Two months ago, youthfully energetic new Patriots coach Jerod Mayo proclaimed on The Greg Hill Show on WEEI that New England would be “bringing in talent, 1,000-percent. We have a lot of cap space and cash. We’re ready to burn some cash!”
Then last month at the NFL Scouting Combine the apparent head of the Patriots’ personnel department, Eliot Wolf, declared that one of his goals was to “weaponize the offense.”
Both comments by the leaders of the new collaborative supposedly in charge at Gillette Stadium were music to the ears of most Patriots fans. It was hope after a hopeless final season of the Bill Belichick era in New England. The Dynasty was certainly dead, but the rebound and rebirth of the franchise from the depths of the standings had, apparently, begun!
Or so we thought.
Two days ago, though, the NFL’s legalized tampering period began and costly, tempting talent began trading addresses across the league. Stars were signing and realigning with new teams. Trades were taking place.
Time to burn some cash and weaponize all in one fell swoop! Right? Hello? Is this thing on?
So far in New England there’s been little in terms of talent acquisition. Mostly, the new-look management team has re-signed its own players on seemingly pretty friendly contracts. Its biggest additions to date a backup running back who had more fumbles than touchdowns a year ago and an aging journeyman tight end.
No currency-fueled bonfires of the talent vanity. No weapons to speak of.
Sadly, in many ways, it feels like the status is quo as some GOAT genius used to like to say.
In fact, the Patriots have apparently been unable to lure a would-be top receiving target from the rich football history and real-world draw that is Jacksonville. Of course who could beat out or outbid a place with a slogan as enticing as “Jax. It’s easier here.”?
Let that soak in. The team couldn’t or wouldn’t do enough to address its biggest need and add the top receiver on the market, Calvin Ridley betting that he’d have a better future as a Jaguar.
That hurts. That leaves a mark.
And that’s the current reality in the football offices of Gillette Stadium.
Nothing close to a spending spree has taken place.
No exciting talent or optimistic potential has entered the equation for a team that finished a dismal 4-13 a year ago.
Nope.
Just re-signing talent from rudderless squad that left Patriot Nation voters seemingly disinterested and disenfranchised by a franchise that was once seen as the NFL measuring stick both on the field and in terms of organizational stability.
Not anymore.
Now a band that produced cringe-worthy football music is being kept together. For a song.
So far the Patriots offseason is lesson in what a bad idea it is to overpromise and under-deliver.
Right now the Patriots simply feel cheap, both in terms of their promising but misleading talk and their inactivity in trying to turn around the talent problem in New England.
Actions and inactivity speak much louder than words.
Right now the actions of the offseason – “parting ways” supposedly “amicably” with Belichick and trading former first-round pick and presumed franchise QB Mac Jones – tell us what the returning and remaining power structure of the Krafts, Mayo and Wolf believed to be the biggest issues and reasons why New England was a terrible football team last year.
With those two assigned albatrosses now gone maybe Mike Onwenu, Hunter Henry, Kendrick Bourne, Josh Uche and Anfernee Jennings will be freed to succeed!
The once-successful but long-since-failed frugality remains the apparent way of doing business in Foxborough.
And we can’t blame that on Belichick anymore.
It is what it is.
As The Who told us decades ago in their critique of revolutions and power…
Meet the new boss.
Same as the old boss.
Oh well, guess we have the draft to look forward to. Burn some picks, baby!