For The First Time In 22 Years...

The Pats are 0-2. You love to see it

https://stathead.com/tiny/AzQNU

It's a beautiful thing!

That team misses Brady so much they are ripe for a total implosion. A couple more losses could do it.

Not only do I think Buffalo will destroy them, the Jets could beat them also as their defense will annihilate Mac Jones and the Dolphins castoffs (Parker and Gesicki).

The Pats have the same problem they have had for a while: They lack a true #1 WR. A speed demon WR that can take the top off the defense, or FORCE the Defense to Adjust to his presence. Like Ty Hill does for the Phins Offense.

How can a HC as smart as Belicheck keep making these personnel mistakes? When he did them with Brady, Brady was able to cover up for the problem usually. But now... This sort of reminds me of Parcells when he took over the Phins; he was still trying to build a team to win in the NFL of the 80s and 90s and all his old outdated personnel opinions hamstrung the Phins yet again. I think we are seeing the same thing in NE. Belicheck got by with his personnel biases when he had Brady for a QB, and just does not seem to realize that things have CHANGED!

Which is great for the Phins. Maybe Belicheck and his biases will hang around for another decade or so!!

finfanatic wrote:The Pats have the same problem they have had for a while: They lack a true #1 WR. A speed demon WR that can take the top off the defense, or FORCE the Defense to Adjust to his presence. Like Ty Hill does for the Phins Offense.

How can a HC as smart as Belicheck keep making these personnel mistakes? When he did them with Brady, Brady was able to cover up for the problem usually. But now... This sort of reminds  me of Parcells when he took over the Phins; he was still trying to build a team to win in the NFL of the 80s and 90s and all his old outdated personnel opinions hamstrung the Phins yet again. I think we are seeing the same thing in NE. Belicheck got by with his personnel biases when he had Brady for a QB, and just does not seem to realize that things have CHANGED!

Which is great for the Phins. Maybe Belicheck and his biases will hang around for another decade or so!!

Almost every team develops draft blind spots somewhere. With this team, it's O-line. With the Pats, it's WR and was also DB until lately. That's why they kept having to spackle that hole with FAs like Moss, Welker, etc. and having that one season where they threw a lot to two TEs. But then the FA acquisitions dropped in quality as well. Brady definitely allowed Belichick to gloss over a LOT of things. A Hall Of Fame QB will do that. For example, Marino was able to keep Fins teams with bottom 5 Ds and running games at least kinda sorta in the playoff mix from '86-91.

Also, Belichick is 71 now and people that age don't handle change too well in general. Yes, Pete Carroll is actually older but he's one of those people who acts 25 no matter what age they are. Belichick on the other hand was probably acting 60 even when he was 20. It actually has a lot to do with how many prior lifetimes each person's had but that's a whole different topic.

Landry coached his last NFL game at 64. Shula at 65. Noll at 62. Vermeil, 69. Bud Grant, 58. Parcells, 65. Gibbs, 67. Reeves, 59. Walsh, 57. The oldest of them to win a title was Vermeil at 63.

Carroll does deserve credit, I never thought he would succeed at a third stop after bombing out in both NY and NE. But he's kinda like Belicheck, he lucked into a HOF QB in the later rounds and that 2012-2020 run with Wilson will likely end up putting Carroll in the HOF. He made the playoffs at 71, which is impressive. But he won his most recent title at 62.

I do wonder if Parcells might have bucked the trend if he could have coexisted with Jerry Jones for another year or two; he'd finally found a QB in Dallas. I will say I think Dallas would have had a better chance to win something with him than it turns out they had with Phillips or Garrett.