The Patriots Biggest Problems are Exactly What Every Pats Fan Knew They'd Be
CJ GUNTHER. Shutterstock Images.If you have a "1" as the first digit of your birth year, it's likely that you were raised to believe in the power of the so-called experts. Whether it was the government, the military, the scientists, doctors, teachers, judges, business moguls, whoever is in charge. You were taught to give them the benefit of the doubt. To just assume they didn't get to positions of authority without knowing what they're doing, and to put your faith in them. No matter how obviously wrong they may seem at times. Because they're privy to information we in the great unwashed masses are not.
But if you've been paying attention in the 21st century, then you've likely caught onto how wrong that approach is. A lot of the time, the powers that be seem to be obviously wrong for the simply reason that they're obviously wrong. That there's no hidden, magical knowledge they possess. They're just as capable of Philistine pig-ignorance as the rest of us.
Take for example, Eliot Wolf and his front office. Every single New Englander with a Rob Gronkowski jersey, a dog named Brady or a Roger Goodell clown shirt identified two glaring problems as the summer rolled on:
1. The failure to address the offensive line.
2. The unwillingness to re-sign Matthew Judon.
These seemed like pretty glaring issues. Even if you wanted to give The Wolf and his new regime the benefit of the doubt, on the logic that he grew up learning at the knee of his Hall of Fame father and knew exactly what he was doing, you had to be a least somewhat concerned. To some extent, we were all Hooper telling the Mayor, "I know you're going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you in the ASS!"
And two weeks into the season, with another game coming up in two days, we're basically Chrissie Watkins.
Both when it comes to the pass protection (see Problem 1. above):
And the pass rush (Problem 2.):
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The deeper down these statistical and analytical rabbit holes you go, the worse it looks on both sides of the line of scrimmage. Their Pro Football Focus pass blocking grade is 54.7, which is 29th in the league. And the protection gets worse as games go on:
The NFL's own NextGen has their pass rush ranked even lower:
You could use the cliche of saying these numbers paint a dismal picture, but you'd be making the word "dismal" do too much heavy lifting. This is a nightmare. Hieronymus Bosch-level stuff.
On one side of the ball, teams are killing you with four rushers. On the other side, they're killing you unless you send five or more. Even with my Weymouth Public Schools math background, I can work those numbers. And it's basically playing 10, or even 9, on 11 for 60 minutes. Skating short handed on every shift of the game.
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Which would be tragic if it came out of nowhere. Let's say, if you lost your best left tackle and your edge rusher to injuries. And to be fair, they have in fact been missing Christian Barmore, one of the best interior rushers they've ever had. But that doesn't let The Wolf and the personnel department off the hook by any stretch. This situation isn't the result of bum luck or tough breaks. It's neglect.
Even as we speak, the Patriots are lying on a Smaug-sized pile of cap space, with $36,653,351 available that could've been spent on a professional left tackle. Instead they signed Chuks Okorafor, who was pulled from his right tackle duties in Pittsburgh. And whom they parted ways with 12 snaps into Week 1. Six of those plays were in pass protection, and he gave 3 pressures and a QB hit.
Had they picked up someone competent to anchor they O-line, they'd still have enough left over to hand Judon a big, cardboard "Thanks for Being Such a Great Signing" check for one final season. Instead of a draft pick, which won't be of much use until 50 weeks from now. Instead they've opted to rely on Keion White and Josh Uche, while gambling on the hope they can disguise the blitzes they're going to need more and more of once teams realize they've only got two legitimate pass rush threats.
I've been saying all year that wins and losses don't mean anything to me. I stand by that. The priority remains developing Drake Maye in order to compete for a playoff spot next year. Job 2 is to develop a young wide receiver depth chart. And both tasks are going to be next to impossible given the disastrous situation along the O-line. Fat lot of good it's going to do you to bring Maye in right now, and have him take the kind of abuse Caleb Williams is in Chicago. And things aren't working out in the wide receivers room either. Not when last year's breakout rookie wideout has taken 46 snaps and has 2 targets:
To come full circle and wrap this up, as much as you want to trust the experts, this is a situation that's one of their own making. Like Hooper and every other voice of reason in every disaster movie, we tried to warn them. But they … just … wouldn't … listen. And while I hope I'm wrong, now might be too late to do anything about it.