By Scott Kacsmar
Bill Belichick is coaching his 500th game on Sunday, a milestone only reached by George Halas and Don Shula. But things have never looked this bleak for his New England Patriots, who have been outscored by 76 points this season, the worst 5-game span under Belichick’s guidance.
In his first 497 games as a head coach for the Browns and Patriots (playoffs included), Belichick never lost by more than 31 points. In his last two games, he has lost 38-3 to Dallas and 34-0 at home to the Saints.
The offense is terrible, registering just 8 first downs against the Saints, the fewest by the Patriots in a game since 1992. The defense has not forced a takeaway since Week 2 and lost two of its best players to severe injuries (Matt Judon and Christian Gonzalez). Even the special teams are struggling with rookie kicker Chad Ryland missing 50% of his kicks so far. This team used to be elite in every phase (offense, defense, and special teams).
How did things get this bad after a two-decade run of six Super Bowl championships, nine Super Bowl appearances, and 17 division titles?
As they say, all good things come to an end. The advantages the Patriots used to enjoy are gone, and the rest of the league, especially the AFC East, is passing the 71-year-old coach by as he struggles with a 1-4 record and no real prospects for the future.
We look back at the last five years that led to this dynasty’s demise, how Belichick the general manager has failed Belichick the coach, and why things are over for him and the Patriots as a real contender together.
2018: The Last Dance
If you recall The Last Dance, it was a documentary that showed the final season of the Chicago Bulls’ dynasty with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and coach Phil Jackson as they won their sixth championship together in the 1997-98 season.
It wasn’t the smoothest season, but they ultimately prevailed in the end. But when it came time for the next season, everyone was gone in Chicago and the dynasty was over.
In many ways, the 2018 season became The Last Dance for the Patriots under Belichick, Tom Brady, and Rob Gronkowski. It was a last hurrah as Brady and Belichick won title No. 6 together after a difficult 11-5 regular season that saw them lose a handful of games to teams that did not even make the playoffs. Seriously, this team was smoked by Blake Bortles and the Jaguars early in the season.
The Patriots like to lean on veterans, but the truth is they got little help from their weak draft class. Top pick Isaiah Wynn missed his entire rookie season with an injury, and that remained a problem throughout the offensive tackle’s career. Running back Sony Michel was drafted 31st and did a solid job, but imagine if this team took Nick Chubb, who went four picks later to Cleveland. Michel and Chubb were teammates at Georgia, but Chubb had more yards and touchdowns and a higher yards-per-carry average. The Patriots picked the wrong Georgia back. Another option would have been Lamar Jackson, who went one pick later to Baltimore, as Brady’s future replacement. Instead, the Patriots picked up a running back who has already retired.
But despite the tough season, the 2018 postseason was some of Belichick’s best work of his career. The Patriots made the Chargers look silly and unprepared in the divisional round. They stonewalled an all-time great offense in Kansas City, holding Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes scoreless at halftime before a wild second half led to overtime where the Patriots won the coin toss and denied Mahomes ever seeing the ball again as they scored the game-winning touchdown. In Super Bowl 53, the Patriots unveiled another unique defensive formation to hold Sean McVay’s prolific Rams team to 3 points in a 13-3 win.
The Patriots started their dynasty with a Super Bowl win over the 2001 Rams in a game where the offense only scored 13 points. They fittingly ended it with a Super Bowl win over the Rams where they scored 13 points, the fewest ever by a Super Bowl winner – just what a defensive coach would love.
At that point, retiring on top would have made sense for Belichick, Brady, and Gronkowski. In the end, only Gronk called it quits (for the moment).
2019: Fool’s Gold and Tom Brady’s Swansong
The Patriots entered 2019 with the best odds to win the Super Bowl again (+400) and the highest preseason win total (11.5). But something was always a bit off with this team.
They really had little interest in trying to replace Gronk at tight end. Ben Watson came back to the team at 39 years old to lead all New England tight ends with a whopping 17 catches for 173 yards. Receiving back James White ended up being the 2nd-leading receiver behind Julian Edelman.
