blog.
My entire life up until a few years ago, all I knew was Patriots dominance. The Patriots created the greatest, longest dynasty of any football team in the history of the sport.
Every year was Super Bowl or bust. Hell, 3 out of my 4 years in college the Patriots played in the Super Bowl. That’s insane.
It was just parade after parade in a run that established Boston as the premier city in American sports. You want to win a championship, you come here.
But the Patriots did more than just win on the gridiron. They instilled a certain mindset into the people of New England. They gave us an unshakeable sense of pride and belief in ourselves that extended well beyond the football field. It may seem dumb/psychologically unhealthy, but a lot of my sense of self, as well as my understanding of the world around me was shaped by the New England Patriots. In fact, most of my cocky-prickness is derived directly from that 20+ year run.
Think about it: we had Tom Brady, a guy everyone overlooked and undervalued, who turned himself into the greatest player the NFL will ever know. How can you watch him your entire childhood, idolize him beyond words, and not develop some sense of stubborn belief in yourself?
How can you see Brady bring us back time and time again from the brink of defeat only to pull out a miraculous win, and not develop a “never say die” attitude? That no matter how bad things get in your life, there’s always a chance to turn it around.
It’s pithy, but I have a strong, blind belief in myself, and trust in my path in life because I was lucky enough to witness someone whose unrelenting faith in themself paid off in the biggest way possible.
The Patriots were fundamental to my childhood and I’d venture to say a lot of people from New England would agree with that statement.
But then…Tommy left.
I’m not ashamed to say that I cried when I got the notification that Brady had signed with the Bucs. (Much to the chagrin of my gf who was upset that football was the first thing to elicit real emotions from me).
Outside of my parents and other people who actually had a tangible impact on my life, he was my biggest hero. At the age of 24, I had 3 separate paintings/pictures/murals of him in my room. Incidentally, that’s more than the number of women I had spend a night in that room. Bottom line is I WORSHIPPED Tom Brady.
But since Brady left, the Patriots have been, well, how do I put this…
They’ve been a fucking mess.
And after 3 straight seasons of missing the playoffs (they got blown out so bad in the Wild Card last year that I’m not even going to count it as a playoff appearance), something has to be done. Someone has to step up and right this ship. Someone has to take the Patriots apart and put them back together again the right way.
So I’ll say now what I said when I passed by a Help Wanted sign at Buffalo Wild Wings — I’m the right man for the job.
The Patriots actually don’t require a huge overhaul personnel wise. There’s plenty of holes to be filled on the offensive side of the ball to be sure. But the defense is solid and we do have a few playmakers. It’s really the coaching staff and the general approach to talent acquisition and development that needs work. With all that said, here are my 3 ways to fix the New England Patriots this offseason in time for the start of the 2023 campaign:
1. Lock Belichick in a closet for Round 1 of the Draft
Look, I love Bill Belichick. The man is a legend. A gazillion time Super Bowl winner. Arguably the most knowledgeable football mind to ever exist. There’s no one else I want coaching the New England Patriots.
Having said that…he’s been kind of shaky lately when it comes to evaluating first round talent.
Offensive linemen, defensive backs, nose tackles, etc, and he’s an unbelievable evaluator. The man knows defense. But for whatever reason, he just can’t seem to find that superstar guy among a sea of superstars. Look at the last 10 years of Patriots first round picks:
Cole Strange looks good but he’s still only a rookie. Mac I don’t have a ton of faith in, but the jury is technically still out. Everyone else on that list SUCKS.
Easley, Brown, and Michel aren’t currently on NFL rosters.
Wynn is still on the team for now, but given his play the last couple years I doubt he lasts long. Dude can’t even block someone on Twitter.
And N’Keal Harry got traded away to Chicago for a 7th round pick and an UNO’s gift card before immediately injuring himself again.
In fairness to Belichick, he had a great first round track record in the 2000s, acquiring players who would go on to be key leaders for many Super Bowl runs. But the game has evolved considerably since then and I don’t know that Belichick’s draft strategy has evolved with it.
