New England Patriots need Bill Belichick to make changes

The New England Patriots are going nowhere — which means they need to make a change when it comes to legendary head coach Bill Belichick.

In what has become a common theme in the post-Tom Brady era, the Patriots’ offense once again looked lethargic in a 31-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins. The Patriots’ 2-6 start to the season is their worst since Bill Belichick’s first season with the Patriots, when they started 2-8 and finished with five wins A record of 11 losses.

Judging by the performance of the Patriots’ offense this season, it wouldn’t be surprising if they didn’t reach this low level.

While the Patriots won’t fire or “part ways” with Belichick after the season — no matter how bad the end result is — they need to make some kind of sweeping change or this incompetence will continue. .

We’re not talking about a change at the offensive coordinator position.What we are actually talking about is peel off Belichick’s power.

Belichick named Patriots head coach and He has served as general manager since the 2000 season. It’s been a remarkable run, with six Super Bowl championships, nine Super Bowl appearances and 17 championships in 19 seasons, dominating the AFC East.

Now, the run is over. In fact, it has been dead for several years.

The mystery is gone. Not only are the Patriots no longer a playoff contender, they’ve become a joke. Since Tom Brady’s departure, the offense has ranked either average or one of the worst in the NFL, ranking 27th in points per game in 2020 and 17th in 2022.

Since the 2020 season, they have averaged just 21.9 points per game, ranking 22nd among all NFL teams. In Brady’s final 14 seasons with the Patriots, they never finished lower than eighth in that category.

Additionally, their dominance of the AFC East has disappeared. They have lost seven of their last eight games against the Dolphins and six of their last eight games against the Buffalo Bills.

Brady isn’t going to walk in the door and save the world. Neither is a dominant offensive weapon like Rob Gronkowski.

When was the last time this team had a dominant receiver? Or even a really good one?

You have to go back to the Brady era in 2019, when Gronkowski and Julian Edelman were in New England, to find talent like this. In fact, that was the last time the Patriots had a 1,000-yard receiver.

Let’s be honest, as hard as it is to accept the truth because of Belichick’s legacy – he has been a terrible general manager for years. That became abundantly clear without Brady to cover the offensive woes in New England.

Whether it’s decisions like taking a first-round pick like N’Keal Harry over DK Metcalf, Deebo Samuel, and AJ Brown, or using a defensive coordinator (Matt Patricia) as an offensive coordinator for an entire season, this craziness The behavior needs to stop.

Robert Kraft needs to make changes, and that has to start with stripping Belichick of his power as a personnel decision-maker.

It’s this team’s only hope of turning things around with Belichick as head coach.

The decision to fire Belichick after the season was too drastic. This mostly has to do with his legendary status as the greatest head coach of all time. While the team has been sloppy the past four seasons — especially offensively — they only clinched a playoff berth two seasons ago and didn’t make the playoffs until the final week of last season.

But if you hire the right personnel decision-makers to draft players and sign free agents — something Belichick hasn’t been good at over the years — then you give the 71-year-old head coach hope that he’ll be able to do that in the future. He ended it in a decent way before calling. It exited.

The Patriots had a nice win over the Bills last week. It’s a nice escape from the current reality of the series, and it’s about as dreamy as one can imagine.

This team has no identity offensively. Entering this game, the Patriots’ offense was the second-worst in the league, averaging just 14.4 points per game. After scoring 17 points against the league’s 27th-ranked defense (the Dolphins are allowing 26.7 points per game), the average is only up slightly.

Making matters worse is the Patriots are without a franchise quarterback. Belichick continued to start Jones, and although he showed a lot of “confidence” in Jones, his glaring flaws could not be concealed – his arm was lackluster and he continued to show an inability to compete in big games Drive the offense.

Where will this lead?

Aside from the Patriots’ two touchdowns, one of which came on a rushing attack in the fourth quarter, New England totaled just 78 points. all They gained yardage on nine other drives.

Mac Jones had few answers as to why the Patriots struggled against lower-ranked defenses (they also allowed 17 points in a Week 2 loss to the Dolphins).

“Our defense was good and they made some plays,” Jones said. “I feel like if I had played a little better, maybe it would have been different. I’ve got to watch the tape and watch it, right – that’s the only way you can do it. Watch the defense and see what they did, What did you see then and so on.”

To give an idea of ​​how bad that total was, the Patriots ran 37 offensive plays on those drives. That’s 2.1 yards per play.

“Obviously we had some opportunities, we just didn’t play enough today,” Belichick said after the game. “Miami made some great plays at the right times and that was the difference in the game. “There were a couple plays we needed to do better. “

When asked how the Patriots win when trailing in two-on-one offense — the Dolphins held up 390 yards to New England’s 218 — Belichick gave his One of the iconic answers, but offers no explanation.

“Well, it’s a combination of things,” Belichick said. “You need to play better offense, better defense.”

There is no doubt that New England will be looking for a new franchise quarterback in next year’s draft. Considering there could be as many as four quarterbacks drafted in the top 10, now would be a good time to do so.

But that won’t matter if the Patriots continue with the same poor strategy that took them from the NFL’s tier to a last-place team.

It’s time for a change – and it all starts with Belichick.