The Patriots tried to add troubled wideout Antonio Brown to become Brady’s new special target, but he lasted one game in September before the team had to cut him for his off-field drama. They also kicked the tires on Josh Gordon and Mohammed Sanu to no avail.
The draft was a disaster for New England again in 2019. If you thought taking Sony Michel four picks ahead of Nick Chubb was bad, the Patriots drafted wide receiver N’Keal Harry (1.32) four picks ahead of Deebo Samuel (2.36). Harry proved to be a major bust while Samuel is one of the most unique, versatile talents to ever play in the NFL. The Patriots also spent the 45th pick on corner Joejuan Williams, who started 1 game for them before he was cut. Six picks later, stud wide receiver A.J. Brown was drafted by the Titans. Corners and wide receivers have always been a major flaw in Belichick’s drafting.
But the 2019 Patriots started 8-0 thanks to one of the most dominant defensive performances in NFL history. The Patriots allowed 61 points in 8 games, the 2nd-best start to a season since the merger behind only the 1977 Falcons (56).
The numbers were even better than that. Through 8 games, the Patriots allowed just 4 offensive touchdowns on defense while scoring 4 defensive touchdowns. It seems impossible in this era, but they did it.
But this team was fool’s gold. They achieved these numbers in part by playing an incredibly weak schedule of bad offenses and quarterbacks. When it came time for the Patriots to play a real contender like Baltimore that year with eventual MVP Lamar Jackson, they folded and lost 37-20.
For the rest of the season, the Patriots looked like mere mortals on defense, unable to hold the Texans (Deshaun Watson), Chiefs (Patrick Mahomes), and Dolphins (Ryan Tannehill) under 23 points in losses.
The offense was also struggling as a 42-year-old Brady had one of the worst seasons of his career as he failed to build up a new weapon without Gronkowski available. Brady had an 8-game stretch during this season where he averaged 5.64 yards per pass and only completed 56.4% of his passes.
The Patriots had a shot at the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in Week 17, but they lost at home as a 17.5-point favorite to the Dolphins, giving the Chiefs the bye, and Kansas City went on to win the Super Bowl that year.
The Patriots still won the AFC East for the 11th year in a row (a record) with a 12-4 record, but they had to do something rare for them and host a wild-card game. Derrick Henry and the Titans were game and pulled off the upset in a 20-13 final. The last pass of Brady’s New England career was a pick-six in a home playoff game.
After an 8-0 start, the Patriots were 4-5 in their last 9 games, and Brady was off to Tampa Bay. He likely saw the dark times ahead for New England.
2020: Social Distancing from the Super Bowl
Without Brady, the 2020 Patriots were expected to take a step back as most teams do when they lose a Hall of Fame quarterback. But 2020 was also expected to be a year of uncertainty with the COVID-19 pandemic taking over the world and putting the season in question. In the end, no games were canceled, but they were largely played without crowds, leading to the highest-scoring season ever.
But Belichick’s approach to the season was almost as if he viewed it as a lost year. The Patriots did not sign their Brady replacement until July when they added veteran Cam Newton, who had not been successful for a few years. But he did have an MVP and playoff experience on his resume.
However, the Patriots did not go out of their way to build up the roster. They did not have a first-round pick in that draft and selected a bunch of depth players and marginal starters. Their best pick was second-round safety Kyle Dugger, who is still with the team at least. Of course, quarterback Jalen Hurts was still out there when the Patriots picked Dugger. There’s the first major whiff in replacing Brady in the draft.
The Patriots also had the most players opt out of the season for COVID as 8 players sat out the entire season, including Dont’a Hightower, Patrick Chung, and Marcus Cannon.
You could argue the Patriots were affected by COVID more than any team in 2020. Newton was the first starting quarterback to test positive for the virus, and he missed the team’s big game in Week 4 against the Chiefs. While Belichick’s defense was again impressive against Mahomes, it was wasted in a 26-10 loss by poor offense. When Newton returned against Denver, he looked bad, and the team lost another winnable game, 18-12.
