Belichick, Patricia, and Judge may have just lit the time bomb that ends their careers. In light of the utter collapse the Patriots suffered against the Raiders from the Meyers-lateral, the reports and rumors spreading from that locker room makes it seem like its ready to explode.
This is a textbook example of how coaching negligence and arrogance not only destroys any and all on-field success, but also ruins a once zip-tight locker room.
Even during the darkest and most trying moments of the Patriots championship winning years, such as Brady’s ACL tear in 2008 that ended his and the Patriots chances of making it back to the Super Bowl after the 16-0 season, the 42-27 loss to the Chiefs Week 1 of the 2017 season, or even the 41-33 Super Bowl loss to the Eagles in 2018, the Patriots locker room and coaching staff never splintered.
Everyone knew their roles when they won and how to fix what went wrong when they lost.
The organization was tighter than a bank vault. Hell, even after the utterly humiliating 47-17 Wild Card loss to the Bills last playoffs, there wasn’t a massive fuss from the locker room about coaching or play calls. Sure, fans were rightfully annoyed that the Pats got blown out by 30 points, but the team seemed pretty confident that they would comeback better next season.
Obviously, that couldn’t be further from the truth right now.
Whether its Mac Jones screaming at Belichick and Patricia on the sidelines over stupid play calls, Belichick calling out Mac in his press conference in passive-aggressive ways, players liking posts about replacing Jones or one of the coaches (cough…Trent Brown…cough), or players taking matter into their own hands and pulling that lateral play against the Raiders, the Patriots organization is in more disarray than the past twenty years combined and then multiplied by 10.
It’s a mess.
Clearly, nobody on that offense wants to even speak to Matt Patricia and his pencil, let alone listen to him give them the same screen passes and running calls over and over again. I’d be ready to explode like Jones, Kendrick Bourne, and some other offensive players have done this season. There is a level of disrespect between the coaching staff and the players that hasn’t ever been a part of the Kraft-lead Patriots regime.
Plus, like I said, this is extremely uncharacteristic of the Patriot Way, which was the fundamental tenet of the two dynasties (2001-04; 2014-19) the Patriots had these past twenty years.
I mentioned this in another article, but I see Bill Belichick heading down the same path Arsene Wenger, the great Arsenal manager from 1996-2018, traveled during the final years of his reign over The Gunners. Just like Belichick, Wenger was the oldest coach in the Premier League and would stubbornly abide by the extremely successful tenets he established 20+ years ago, though they had grown outdated by 2015-18.
And, due to said tenets, Wenger suffered from disgruntled players, outdated tactics and schemes, and had questionable coaching hires and decisions, and angry fans, thus resulting in Arsenal falling from atop the Premier League to being the 4th-6th best team in England.
See the similarities?
Unless Belichick clears house on offense with his coaching staff, I don’t see Robert Kraft settling for another year of mediocrity and boneheaded mistakes from a team that he helped bring from irrelevancy to being the joint most successful franchise in NFL history.
Belichick is sitting on a ticking time bomb and the fuse is about to ignite.
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