So I’m curious, what do we need to be a competitive team again?
And to be clear, I’m not talking about in the AFC East but at the very least the Divisional Round or AFC Championship game. I also get that this will take a few seasons but taking the current roster to let’s say 2025 or 2026 what do we need to acquire or part with at the very least? Here’s my opinion and questions:
QB: I was a Mac guy before this season but we need a number one. Mac can stay if he wants to be a number two or he can leave but he is not the guy.
RB: We’ve lacked options here for a few years now. We can’t just keep using Stevenson, we need another back and Zeke is not our long term option.
WR: Do we need 2, 3 or 4 new receivers? Do we clean house?
TE: Gesicki does nothing for me but Henry offers variety. I think we need another blocker/receiver to compliment Henry.
O-Line: I love Andrews and Onwenu, the rest I’m not so sure. What would you do with Sow, Mafi, Strange? I think Trent has to go, personally. This area of the game I’m admittedly not too knowledgeable about.
D-Line: Keep Wise, Guy (if he’s still plays), Barmore and Godchaux. I like these guys.
DE & LB: I love White and Judon but are we light outside of them? Bentley and ???. Jennings is alright, Tavai I still have questions about but I feel like we have some serious gaps here. Who goes and who stays?
Safety: Peppers & Dugger. I like them but may need a young guy to start stepping up for the years to come.
CB: When fit…I think we are ok but when fit.
Open discussion, let me know what you would do. Don’t think about trades or draft picks, just say what we need and don’t turn this into your dream fantasy team. Just what we need from our current position
Go Pats!
Realistically I think defense is sufficient as is. Luxury pickups but not strictly necessary would be a true FS, another solid CB with JC not looking too hot and Jack gone now, and then another EDGE(White taking a step forward could solve this tho).
Even offense I don’t think we’re actually missing that many pieces from being a really good offense, but they’re pieces that aren’t easy to find.
Immediate/high priority needs are a QB(Mac isn’t as bad as his past 2 years suggest imo but he’s clearly not the guy either), WR1 that defenses actually need to account for(re-signed Bourne to go with Pop then Parker/Boutte is otherwise ok depth) and then just a LT and/or LG.
RB doesn’t “need” anything special with Mondre still here tho some late round picks do rebuild depth would be good.
TE same deal if we re-sign Henry, no immediate need but could use a project TE to hopefully eventually replace Henry.
People are acting like we need a whole new line but we’ve got a lot of good parts to work with still. Andrews is good, Onwenu is good(assuming we re-sign), Sow has looked quite promising once we moved him back to his natural RG position tho he’s still got some stuff to clean up(not surprising for a mid round rookie). Left side is where the issue is. Brown is typically a good LT when healthy it’s just that he’s not been as healthy quite as often as you’d like from your starting LT so re-signing him is 50/50. If he’s back and healthy there isn’t necessarily a pressing need at LT but at the same time I wouldn’t say no to still bringing in ATLEAST a mid round project or even Fashanu or Alt if the board doesn’t fall our way on draft day.
LG is arguably our weakest position on the OL right now. Strange hasn’t been worst G in the league but he’s severely under performing his draft position and is routinely getting bullied on the field. Sadly the other guard we drafted this year, Mafi, is miles worse. Mafi has been so bad I’d rather see Ferentz out there and I’m no Ferentz fan. The thing is though that while Strange is the weak link I doubt they’ll move on from him this early so we’ll have to suffer with that same chink in the armor next year as well.
So TL;DR assuming we re-sign Onwenu, Brown, Dugger and Henry then I don’t think it’s crazy with “just” a franchise QB, WR1 and a good LG for us to be serious playoff contenders.