In terms of roster builds and organizational philosophies surrounding our Boston sports teams, things seem to be out of balance nearly across the board. The one exception being the Celtics, whose team build through the vision of their former coach and now established President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens, is adding to the team right where it currently stands, that of a legitimate championship contender.
As for the Patriots, Red Sox and Bruins? Well, the shoes and the belt simply don’t match. This is no longer the era of the double dynastic Belichick, Theo Epstein, Dave Dombrowski, Danny Ainge and Peter Chiarelli where my organizational confidence was sky high. Times have changed and so has confidence with our teams’ leadership. With the NFL season just days away, let’s start with the team that has left most fans in the region scratching their collective heads.
The Patriots
The most curious case of them all stands alone at One Patriot Place. Home to six Super Bowl championships and an unprecedented run of success in the 21st century. No organization has enjoyed more success, earned more of your trust, or evoked more confidence into a fan base than the Patriots under the leadership of Bill Belichick. That’s still the ‘recent-enough’ past. However, the question for the near future even given their unprecedented level of success is simply this; how are you feeling now?
I’ll start. I’m confused, confounded and searching for answers. Three feelings I haven’t felt regarding the Patriots too often during the last 20-plus years, other than the annual emotional roller coaster of the NFL Draft, where the curious often overrides what appears to be obvious. A long string of curious drafts have been survived to the tune of two decades of contention but there was always enough organizational stability, not to mention the presence of one Tom Brady that acted as a putty or flex seal solution to all of the team’s perceived holes. This season is feels a lot different though. For the first time since 2000, I’m less concerned about the players on the field than I am the curious crew that is coaching them.
Back in February, after Josh McDaniels was wooed away by the Las Vegas Raiders, I wrote about my concern about reaching the point of diminishing returns under the leadership of Belichick.
At that point, minimally having a clear path to hiring an established Offensive Coordinator to replace McDaniels was still in front of us. Yet my concerns of a succession plan, coaching brain drain, his age and increased workload remained. Fast forward through the spring, summer and now just days away from the season, matters have not improved. To quote Yoda in the Empire Strikes Back, “now, matters are worse.”
While the drafts in the last two years appear to be stronger than in years prior, a new issue has surfaced that could slow the progress of the valuable assets they have acquired. Can this cast of Belichick lieutenants coach these guys up and optimize their performance? Is not having an experienced, NFL level, offensive mind helping to develop their young and capable quarterback Mac Jones setting him and the organization up for failure? Worse, is that happening during what is well known and proven to be a critical year of NFL growth and performance for their quarterback of the present and hopeful future? Many a talented quarterback has been ruined by the lack of support around them, Sam Darnold comes to mind amongst too many others. What’s troubling me though, is I never thought I’d have to worry about that with a Belichick led Patriots organization but here we are.
Bottom line, I am of the mind that Bill Belichick in his 70th year needs more help in the front office and on the sideline to prepare this team for this season and the future. The current support structure that Belichick created to date is not evoking much confidence that his team is prepared enough for the grind ahead nor the future to come.
The Red Sox
Talk about the belt not matching the shoes… This is white pants after Labor Day, orange shoes, red socks, pink hats and rainbow-colored Hawaiian shirts. Lots not mixing well over on Jersey Street and I put it all squarely on the shoulders of The Chief Baseball Officer, Chaim Bloom. Like the dress code described above, the plan doesn’t match the team and the team and the town don’t match the planner.
The 2021 Red Sox were a World Series contender. What that team needed in the offseason to reinforce its roster was the addition of a legitimate closer, which never happened. The other piece was simple. That would have been the resigning of the current National League Homerun leader Kyle Schwarber, which has been well chronicled to not have been earnestly pursued. I find that absolutely shocking, given the contract he signed for, the impact he made here and the fact that he was an easy in-house solution to succeed J.D. Martinez as the designated hitter for 2023 and beyond. The Red Sox had the resources to accomplish both, but neither was achieved. The rest is history.
The 2022 Red Sox have lacked power in the lineup and consistency out of the bullpen all year long and those paying attention have been chronicling it for months. I wrote about Bloom’s lack of plan months ago myself.
This doesn’t require a mathematician’s level of analysis. I think Bloom is a really smart man. I believe that he can identify emerging talent at the minor league level. We’ve seen him make shrewd acquisitions for undervalued major league talent too. All of that I like. However, those cannot be your sole skills to create and sustain a Major League contender. It cannot be the only skills you deploy in a market like Boston, where the expectation surrounding the Red Sox has been to compete at the highest level and do so with a keen eye on fortifying the major league roster. Particularly when the roster was already built to do so.
This season is an epic failure in terms of the Red Sox roster construction and fortification and that falls squarely on the man responsible for assembling the team. Bloom is a smart and shrewd evaluator of talent and a good communicator but I feel like his core belief system in terms of building a team is simply not a match for this roster, team, brand or market. I’d hire him to lead my scouting department any day and I’d nurture him to be in his current role again someday under the mentorship of a proven, winning, Major League General Manager. That time however, in this market, with this team does not appear to be today.
The Bruins
The worst place you can be in sports is exactly where the Bruins are. Too good to rebuild and not good enough to be a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. Worse, this isn’t the first time. It was a tenant of the Bruins organization for most of my lifetime before the Peter Chiarelli era but more importantly, it’s not the first time the Bruins have been in this place in the current era under Don Sweeney’s leadership.
Since the Bruins Stanley Cup near miss in 2019, the team’s once championship core has declined before our eyes and there just hasn’t been enough coming up through the ranks to keep that core’s level sustainable. Sweeney’s track record as GM is the polar opposite to Bloom of the Red Sox. His strength is Bloom’s weakness and his weakness is Bloom’s strength.
In terms of the deadline deals that Sweeney has pulled off the last two years, I have zero complaints.
Acquiring the talented Taylor Hall at what was his lowest value was an absolutely brilliant stroke and it gave that 2020-2021 team a chance. This year’s deadline deal for Hamphus Lindholm was a great stroke for the season and the future too. In terms of Sweeney’s annual trade deadline prowess, I say bravo. Like Bloom, however, that skill is only part of the job.
The drafts under Sweeney have not been great. Providence, home to the Bruins AHL affiliate seems to consistently lack NHL-ready talent to dip into. The infamous 2015 draft that featured three first-round picks to date has not come close to fulfilling the promise that that yield should have.
As it stands now, only one organization of our core four seems to have the right team-building focus that matches where their team stands. The Celtics have a young core, poised to contend for a championship and Stevens is acting accordingly, adding to his core and building onto it. Belichick has built a competitive roster (not stacked but competitive) but with his current coaching structure has left too much to chance. Bloom and Sweeney have shown to have some of the required skills to build a winner but their resumes in Boston to date show clear gaps.
If your confidence isn’t what it used to be in terms of where our teams stand, look upstairs.