It was only three years ago when Sean McVay’s reverence for Bill Belichick lost the Rams the Super Bowl before it even started. The nascent Rams head coach kept extolling Belichick before kick-off, while Belichick seemed like he just wanted to get away.
How times have changed. At the NFL Draft Thursday, McVay and Rams general manager Les Snead, who both seemed to enjoy the libations at their Hollywood Hills hideout, reacted in shock when they were told the Patriots selected guard Cole Strange with the No. 29 overall pick.
Eventually, their shock turned into laughter. They couldn’t believe the Patriots drafted the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga product in the first round.
“How about that?,” McVay said. “We wasted our time watching him thinking he would be available at 104 maybe …. HAHAHAHAHA!”
As we know, it’s not uncommon for Belichick to go off the board on draft night. He relishes in drafting little-known prospects from small universities and players with backgrounds in rugby or other non-football endeavors. Back when the Patriots were winning Super Bowls, this was all part of the allure. Belichick seemed to just know more than anybody else.
But now, it’s part of the joke. The Patriots haven’t won a playoff game in three years and have holes all over their roster at premium positions: cornerback, linebacker, wide receiver.
And yet, they traded down in the first round, allowing the Chiefs to draft Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie with the No. 21 overall pick. Two selections later, the Bills moved up to nab Kaiir Elam, the cornerback from Florida. At No. 27, the Jaguars took athletic Utah linebacker Devin Lloyd, who was tied to the Patriots throughout the pre-draft process.
Then Belichick went with Strange. He was projected to last until the third round, but the Patriots grabbed him early.
That doesn’t sound like very good value.
The Patriots are no longer the gold standard. The Chiefs and Bills are superior organizations right now, and they took a much more aggressive approach. It’s hard to say Belichick is in the right when his team can’t even force Buffalo to punt.
As the rest of the NFL bursts towards a new high-octane era, the Patriots are stuck playing in the trenches. They don’t have any dynamic playmakers on offense and only one, Matthew Judon, on defense.
Belichick’s philosophy is out of date.
The grand irony is, the Patriots’ Super Bowl teams were full of All-Pros and possible Hall of Famers: Ty Law, Tedy Bruschi, Richard Seymour, Rodney Harrison, Vince Wilfork, Randy Moss, Wes Welker, Rob Gronkowski, Darrelle Revis, Chandler Jones, and oh yeah, the greatest of all-time: Tom Brady. Julian Edelman was a diamond in the rough, but on those teams, he was an outlier.
The Patriots weren’t only the best-coached team. They also boasted the best roster. Now those titles go to the Rams. They have impact players at every skill position and just keep adding. This offseason, they signed Pro Bowlers Allen Robinson and Bobby Wagner to compliment their championship core.
Last year, they traded two first-round picks for Matthew Stafford, who just led them to the Super Bowl, where they faced off against the Bengals. Former McVay assistant Zac Taylor is Cincinnati’s head coach. Four ex-McVay underlings are now head coaches, including Matt LeFleur, who’s won 13 games in each of his first three seasons with the Packers.
Meanwhile, Belichick’s top protégés, Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, napalmed their organizations before crawling back to New England.
The generous interpretation of McVay’s belly laugh is that he wasn’t mocking the Patriots, but rather expressing dismay that his hours of film study on Strange were for naught. NFL Media’s Mike Giardi and Andrew Siciliano both say the Rams evaluated Strange highly.
But they didn’t evaluate him as a first rounder, and that’s the point. Belichick took an offensive guard whom the Rams thought would last on the board deep into Friday night.
Recent history shows Belichick isn’t going to be the one with the last laugh.