Going from Brady to Newton in crunch time is like going from a T-bone steak to ground chuck. The story of Newton’s career is him always coming up a drive (or a yard) short. It was no different in New England that year. In a Week 2 game in Seattle, Newton passed for 397 yards, his most in a game since the 2nd game of his rookie season in 2011. He found Edelman for 179 yards, the most yards Edelman ever had in a game. But when it came time to win the game from the 1-yard line on the final snap, Newton was stopped well short of the end zone on a run, and the Patriots lost 35-30.
Later that season in Buffalo, Newton had a chance at a game-winning drive. He was in the red zone in a 24-21 game, but he fumbled at the Buffalo 13 with 31 seconds left. The Patriots lost that one too, making it two games against elite teams that year that the Patriots could have won on the road if Newton was not so bad in the clutch.
In that context, 7-9 was a respectable record for a team that lost its quarterback, had the most COVID opt-outs, and also lost Edelman for good after 6 games to injury. Edelman never played another game in the NFL after Week 7.
But after a 2-5 start, the Patriots were never really a contender in 2020. They got back to 6-6 before the offense imploded in a 3-game losing streak to 10-win teams that were simply better.
During the season, Belichick was more vocal than usual about the team’s struggles, citing how they sold out to win Super Bowls and that’s why the cupboards were a bit empty now. “Look, we paid Cam Newton $1 million. I mean it’s obvious we didn’t have any money. It’s nobody’s fault,” he said. “That’s what we did the last five years. We sold out and won three Super Bowls, played in a fourth and played in an AFC Championship Game. This year we had less to work with. It’s not an excuse, it’s just a fact.”
Belichick may have been lashing out because the 2020 season was not just about what the Patriots did, but the optics of what happened around the league that made things look worse for New England.
Yes, Brady went to Tampa Bay and immediately won a Super Bowl with Bruce Arians and a loaded roster. He got Gronk to come out of retirement, and they even made Antonio Brown work out for half a season as Brown caught a touchdown in the Super Bowl against the Chiefs.
That one has to sting for Belichick because he knows he cannot build anything like the roster Tampa Bay had in New England that quickly now. But 2020 was also about the rise of the AFC East and what I loved to call The Three Stooges: Bills, Dolphins, and Jets.
Well, the Jets are still bad, but after years of incompetency, the Bills and Dolphins started to make the right moves to turn things around. Buffalo made the playoffs in 2019, but it was an improved offensive juggernaut in 2020 after Josh Allen had his breakout year with Stefon Diggs in town. The Bills (13-3) emphatically crushed the Patriots 38-9 in a Week 16 game to officially claim the AFC East as their own for the first time since 1995.
While the 2020 Dolphins missed the playoffs with a 10-6 record, they made a pivotal move by drafting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa with the No. 5 pick. He won his first start against New England as a rookie and is now the only quarterback to go 5-0 against Belichick as he only gets better each year.
If the Patriots were going to stand a chance in this new AFC East, they needed a quarterback. Newton was never a real solution.
2021: The Underwhelming Reboot of 2001
After getting almost nothing out of their drafts in 2017-20, the Patriots needed a big hit in the 2021 draft. They used the 15th pick on Alabama’s Mac Jones, the fifth quarterback taken in the round, and someone Belichick hopefully consulted his old friend Nick Saban about for all the gory details.
The nicest thing I can say about the Jones pick is that at least there wasn’t a stud quarterback who went later in the draft. The Patriots were not the only team interested as Kyle Shanahan reportedly had an interest in Jones before the 49ers traded up to take Trey Lance with the No. 3 pick. The 2021 quarterback class has been very strange and disappointing to this point.
But it was surprising to see the Patriots not take a more mobile quarterback than Jones, who is in the running for the most immobile passer left in the NFL. What used to keep the Patriots ahead of the curve was Belichick seeing things before other teams, but he seems to have missed out on the fact that you need a quarterback who can run now.
Still, Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels seemed to have a plan for Jones. It was similar to the plan for making Brady into a viable starter way back in 2001 when he took over for an injured Drew Bledsoe:
- Give Jones a cast of receivers who are not stars, but they can get open and are reliable targets that the defense cannot key in on as anyone could step up each week.
- The Patriots had Jakobi Meyers, and they added wide receivers Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne, and they signed tight ends Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith.
