Mello Yello
Club Member
I think you and I probably agree that in the end, the Patriots didn't lose out on any great QB. Even on a good team he had little that he brought to the table that would've made him something special. Then again, in that 1st year he seemed to throw a great, arcing touch pass down the sideline which -- for the sake of being honest -- scared me a lot. That knack for dropping a clutch pass "in the bucket" always made Eli Manning aa annoyingly pesky QB who seemed to over-achieve. Initially, I was very concerned, particularly when the Patriots ranked above the Dolphins in 2021.
Morbidly, I kind of envy the Patriots being in position to rebuild without fear of "missing out" on what their past HC or QB might've been. It's a clean slate up there at this point and that comes with much more optimism (as we Dolfans well know). There's something very freeing in knowing that the moves you're making are the right ones, even if those are only to clean house.
No one disagrees that like it or not, our position is much more stressful as the pressure is beginning to grow around Grier, McDaniel and Tua to win Playoff games and justify the rebuild. Meanwhile solid players are leaving and Tyreek is getting himself in trouble off the field.
Ultimately I think we all sense it's a bit too late to be asking questions about whether or not the rebuild worked. It didn't. It's where we go from here that matters. At this point, we're just hoping to end up where the Cowboys have been lately--a perennially above-.500 team that occasionally wins a Playoff game. It's respectable but not really all that fulfilling. There's a kind of glass ceiling there.
Our GM doesn't create enough draft value to ever build a dominant team. We're never going to be what the Seahawks were a decade ago or what the 49ers have been recently. Such dreams are pretty silly, I think. If Tua were merely here to be our Russell Wilson or our Brock Purdy maybe there would be more hope. But I think we're stuck needing a heroic kind of QB who can pull more than his own weight--or perhaps a new GM who can actually build a better team through better drafting.
It's almost unfathomable to me that it's already been 5 years since we started down this path. I think the optimist crowd needs to understand how long 5 years is in the NFL. It's well beyond what most GMs and HCs get to prove they have the answer to a team's issues.
Who's to say? Maybe Mac Jones would still have a job in NE if the Patriots would've made plays for Mike McDaniel and signed Tyreek Hill 2 years ago? Is it our QB who's proven himself or all the investment made to prop him up? That's what worries me. This isn't totally Mac Jones failure. If that's the case, maybe this isn't totally Tua's success. In an NFL where most 2nd contracts look bad, why are we so quick to act--especially in the aftermath of Ryan Tannehill?
These two QBs both emerged from Bama with nearly identical output and in 2021 they were right beside each other in the NFL as well. The fact one was part of a collapse and the other is on the verge of being re-signed to a long-term deal gives one pause.
I don't think anyone believes their favorite team should re-sign players just because those players need a new contract. I don't think anyone wants to see player paydays come before team success. And I think we're all here to get it right, no matter who the GM, HC and QB are. Nobody can be sacred.
It's competition and that's why we watch. You should re-sign people who are demonstrably better than the average and who are the source of the success, the reason for a turnaround, someone who has led the team into difficult environments and emerged victorious, produced uncanny success when people didn't expect it, etc.
I think loading the team with talent and beating the bad teams is the opposite of, 'uncanny success people didn't expect.'
These QBs both starved under bad coaches. They both threw to the same guys: Devante Parker, Mike Gesicki, Malcolm Perry, etc. It's uncanny. Jonnu Smith is yet another name they will now share in common.
I think the failure of Mac Jones says a lot. You could likely prop him up well enough to justify re-signing him. But that isn't creating value or achieving anything of long-term significance.
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