With the Patriots about as far from playing in the Super Bowl as any team in the NFL, the only game being played these February days in New England is apparently one of blame.
A month removed from Bill Belichick’s removal – sorry, mutual parting of ways amicably! – fingers continue to be not-so-subtly pointed to explain why everything went oh so wrong in recent years in Foxborough.
There was the excuse-making from Mac Jones’ camp, his personal QB coaching telling us all if you recall just how hard it was for the poor former first-round pick to try to do his job with no help from the coaching or personnel around him. Whine-one-one is a joke in this town!
Then things really ramped up this week in Las Vegas as FOBB of the highest order – that’s a Friend of Bill Belichick for the uninformed – Michael Lombardi went on a rant on his podcast about Jones’ role in the bottoming out of the once-great franchise that’s left the New England dynasty a dead and buried distant memory. Oh, and has left his 71-year-old buddy Belichick unemployable at this point.
“Somebody’s gotta stand up for the guy, I mean the guy’s won six Super Bowls,” Lombardi said on his own “GM Shuffle” podcast, pushing back on Boston-based critiques of Belichick. “Did he treat Mac nicely? How ‘bout did Mac treat him nicely? Throwing f$%king interceptions all over the place. That’s what I want to do. Can we sit down and watch tape together? So I can show you how bad Mac played? Can I do that? Can I show you that a guy’s wide open here and he wouldn’t throw it to him even though they practiced that play 25 times in practice? Come on, man. Stop making excuses. It’s the same crap.”
That’s not exactly coming from the horse’s mouth, but it certainly feels like it’s from a Nantucket-based barn.
Then, just a few hours later, Patriots owner Robert Kraft chose to push back against, apparently, talk-radio narratives and fodder regarding he and his team’s financial approach over the years. Guess we’re not even pretending to ignore the noise at Gillette Stadium anymore!
“I know there’s a perception that we have held back on spending," Kraft told local reporters in an on-and-off-the-record meeting in Las Vegas via NBC Sports Boston "Let me just say, for our fans, that’s just not true. Look, we were blessed to have a coach in our system who was a great coach and also understood value. He ran a tight ship.
"They say we've been low spenders in the last 10 years, and that might be true. But we had a pretty good record. And we won three Super Bowls. But our coaches have always had the ability to spend at whatever level they wanted. I think Bill was always thinking about the future and really understood value. But we never held back with any of the coaches we’ve had over the last 30 years.
"They’ve been able to get whatever they want.”
So to summarize the situation we now know where everyone stands, either directly or through the reading of the tea leaves left about by the various camps. Kraft blames Belichick. Belichick blames Jones. Jones blames Belichick and just about everyone else around him.
And maybe there’s some truth to all of it.
But at this point, who the F cares?
It all fell apart. It all went horribly wrong. The damage is more than done, my friends.
The only person who looks good these days in the rubble of the Patriots dynasty is Tom Brady. Again.
Instead of pointing fingers – directly or indirectly, personally or through back-avenues – how ‘bout we all just grow up, move on and make the best of what the future holds?
Is that too much to ask for? Probably.
Although to be fair, this finger-pointing Spiderman meme certainly gives fans and media plenty to react to at a time when we all used to react to actual big football games.
So, on second thought, keep playing the blame game. Keep pointing those fingers weighed down by Super Bowl rings.
Sadly, it’s the only game in the world of New England football right now and the most interesting game played by the Patriots in a quite some time.