- Jones had 3.1% of his passes dropped, the 2nd-lowest rate in 2021.
- Don’t ask Jones to air it out deep much and just focus on safe completions, protect the ball, and get it out quickly to avoid sacks.
- Jones completed 67.6% of his passes, had the 10th-fastest release time (2.71 seconds), a solid 5.1% sack rate, and the 3rd-lowest pressure rate (18.4%) in 2021.
- Give Jones a solid running game – Patriots ranked 8th in rushing, 12th in yards per carry, and their 24 rushing touchdowns were second in the league to help the offense stay ahead of the chains and produce good situational stats (10th on 3rd down, 11th in the red zone).
- Play sound special teams and force takeaways (30 takeaways ranked 3rd) to give Jones the 3rd-best starting field position in the league.
- Play elite defense – Patriots ranked 2nd in points allowed, 4th in yards allowed, and they were 8-0 when allowing fewer than 14 points.
But it wouldn’t be a successful New England season without a few good strokes of luck. When facing the high-powered Bills in Week 13, extreme winds caused havoc on the passing game, so the Patriots finished that game with 3 pass attempts for 19 yards and 46 rushes for 222 yards. It didn’t really work out on offense, but the 14-10 win was secured by the defense that forced Allen into a bad night in the wind.
That put the Patriots at 9-4 and in position for another No. 1 seed going into their bye week. Belichick was up to his old tricks just like in 2001 with a young Brady.
But reboots usually pale in comparison to the original, and this was no different. The Patriots looked bad in a loss to the Colts, they couldn’t even force Buffalo to punt or turn it over in a rematch, and they lost another game in Miami to finish 10-7.
It was enough for a wild card berth, but that just meant another rematch with Buffalo. It was very cold but not windy. Once again, the Bills torched the Patriots in a 47-17 rout that we recently declared the greatest offensive performance in NFL history. The Bills scored a touchdown on all 7 drives they had that night, and the Patriots never legitimately forced a 4th-down attempt. It was offensive perfection and it happened in a playoff game.
Shades of 2019, there was a lot of fool’s gold to this New England team. The 7-game winning streak in particular came against a lot of weak competition, and the aforementioned wind game was a fluke when you look at how badly the Bills shredded Belichick’s defense the next two games. The Patriots lost to Brady’s Buccaneers, but at least it was a close game that came down to the wire, and the Patriots also took a good Dallas team to overtime before losing. But when it came to beating good teams, the Patriots kept coming up empty again.
But at least Jones showed some promise that he could be a game manager in the right situation. However, the NFL is different now than it was in 2001-06 when the Patriots could win at a high rate without elite quarterback play, leaning instead on great defense, clutch special teams, and just outsmarting the rest of the league.
2022: A Gross Miscalculation
Expectations were not that high for New England in 2022 because Buffalo was the preseason Super Bowl favorite. Miami was also getting hype after hiring Mike McDaniel, a Kyle Shanahan disciple, and trading for Tyreek Hill to give Tua Tagovailoa an unbelievable weapon to pair with the speed of Jaylen Waddle.
What did the Patriots do for Jones in his second year? They sure as hell did not get him a Diggs or Hill like the Bills and Dolphins did for their young quarterbacks. They signed DeVante Parker, who is the anti-Tyreek as he annually ranks as one of the worst receivers at creating separation.
They used the 50th pick on wide receiver Tyquan Thornton, but he has struggled to even see the field so far. Guess who went two picks later at No. 52 to Pittsburgh? George Pickens, an athletic stud who is the only reason Kenny Pickett hasn’t been benched for Mitch Trubisky yet. Belichick just does not know wide receivers.
The Patriots also used a 4th-round pick on backup quarterback Bailey Zappe, which is sure to draw some ire from fans when they remember Brock Purdy was available up until the last pick of the 2022 draft. But Purdy is like Brady, a unicorn that we may have never discovered if multiple quarterbacks did not get displaced on the depth chart first. If Purdy was on the Patriots, he’d probably look like Zappe or Jones if he had to play right now.