But the bigger problem here isn’t even the picks that didn’t pan out. It’s the fact that out of 10 years of drafts, we didn’t have a first rounder in 4 of them. I think one of those gotten taken away by Goodell because the Patriots had the wrong color Gatorade on the sideline or something, but the other 3 were the work of Belichick wheeling and dealing his way out of the first round.
Which brings me to my main point: we need to lock Belichick in a closet just for the first round. Make it a nice closet though. Like give him an arm chair and put on a documentary about a 1927 college football game between Lake Superior State and the Naval Academy that went to 12 overtimes and finished with a score of 3-2. He won’t even realize he’s missing anything. When he comes out, just tell him you traded back and he’ll be none the wiser.
Btw I’m not against trading back when you feel you can get more draft picks and a comparable player later in the draft. I am against it when there is a perfect fit available at your position and you opt not to take him in favor of a less talented player later. Which brings me to my next point…
2. Only draft and sign really strong and/or fast guys
This is not as obvious as you think it would be. You see, Belichick has a great eye for talent. He can identify a safety from a D2 college no one has ever heard of and turn him into a superstar in the making (Kyle Dugger). He can grab an underutilized college running back in the 4th round and turn him into a 1,000 yard rusher in just his second year, WHILE splitting carries (Rhamondre Stevenson). He can grab a skinny, un-athletic QB who looks like he avoids going to his physical every year because he doesn’t want to get another pamphlet about the importance of regular exercise, and turn him into the greatest QB of all time.
Belichick can find talent where no one else can. The problem is…he never seems to go after talent in the obvious places.
Here’s a weird fucking analogy:
Think of Bill Belichick as a car buyer. He sees an entire parking lot filled with cars of every make and model. Belichick has the opportunity to pick a really fast, flashy sports car. In fact, there’s a sleek red corvette with a shiny new twin turbo engine and a transmission you could fry an egg on (I don’t know cars).
Belichick knows it’s a nice car. But it’s not his car. He wants something more affordable. Something he can get better value out of. So he picks a pre-owned Honda. It’s far from the nicest car on the lot. It needs a paint job and the bumper is sagging. But it’s got potential. Potential that only Bill can see. It gets much better gas mileage than that flashy corvette for one. And with the right adjustments and a few tune ups it can be a very reliable car for him.
Satisfied with his purchase, he takes the car home. Then one day, he decides to enter his car into a race. After all, the car is all fixed up now and it’s doing everything he’s asked of it. Why can’t his car win? Flash forward to race day, Bill pulls up to the starting line in his sturdy car. But who pulls up alongside him? The shiny red corvette. Someone else ended up buying it right after he passed on it. And the corvette looks good. It’s been wowing everyone who’s seen it.
When the race starts, Bill’s reliable Honda looks to be keeping pace. But it quickly becomes apparent that the corvette is going to win. It’s simply faster and stronger than the Honda. It’s not the Honda’s fault. It’s a well-tuned, dependable car. But it’s not a corvette. It can never be a corvette.
Belichick has prided himself for so many years on finding dependable talent where no one else thought to look. Look at Jakobi Meyers, an undrafted wide receiver who Belichick has helped turn into our most reliable target. He’s a great player. But he’s not a corvette. He’s not a superstar who can change the game by himself. It’s not a knock against Jakobi. He’s one of my favorite Patriots in recent memory. But he just cannot ever be a player of DeAndre Hopkins or JaMarr Chase or Justin Jefferson’s caliber. You simply can’t work your way into being a corvette. You’re either born one or you’re not.
And having an offense full of Honda’s was fine when you had a corvette at quarterback. But now that Brady is gone and the league is continually getting bigger, faster, stronger around us, having a bunch of dependable, good not great skill players isn’t enough. You need to invest in corvettes.
So my proposal is simple: only draft and sign really aggressively strong, fast players.
Don’t try to get cute with it and outthink everyone. Save that shit for the 4th-6th rounds. The early rounds and all of free agency should be about getting absolute monster humans.
Case in point: the 2019 draft. The Patriots needed a wide receiver in a really deep wide receiver draft. And for the first time ever, Bill Belichick decided to select one with his first round pick. The only problem: he got cute with it. He picked N’Keal Harry, a receiver from ASU. His college film is impressive and he’s definitely very athletic. But when you watch him play, you notice some flaws. He’s tall but not overly built, he’s not very fast, and he doesn’t get as much separation as you’d like.
