For more than two decades, the Patriots have been considered a model franchise in the NFL.
The greatest dynasty in modern sports earned that recognition as the triumphant triumvirate of owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady dominated the league to the tune of nine Super Bowl trips and six championships from 2001-2019.
But for the last three-plus years New England has lived off its reputation as its on-field results have been anything but impressive or reminiscent of those glory days gone by, causing many to wonder whether Brady’s free agent departure in 2020 should have been the impetus for the Kraft family to start over and usher in a new era of Patriots football.
Sunday afternoon those calling for such a New England reboot were emboldened by the team cratering yet again in a 34-0 loss to the very much mediocre Saints in front of the home crowd at Gillette Stadium. The second-worst loss of the Belichick era coming just a week removed from the worst, the 38-3 meltdown in Dallas.
Mac Jones, the former first-round pick once thought of a possible franchise QB, was benched yet again after a series of turnovers dug a hole New England was yet again incapable of digging out of.
The ugly, embarrassing loss sent the Foxborough “Faithful” heading for the exits early and Belichick once again searching for answers that simply don’t seem to exist.
“Start all over,” Belichick said.
Start over? Five weeks into the regular season, another game on the immediate horizon with Sunday’s trip to Las Vegas to take on Josh McDaniels’ Raiders? What does that mean?
“Starting over,” Belichick explained without a hint of explanation.
In 2020, moving on from Brady felt like some form of starting over.
A year later drafting Jones and handing him the starting job as a rookie felt like starting over.
Spending hundreds of millions of Kraft’s dollars that same offseason felt like starting over and going in a new direction.
Adding Matt Groh to the “collaborative” draft and free agent efforts was a significant step in the eyes of some.
Hell, bringing Bill O’Brien in to run the offense and Adrian Klemm to cull together a competent offensive line this offseason had a productive, advancing expectation.
Yet none of what’s been done over the last three-plus years has really worked. The Patriots are worse off today than they’ve been in more than 30 years dating back to the pre-Drew Bledsoe, pre-Bill Parcells days in New England.
The present is as bleak as it’s been in generations. And the future, not much brighter other than the loser’s lament hope of a high draft pick and plenty of cap space to spend because the roster is essentially bare of talent to actually spend money on.
If starting over is really Belichick’s plan. And if we’re being honest, there’s really only one option for that kind of a mentality and move.
It’s about moving forward at some point without the soon-to-be 72-year-old brains behind the greatest dynasty in football history.
Losses like the Patriots have suffered the last two weeks. To fall to 1-4 on a young season. Following a losing season without the playoffs. Adding to a stretch of likely three losing seasons in four years.
It all puts everything on the table.
Belichick’s right, it makes starting over a real possibility and a real need right now in New England.
When the Hall of Fame coach removed Jones from the debacle in Dallas he said “there was no sense in leaving” his starting QB in the game given the results of the day.
Using that logic, what’s the sense of continuing to leave Belichick in charge of the football operation in New England? Because he won six Super Bowls? Because he was one of the greatest football minds to ever walk the planet? Because of, as he described it, “the last 25 years”?
This is about the present. And the future.
And starting all over.
Which as Belichick himself so accurately pointed out after Sunday’s latest bottoming out of the Patriots, is what it looks like it’s going to take in New England.
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