But the worst part of 2022 was that the Patriots lost Josh McDaniels to the Raiders. Say what you will about McDaniels as a head coach, but he is a fine offensive coordinator and he helped Jones have success as a rookie. McDaniels also helped Matt Cassel (2008) and Kyle Orton (2009-10 Broncos) in past years.
Belichick turned 70 and made one of the worst decisions of his coaching career when he thought Matt Patricia and Joe Judge could handle coordinating the offense and coaching his quarterback. Those two, who were fired by the Lions and Giants respectively, are among the weakest branches on what is a rotten coaching tree for Belichick.
While Belichick’s 2022 defense still forced 30 takeaways and did what it could to help the team out, the offense was awful, and Jones regressed in his second season.
- The situational play tanked as the Patriots ranked 27th on 3rd down and dead last in the red zone.
- Jones’ passing success rate fell from 49.0% to 41.4%.
- His sack rate shot up from 5.1% to 7.1% as the line regressed.
- The running game was just 24th in yards and 21st in yards per carry.
- The 2022 Patriots were 0-8 when they allowed more than 21 points.
- Parker actually proved to be a decent target for Jones, averaging 11.5 yards per target, but with Patricia’s lack of vertical passing calls, the Patriots barely used him, and he finished with 539 yards.
For as bad as the offense was, this team still had a shot at making the playoffs with a 7-6 record. That’s what happens when you let Belichick coach games against teams starting quarterbacks like Zach Wilson (Jets), Sam Ehlinger (Colts), Jacoby Brissett (Browns), and Mitch Trubisky (Steelers). Kyler Murray (Cardinals) and Teddy Bridgewater (Dolphins’ backup) were both injured against the Patriots, so the only starting quarterback who wasn’t injured or benched last year that the Patriots beat was Jared Goff of the Lions.
But the crucial mistakes of the season came in Weeks 15-16. The Patriots seemed to have a game wrapped up against the Raiders, but Vegas got a shady touchdown ruling to tie the game. With the Patriots driving in the final seconds, it looked like the game would go to overtime. Jakobi Meyers made a bad decision to lateral a pass back to Mac Jones of all people at midfield, and the ball went right to Chandler Jones, who returned it for a game-winning touchdown. Just an unbelievable mistake and the kind of boneheaded play you used to expect a team to make when playing against the Patriots, not for them.
A week later against the Bengals, the Patriots were on track for a 22-point comeback, getting to 22-18 and having a first-and-goal at the 5. But Rhamondre Stevenson fumbled with a minute left and the Patriots lost that game.
The last hope was in Week 18 in Buffalo, and that was a game where the odds were heavily stacked against the Patriots as it was the Bills’ first home game since the Damar Hamlin incident. Like a movie script, they returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown. Worse, they did it again in the second half in a 35-23 win that officially eliminated the Patriots from the playoffs with an 8-9 record.
We are not used to seeing the Patriots under Belichick make crucial fumbles and bad special teams plays like that, yet they did it repeatedly to end the season.
This is how you know you’re dealing with a painfully mediocre team. In seasons like 2020 and 2022, it’s as simple as some better red-zone execution late in games and the Patriots could have been 9-7 and 10-7, both winning records.
But would they have been real contenders in either season? No, they would have been wild card teams at best, and likely to get bounced in the first playoff game like Buffalo did to them in 2021.
- Since 2020, the Patriots are 9-17 ATS (34.6%) as an underdog, the worst record in the NFL.
- Since 2020, the Patriots have played a league-low 19 games against teams that made the playoffs, but they are 4-15 SU (21.1%) in those games, the 6th-worst record in that time.
That last record gets worse when you consider the four wins are in heavy rain against the 2020 Ravens, in extreme wind against the 2021 Bills, against the 2021 Titans without Derrick Henry and A.J. Brown, and against the 2022 Dolphins with their second and third-string quarterbacks playing instead of Tua.
2023: Full Collapse?
This was going to be the year the Patriots fell to the bottom of the AFC East for the first time since 2000. The AFC East was ready to do a complete turnaround on its quarterback disparity as the New York Jets finally had a quarterback in Aaron Rodgers.
