Bill Belichick’s Effect On Football Writing Is Getting Old

Widespread opinions about different NFL franchises and front offices dictate the narrative of most offseason storylines. In a way it makes sense. The NFL is one of the most unpredictable leagues from week to week, let alone season to season. Heading into the year David Johnson and LeVeon Bell were the two most unstoppable offensive weapons, now one is injured, likely out for most of the season, and the other hasn’t had much of an impact since returning from a hold out. So I get it. The Washington professional football team is mismanaged and stupid, most of their moves are probably not going to work out. And the Cleveland Browns can’t get anything right; let’s save time by assuming that they will finish in the bottom half of the league. But this idea really starts to bother me when people blindly hurl accolades at moves that are obviously not that great just because a successful team made them. No other team, or executive, gets more of a benefit of the doubt than Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots. And again, I understand the reason they want to do it; they’ve won basically every super bowl since I graduated high school ten plus years ago, but ignoring logic and reason to just say, “Well, it’s Bill Belichick and the Patriots so of course it will work,” is lazy and annoying.

The Patriots made a ton of moves this offseason, and while I’m one-hundred percent sure they will win the AFC East (Who else could, the Jay Cutler led Miami Dolphins…?), and probably another super bowl because they always fucking do, I think most of them were terrible and could be the beginning of the end for their dynasty. I know what you’re thinking, “Who the fuck does this guy think he is? I’m sure Bill Belichick knows more about building a team then some random guy on the internet,” and I would agree with you, but hear me out before you completely make up your mind.

This offseason, the entire NFL community, and every fucking person on twitter, laughed and tweeted that stupid metaphor about one person playing chess while everyone else plays checkers (which is fucking stupid and outdated because the only people who play checkers anymore are four year olds who are too stupid to use an iPhone) as Belichick was bucking conventional wisdom and unloading all of his draft picks for veteran players nearing the end of their rookie contracts. Even though everyone up until that point agreed that the new rookie wage scale made acquiring young salary controlled players through the draft the best way to have sustainable success, but Belichick doesn’t think so anymore, so none of us do either. For the sake of argument let’s take a look at the players he got: TE James O`Shaugnesy, cut before week 1; DL Kony Ealy, cut before week 1; TE Dewayne Allen, three targets and zero catches; Brandin Cooks, five catches and zero touchdowns; not exactly setting the world on fire through two games. In all fairness he also gave up a fifth round pick to sign Mike Gillislee, and he already has three touchdowns which is pretty good, but there is more to his story that I’ll get to later.

The bottom line is he made a shit ton of trades that left him with a total of four draft picks, only one of which is actually playing with the team, and maybe it won’t come back to bite them in the ass this year, but in a couple of years when Brandin Cooks wants a new big money deal, and Dwayne Allen is still looking for his first catch as a New England Patriot, members of the 2017 draft class will be coming into their third year, still making peanuts compared to their veteran counterparts, playing on special teams or contributing as starters. While no one is going to argue that the draft is predictable and easy to navigate; the success rate for first round picks is less than ideal, but is the veteran route much better? With the potential for injury so high and with many players struggling to fit into a new offense or defense you never really know for sure what will happen. Bill Belichick went the “safer” veteran route and got a pile of dog shit for his effort.

Then there is the one trade he didn’t make, Jimmy Garoppolo for a top fifteen pick plus an additional third or fourth that he should have made. One of the key parts to the Patriots success is of course Tom Brady, not because he is arguably the best quarterback in the history of the NFL, but because he is arguably the best quarterback in the history of the NFL and annually restructures his contract to free up salary cap space. This year, Tom Brady’s cap hit is fourteen million dollars; that just happens to be the same as Mike Glennon. Yeah, this Mike Glennon.