His main skillset is his ability to make contested catches. Which is a great skill to have for an NFL wide receiver, but you can’t use a first round pick on someone just because they can out jump a 5’9” defensive back from WASU. It’s too niche. It’s too situation-oriented. You need a guy who is just a pure freak in every sense of the word. Someone who doesn’t need to make contested catches because they run themselves open and use their strength to shed tackles. Someone like…idk, these two guys:
Meet AJ Brown and DK Metcalf. They are both freaks of nature as you can see, and they were both available when the Patriots selected N’Keal in 2019. But the Patriots made their choice. Now AJ and DK are lighting up the NFL with the comfort of massive contract extensions, while the Patriots are still searching for a true #1 receiver.
The basic point is this: It’s great to look for diamonds in the rough, and we have the best coach in the world at it. So many guys who leave the Patriots system falter elsewhere because Belichick knows exactly the right way to use them to get the most talent out of them. Keep looking for guys like that.
But at the same time, you NEED superstars to win in this league, you just do. So if you want to take that next step and get back in Super Bowl contention, don’t overthink it. Trade for a linebacker that has more speed than Usain Bolt. Draft a wide receiver that has muscles that don’t even exist on other people’s bodies. Pick the guy that everyone and their mother knows is going to be a stud just by looking at them. That’s how you get to that next level.
3. Have Matt Patricia build a rocket then fly it into the sun
More than once during Patriots games this year, I’ve yelled at the tv: “Fire X into the sun!”
It’s my favorite phrase for a coach or player I don’t want affiliated with the team anymore. But the more I said it, the more I began to think… “Is there a way for the Patriots to literally fire these guys into the sun?”
The idea consumed me, and I began designing comically oversized launching devices like my hero Wile E. Coyote. Most of the sketches were just riffs on a catapult or trebuchet, but with like a jet engine attached. Eventually, however I realized that I couldn’t achieve the necessary distance with any of these ill-conceived devices. I would need something that was suited for space travel. And then it hit me.
People forget that Patriots offensive coordinator Matt Patricia was originally studying to be a rocket-scientist at RPI before he got into coaching. Don’t let his face fool you — he’s an unbelievably smart guy. He just also happens to be the worst offensive playcaller I’ve ever laid eyes on.
So I think the easy solution here is to let him go back to his original passion: rocket-scientist. We have Kraft fund him to build a Patriots rocket. He has total control over the design, everything. He really gets the chance to be creative with it. Put some racing stripes on the side of the thing idgaf.
Then, once it’s ready and operational, we tell him that we have a really important scouting mission for him. He needs to fly to space to see this Martian QB we’re looking at as a potential replacement for Mac Jones. We’ll make sure to mention that the QB can only throw screens and dump-offs that land at the intended receiver’s feet so Patricia is really excited about it. He can even take a friend with him, Patriots special team’s coordinator and presumed marijuana enthusiast, Cam Achord.
We’ll entice ol’ Cam here by telling him that we’re also scouting a special teams gunner up there who is physically unable to make tackles.
Once we have them loaded up for their recruiting trip, we’ll remote pilot that baby straight into the sun. Easy solution to our offensive and special teams woes!
*Rapid fire actual offseason solutions
Hire Kingsbury to be OC, move Patricia to defensive scout or the unemployment line I don’t care which, fire Cam Acchord presumably with cause due to a failed drug test, give Joe Judge his old job back as special teams coordinator, trade for DeAndre Hopkins, draft a wide receiver at 14, ideally Addison or Smith-Njigba, use your remaining picks on some combination of LB, OL, and CB, do not ignore the linebacker position again we’re slow as shit, sign a few guys to fill out the secondary, let 90% of your free agents walk specifically Bryant and Agholor, bring back Brady or Garoppolo (if the Brady plan fails), design plays that actually utilize your TE’s, allow Kendrick Bourne to see the field more than twice a game, and never fucking lateral again. Super Bowl 2023 inbound.