Well, that lasted for 4 snaps before Rodgers tore his Achilles on opening night. The Patriots notched their 15th win in a row against the Jets in Week 3, so leave it up to the Jets to be the saving grace to keep Belichick from finishing in the basement.
But hold on a minute. After the Patriots had some respectably close losses to contenders like the Eagles and Dolphins, they completely flopped these last two weeks against the Cowboys and Saints, getting outscored 72-3, the worst two losses of Belichick’s career.
This latest failure again falls mainly on the offense. New offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien returned to New England for the first time since 2011, but these rosters are night and day for what he had to work with then compared to now.
We’ll attack the quarterback in a second, but this starts with the offensive line, which has been terrible. ESPN ranks the pass blocking 30th right now, and 2022 first-round pick Cole Strange is already looking like a major bust for the line. A line this bad is how Stevenson is averaging 2.76 yards per carry right now (4.8 in 2021-22).
For the receivers, replacing Jakobi Meyers with JuJu Smith-Schuster has been a disaster so far. Meyers has been awesome for McDaniels in Vegas while JuJu has 86 yards on 25 targets.
Turnovers continue to be a huge problem for this offense. Jones turned it over 3 times for touchdowns against the Saints and Cowboys, two strong defenses. He is crumbling under pressure, and he is not gifted with mobility like most top quarterbacks have now to extend plays or create things downfield. Even if he did, the receivers are among the worst at creating separation.
Since 2020, New England’s offense has 12 turnovers returned for touchdowns (8 interceptions, 4 fumbles), the most in the NFL in that time.
This is a mess, and even Belichick’s defense is not in a position to save this team. The Patriots lost star pass rusher Matt Judon to a serious injury. Then, after it finally looked like they hit on a first-round pick again, corner Chrisitan Gonzalez (September’s Defensive Rookie of the Month) was lost for the season with a torn labrum.
We have to assume the turnovers for touchdowns will calm down and the team will still have some opportunities in close games going forward. But if going from Brady to Cam Newton in the clutch was bad, Brady to Mac Jones is like swapping a porterhouse steak for a Banquet Salisbury Steak Meal you have to heat in the microwave.
Jones is 1-10 (.091) at game-winning drive opportunities in his career, the worst record among active starters. Not every loss has been his fault, but the Patriots just have zero edge at quarterback in close games now. That includes the losses this year to the Eagles (receiver just failed to secure a catch on 4th down) and Dolphins (lineman just came up short of the marker on another weird 4th-down play).
With a tough remaining schedule and the state of this roster, it is hard to see how the Patriots don’t finish with 10-plus losses this year.
Can it get any worse than the last two weeks? Well, this Sunday the Patriots return to Vegas, the site of last year’s ill-fated lateral. Belichick could fall to 0-3 against Josh McDaniels in his career, so yeah, it can get worse.
Summary of the Demise of the New England Dynasty
We just went through a lot of recent history with the Patriots, so here is a summarized version with more information on the demise of this dynasty. Think of it as a cheat sheet for the finer points of why the Patriots are no longer a contender.
No Quarterback, No Elite Players
Let’s just state the obvious. The Patriots were much better with Tom Brady at quarterback than they have been since 2020 with Cam Newton on his last legs and this attempt to make Mac Jones work.
But the same can be said about the Broncos when they had Peyton Manning, the Saints when they had Drew Brees, the Steelers when they had Ben Roethlisberger, and if this Jordan Love start is any indication, then the Packers when they had Aaron Rodgers. That’s just how the NFL works. Hardly any teams are lucky enough to transition from Joe Montana to Steve Young or Brett Favre to Rodgers.
Quarterback is the most important position, and for 20 years, the Patriots had a Hall of Famer who almost never missed games due to injury. That edge is gone.
But the Patriots didn’t just lose Brady and have failed to find a top-20 quarterback to replace him. They also haven’t found a tight end anywhere close to Gronkowski five years after he first retired. Their Wes Welker cloning machine must be broken because they don’t have a slot receiver like Julian Edelman anymore, and they let Meyers go to Vegas with McDaniels. If this defense still had anything resembling elite players, they are injured now (Judon and Gonzalez). They don’t even have a great kicker anymore after two decades of Adam Vinatieri and Stephen Gostkowski.
