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…
Yeah that’s my point. They had planS and it didn’t work out. Maybe if they had one coherent and consistent plan, it would have worked better.
For example, let’s examine the state of the O Line.
2020 - Marcus Cannon sat out and Onwenu replaced him as a rookie and was phenomenal. Also tagged Thuney and paid him like 20M that year. Why do that if you’re rebuilding with a bridge QB? This was the last year we had a top line. Wynn, Thuney, Andrews, Mason, Onwenu. All top 10 for their position that year. Made it a top 5 line.
2021 - Rookie Mac comes in. Let’s give him the best line possible. But wait, Thuney left in free agency. You could have signed him last year for less, or this year since you have the money. But nope. Ok so replace him with Karras, who was below average and a backup his whole life. He played fine, but Wynn now struggles without a top 3 LG next to him. Also Onwenu was our RT, but “we don’t see him as a tackle” so we made him a BACKUP GUARD. Guard is less valuable position. Traded for Trent Brown to be your RT, but redid his contract so he was a free agent after one year (which made him ineligible for a comp pick). So he’s just a stop gap at RT. Then he gets injured because of course, so Onwenu kicks back outside and of course is phenomenal again. Not a great line, but we made it work.
2022 - now it gets off the rails. Let Karras walk even tho his new contract was small and reasonable. Trade Shaq Mason… why? Oh yes, because you see Onwenu as a guard. Time to move on from a top 5 RG who was making top 25 RG money. So lost both guards. Quick! Let’s reach for a small school guard in the first round. He’s perfect for that inside zone scheme Patricia has wants to try this year. Now Onwenu hasss to be RG, so let’s sign Trent brown back at RT. Yes he was under contract for 2 years, but we changed it to one, only to resign him again for the second year anyway… for more money. Ok so now the line is going through major changes that we totally didn’t see coming and could not have prevented. New players, new positions, rookies, new scheme. How can we give them some consistency? I know! Let’s swap Wynn and Brown. (Trust us, it works better for Patricia’s scheme). Brown struggled next to a rookie, Strange struggled as a rookie, Andrews was a rock again, Onwenu struggled at RG which was a new spot for him, and Wynn was so pissed he got moved to RT he quit on the team. Fantastic. But don’t worry, year three of the plan will make sense.
2023 - 3rd OC and scheme in 3 years. Here we go. Let’s panic and throw shot at the wall and see what sticks.
Draft 3 linemen
Sign 2 linemen
Trade for 2 linemen
If those 7, only Sow as a rookie has been contributing. And he’s struggling. At least this mess has moved Onwenu back to RT where he belongs. This line has been a disaster.
2024 - Brown and Onwenu are free agents. Andrews is hinting at retirement. So we are left with strange in year three. Maybe he’ll finally figure it out. And same with Sow in year 2. This is the plan? Really??
I can do this with every position group. This is not a plan. This is constant pivoting because you don’t have any idea what next year will look like, year after year.