Now that the Mac Jones experiment is over, I thought it would be interesting to see who we’ve been starting. It has now been almost 4 years since the Brady Era ended, and honestly it’s felt like the team has been floundering without a plan.
We tried a veteran. That failed. We tried a rookie. That failed. We transitioned from the McDaniels offense to the Shanahan offense (run by Matt Patricia). That failed miserably, and our entire 2022 “speed” draft class is a bust. Now we’re doing the BoB offense and while it was great to have an adult in the room again, it honestly has felt very flat and uncreative.
During all those offensive changes, we had 5 QB taking snaps. Remember the old days when Brady refused to come out of games for blowouts or kneel downs? He was close to 100% every year and that consistency mattered. Here are the snap counts now:
Mac Jones: 2,495 (65.54%)
Cam Newton: 876 (23.01%)
Bailey Zappe: 245 (6.44%)
Brian Hoyer: 106 (2.78%)
Jarrett Stidham: 85 (2.23%)
My biggest issue with all this is that we’ve gone year to year without a plan for the future. Every year we drafted for a new offensive scheme. We’ve had three OCs in 4 years.
Basically what I’m saying is that I would love to see a coherent 4 year plan from Kraft. Get a GM who’s not allergic to offensive talent. Get a offensive head coach. Have them start together so that they are tied to their success or failure. Pick one scheme. One drafting strategy.
Once that is in place, they need to draft a QB high in 2024, and create an environment to develop him. Spend all that cap space and and draft capital on giving him protection and weapons. Make things easy and ease him in. Let him improve bit by bit for 3 years. If he does well, go all in during the rookie contract.
I cannot take any more of this new QB, new playbook, new players every year. I want to know who my WR1 and tackles will be in 2026.
Right now, our WR1, LT1, RT1, RT2, TE1, TE2, TE3 and receiving back are all free agents. This is what happens when there’s no 3 year plan…
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They definitely didn’t have a plan after Brady left.
IIRC we signed Cam during camp or a week prior. Important to note, he was coming off an injury and it was site unseen. Whatever they thought of Stidham wasn’t very much. Late that same season, after the Patriots had been eliminated, BB still didn’t give Stidham enough of look to see if he’d even be good enough as a backup. Pretty sure Belichick already knew he wasn’t even good enough to be a 2nd stringer.
Remember, Brady made it known before the start of the 2019 season it would be his last in New England. Plus, he’d been hinting about finishing his career elsewhere for a few years. So, Belichick had minimum 1 full calendar year where he absolutely knew, and warnings for a couple years, that Brady was leaving and yet he was completely unprepared it.
This shits getting a little dramatic eh?
I don’t think the team has had a plan since the traded Jimmy G.
Also. Define what you think a “plan” is. Because throwing things against the wall is generally the plan for many NFL teams.
Op said this team hasn’t had a plan since Brady left and then went into detail about all of the plans the team had