Belichick has built a roster void of greatness, and the revisionist history that Brady is the one who used to make everything work is just pure rubbish. You could put Brady in his prime on the 2023 Patriots and they wouldn’t be a great team either.
When Belichick won his first Super Bowl as head coach with the 2001 Patriots, the defense and special teams, not Brady, carried that team. They had a lot of impressive defenders, including Richard Seymour, Ty Law, Tedy Bruschi, Mike Vrabel, Willie McGinest, and kicker Adam Vinatieri saved everyone’s bacon that postseason. A good amount of the core of this team was also part of the 1996 New England team that reached the Super Bowl. Belichick was a defensive coach on that team.
The defense was much better than the offense in New England in 2001-06, and that was the period where Belichick was at his best. That was when he’d successfully play a wide receiver at corner (Troy Brown), use a linebacker (Vrabel) to catch touchdowns, take an intentional safety to make a comeback win (2003 Denver game), and shut down some of the best offenses of all time in the playoffs, including five MVP-winning seasons.
But there was a paradigm shift in 2007 in New England. They started acquiring incredible talent on both sides of the ball, and instead of squeaking out 3-point victories in big games, they started to dominate teams. Oddly enough, it did not lead to another championship until the 2014 season, but the Patriots were annually one of the best-coached and most complete rosters in the league.
For years, the Patriots had their selection of veterans as players wanted to play for a Super Bowl contender and learn from Belichick’s coaching. Just think of all the additions over the years like Rodney Harrison, Corey Dillon, Randy Moss, Junior Seau, Wes Welker, Donte Stallworth, Adalius Thomas, Darrelle Revis, Brian Waters, Brandin Cooks, and Stephon Gilmore.
But in recent years, players want to go to teams like the Chiefs, 49ers, Eagles, Rams, and Bills to compete for championships. One of the only big-name, quality players the Patriots have been able to land since 2020 was pass rusher Matt Judon from Baltimore, who joined the team in 2021 and has 32 sacks in 38 games. Unfortunately, he tore his biceps and may not be back until December, if he comes back at all this season.
You have to go back to the early 1990s before coach Bill Parcells arrived to find the last time the Patriots had this weak of a roster. That is the failing of Belichick the GM, which has a direct impact on Belichick the coach.
Exceptionally Poor Drafting
- Setting Christian Gonzalez (injured rookie corner) aside, the Patriots have not truly hit on a first-round pick since they took Chandler Jones and Dont’a Hightower way back in 2012.
- The Patriots have whiffed on most recent drafts, getting almost nothing out of their classes since 2017.
- The best Patriots players drafted since 2017 are Deatrich Wise, Michael Onwenu, Kyle Dugger, Mac Jones, Rhamondre Stevenson, Marcus Jones, and Christian Gonzalez. Yikes.
- The only Pro Bowlers drafted by Belichick since 2014 are Joe Thuney (a guard who made it with the Chiefs last year), Jake Bailey (a punter no longer with the team), and Mac Jones (a deep alternate selection in 2021).
This is why the cupboard is so bare in 2023. The team’s best players retired or moved on, good free agents don’t want to come here anymore, and they drafted Sony Michel, N’Keal Harry, and Tyquan Thornton instead of Nick Chubb, Deebo Samuel, and George Pickens.
The AFC East Is No Longer a Cakewalk
Figures, Brady left, and the division finally got good. We will never see a team with an advantage in their division for so long like the Patriots had in the AFC East in the 2000s and 2010s. Every year, it was Brady and Belichick while the Dolphins, Bills, and Jets continued to bomb at finding their quarterback and head coach to compete.
What did the Jets have? Rex Ryan for a 2-year run. Chad Pennington was good every other year starting in 2002, and he even won the division twice for the 2002 Jets and 2008 Dolphins, but he was always hurt every other year.
Miami really didn’t have anything else going for it outside of that Wildcat season in 2008, the year Brady tore his ACL in Week 1 when the Patriots became the last team to win 11 games and miss the playoffs. It was not until the drafting of Tua Tagovailoa in 2020 and the hiring of Mike McDaniel in 2022 that the Dolphins established something.
