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Faced with crossroads, Patriots must choose a clear path forward originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
This final four-game post-bye stretch for the Patriots was critical. Even though they were 3-10 heading out to Arizona on December 14, it was imperative they show that in this foundation-laying year they’d actually, ya know, laid a foundation.
Now, three games later and with the New Year upon us, it’s obvious the franchise is still in a giant friggin’ crater with an ooze of mud at the bottom. The only sign of stability? The only pillar? The quarterback.
Saturday’s loss to the Chargers was unprofessional. The Patriots now have one meaningless game left against the Bills. For their own good, they should lose, since they’ve backslid all the way the top spot in the 2025 NFL Draft. Somehow you know it’s on the table they’ll screw that up.
The Krafts — who decided last year they weren’t down with Bill Belichick doing a second reset after his 2021 free-agent spending bonanza went kablooey — now must decide if Eliot Wolf, Jerod Mayo and ALL the people around both of them can identify talent, hire it, develop it and then win games because they use it correctly.
Nothing they do inspires even a passing flutter of confidence. And that goes for ownership, too. The Krafts are very clearly out of practice in how to run the football side of their football franchise.
That reality flies in the face of the widely-held notion they’re puppet-masters, but it’s the truth.
Bill Belichick ran the franchise. Personnel department. Draft. Scouting. Cap. Spending. Coaches. Players. Public messaging. He made the decisions and — while the Krafts would definitely tsk-tsk and shake their heads when things went poorly — they let him make those decisions until they decided he’d forfeited that right.
But as has become clear in the past 11 months, they literally didn’t replace Belichick. They elevated someone to coach the team. They elevated someone to run personnel. But…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/faced-crossroads-patriots-must-choose-234434039.html
Author : NBC Sports Boston
Publish date : 2024-12-30 23:44:00
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