Jeudy traded to Browns for a 5th and 6th round pick.
Broncos gonna tank next season or are they building capital to try something on draft day?
They’d better tank with that dead cap space. It’s not like they can win if they want to.
A tank season for the Pats sounds good to me. Draft and sign thinking a couple years ahead. Another top 5 pick next year combined with a trade down to net a 1st/2nd in 2025 sounds good to me.
I want the Patriots to become the OKC Thunder of the NFL for the next 3 years. Accumulate as many valuable assets as possible. If that means trading out of this draft, so be it.
I think people will blow a gasket if Pats go all-in on losing and accumulating assets. But I’m very much in agreement with you.
They should have done it immediately after Tom left. They are 4 years behind schedule.
Are you oddly pretending they didn’t tank last year when they have the third pick in the draft?
I mean you can get into semantics about what their intent was but the end result was they had a tanking year. They also had too much talent the year after Brady left to just cut and trade everyone. You could quibble they should they should have done something differently the year before last but you were urging them to do the opposite and sign guys like Hopkins.
They definitely didn't tank, but yes they were bad so it is probably a bit of semantics, but them not intending to tank and then being bad led to a lot of the dysfunction that is being reported. They also should have gotten a new coach and gm better positioned to tank and pull out of it. Bill wanting to win did not help a tank at all.
Losing led to dysfunction. Players and coaches don't tank in the NFL if they want to last long. Belichick was trying to win.
I agree, which is why my original post said they waited 4 years to long and should have tanked immediately after Tom left.
Or they could have just drafted better. I mean, what’s the point of tanking if you can’t identity the right players to take, especially on offense.
Well a tank means no Bill and a new regime. Presumably a coach and a gm so you aren't having a senior citizen do both jobs. Which invariably should have improved the drafting and would have better set the direction. So the team doesn't go out and sign guys like JuJu, Reuff, and Elliot who aren't players a tanking team signs (just used those 3 as an example, I'm sure there are countless others over the last 4 seasons).
The players and coaches don't try to lose, but in the NFL you can set the tone and direction of a franchise pretty easily. The Patriots set a tone of not tanking and trying to win, but just didn't have the players at any time over the last 4 seasons to do that at anything more than a middling level. That is the problem. That is how teams end up of mediocrity (or worse) for far longer than any NFL team needs to. New England has 1 playoff appearance in a 10-7 season over the last 4 seasons. Just 1 winning record. I think it is pretty safe to say they aren't going to have a winning record this next year either (it is certainly possible that Daniels or Maye is like Stroud and they have a miraculous turnaround, but not all that likely either).
The minute Tom left, the team needed to take a real look in the mirror and maybe you give it a go with Cam that first season, but that 1 season should have been it. The team absolutely should have tanked Mac's rookie year (if not before). They should have brought in a young coach for their new young QB. They should have brought in a GM. They should have been gutting the team and building it up to build around Mac. Hard decision to make especially with Bill so close to Shula, but that is what Kraft should have done. And frankly, Bill should have left New England when Tom went to Tampa. He'd have been able to pick a winning destination (maybe he takes a year off and then goes somewhere with full power again like Payton did in Denver). He'd have been much more able to pick a winning place in that scenario and he'd be well on his way to Shula if not already well past him, and the narrative that it was basically all Tom and not him wouldn't be as booming, if out there at all.