Buffalo had terrible quarterback play and coaching hires for years until finally getting Sean McDermott (2017) and drafting Josh Allen (2018).
The results speak for themselves. Since his breakout year in 2020, Allen is 6-1 against Belichick’s Patriots with only the wind game in 2021 going down as a loss. While Tua’s numbers are less impressive against New England, he has avoided the big mistakes in those games and is 5-0.
That’s an 11-1 mark by Buffalo and Miami against the Patriots since 2020. If only the Jets could ever find their coach and quarterback, these teams could really sink the Patriots to the bottom of the AFC.
Belichick’s Assistants Cannot be Trusted
Another problem is the coaching staff around Belichick, which has gone from having people like Romeo Crennel, Dean Pees, and Brian Flores in his defensive ear to promoting his son Steve as the team lacks a true defensive coordinator.
But the bigger problem is on offense as Joe Judge and Matt Patricia were a disaster in replacing Josh McDaniels in 2022. Bill O’Brien has no answers so far this year, but do not overlook another loss in long-time offensive line coach Dante Scarnecchia.
Considered the best offensive line coach in NFL history, Scarnecchia retired for good after the 2019 season. That means the Patriots have had to navigate this post-Brady time without him, and the results just seem to decline each year as the inadequacies with the rest of the offensive roster are exposed by the line not being up to par.
We can crack jokes about what Matt Patricia really does with that pencil in his ear, but the loss of Scarnecchia is another one of those hidden factors as to why the Patriots are no longer good in the 2020s.
Conclusion: Will Belichick Tarnish His Legacy in New England?
Time will tell if the last two weeks were an anomaly or if this team is just going to get embarrassed on a consistent basis. But this is not a salvageable season for the playoffs, so the question will be if the Patriots move on from Belichick after 2023 ends.
He will be 72 in 2024, and you know he is motivated to set the all-time wins record for a coach. Belichick has 330 wins (299 regular season, 31 playoffs), which only trails the 347 wins by Don Shula (328 regular season, 19 playoffs). Belichick needs 18 wins for the all-time wins record and 30 regular-season wins for the record in regular-season play. The first one sounds more doable for sure, but it could take him until 2025 or beyond with the way things are going here.
Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft does not seem like the type who would fire Belichick after everything they have experienced together from success to scandal. It will likely be a mutual parting of the ways if it happens before Belichick is ready to retire.
That might be the best move for both sides.
Belichick can go to a fresh team with better players in place, and maybe he can concede general manager duties to someone smart and allow him to focus on the coaching side of things.
The Patriots can move in a new direction in a game that has changed a lot since Belichick was hired in 2000. There is a reason teams want people from the coaching trees of Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, and Sean McVay instead of what Belichick does in New England. His assistants have largely flopped on their own.
Belichick is still a defensive whiz in a league where it is increasingly hard to excel on that side of the ball. Holding the 2023 Dolphins to 24 points looks like a real achievement given they dropped 70 points a week later against Denver.
But things have been lacking on the offensive side for years now, and it does not look like it will get better any time soon. We may see Belichick on top of the NFL again before he calls it a career, but that will likely be with a different team.
The Patriots will make their way back to the top of the AFC East someday as these reigns are cyclical. But that will likely be with a different coach and a real quarterback. The mystique is all gone here.
The days of the Belichick-coached Patriots being a contender are over to the delight of 31 teams. But all good things come to an end. This dynasty still lasted longer than The Beatles and disco.
But if Belichick wanted to channel his inner Phil Jackson, then maybe he would jump ship to a better team in 2024 to try becoming the first head coach to win a Super Bowl with two different franchises. Remember, it’s not like Phil went back to the Bulls after Jordan and everyone left to coach a team with Toni Kukoc, Ron Harper, and Brent Barry. Even if he did, at least social media didn’t exist yet for annoying MJ fans to question Jackson’s greatness when he failed to win another 60 games and a championship with that roster.
Losing 34-0 at home to Derek Carr should put things in perspective that it’s better to enjoy success while you have it than to argue about the division of credit for it.