There are eighteen other quarterbacks in the NFL that will have a higher cap hit then Brady’s fourteen million. Eighteen! Such players as, Joe Flacco, Carson Palmer, Ryan Tannehill, Andrew Luck, Alex Smith, and the Red Rifle Andy Dalton will take up more of their teams salary cap then Brady does; two of them haven’t played a game this year and another two that there teams probably wish hadn’t. Come next year another name will likely be added to that list, Jimmy Garoppolo. At the end of the 2017 season the Patriots will be faced with a difficult situation without a real great way out. Garoppolo’s rookie contract will expire, making him one of the most sought after free agents ever. The Patriots could try to sign him to a contract extension; not likely unless they send Tom Brady packing. Could Bill really do that? In the past, he has gotten rid of some established veterans for cheaper younger options, but it’s hard to imagine that even he would do that, and Jimmy G won’t be cheaper. Another option would be to franchise him and potentially get two first round picks if a team signs him. That is probably their best bet, but would present a pretty significant risk since the franchise tag for Garoppolo would be around twenty-four million dollars and if no team signed him the Patriots would be shit out of luck — I doubt Tommy B would be willing to take a big enough pay cut to make that one work out. Their final option would be to let him leave and get nothing but perhaps a comp pick in the 2019 draft, which leads back to the whole point of this article, why would we not drill Belichick for not trading this prized asset before the draft? People have argued that it was smart — of course they did — with the state of backup quarterbacks being what it presently is, having one that could come in and win games is the best thing to do, but if Brady goes down do we really think the Patriots are going to win the super bowl? Basically they took a major asset, kept him even though he won’t play, only to trade him a year later for a worse package or lose him for nothing. If any other team did that they would rightly be raked over the coals.

The failure to trade Jimmy Garoppolo wasn’t the only move they made that makes little sense from a salary cap or team construction point of view. Do you remember when I mentioned Mike Gillislee earlier? He’s the one with three touchdowns, and the one that has everyone crooning about another player that the Patriots stole from the hapless Buffalo Bills. The only problem is it wasn’t free and if you add him to the rest of the running back group they have, it’s actually kind of a lot of money. Gillislee will make $3.96 million this year and Rex Burkhead signed for $3.15 million. The Patriots also have two other running backs, James White, who just got a contract extension and will make $1.78 million, and Dion Lewis who has a year left at $1.48 million. Add all those up and you have a total of $10.37 million being paid to their running backs. Do you know how many running backs make more than $10.37 million? One. LeVeon Bell. Now let me ask you a question. Would you rather have those four jerk offs and a couple of million dollars or one LeVeon Bell. Yeah, I’d take LeVeon Bell too. Or they could have not signed Burkhead, not given up a fifth round pick and four million dollars for Gillislee, and just resigned LeGarrette Blount (signed with Philadelphia for one year, $1.25 million), who had eighteen touchdowns last year, and drafted one of the many talented running backs that came out in this year’s draft. Through two games it’s pretty safe to say that there are a few really good ones that could have been had for a relatively low pick. Kareem Hunt, who destroyed the Patriots in the first game, was picked in the third round, his salary $687,000. Or they could have paired Blount with Tarik Cohen, the small guy who seems like the perfect pass catching back that would absolutely kill teams in the Patriots offense; he was picked in the fourth round and makes $623,000. Or they could have kept James White and Dion Lewis, told old LeGarrette ‘Smokes too many’ Blounts to get lost, and drafted Chris Carson in the seventh round, and paid him $481,000 to be the back that rushes five times a game for seven yards and three touchdowns. But they didn’t; they gave up a fifth round pick and eight million dollars for two veterans. But it’s not just the salary that is a problem; it’s the years of control. Burkhead and Lewis will both be free agents next year, meaning the Pats will have to spend either money or draft picks to replace them. Gillislee will be a free agent in 2019, leaving only James White left. Meanwhile the three rookies mentioned above will all be under contract through the 2020 season at less than a million dollars for each year.

Again this isn’t an article arguing that Bill Belichick is a moron and that I am the smartest football mind in the world; it’s to point out that a lot of these moves don’t make sense, and not only do they not make sense they actually seem like they could be detrimental to the team’s future. Scanning other teams’ rosters and finding potential gems is smart (see Randy Moss for a fourth round pick), signing restricted free agents isn’t necessarily bad, but getting rid of nearly all of your draft capital can lead to major problems. Like a lack of depth throughout your roster, or salary cap issues caused by having to use free agency to build your team instead of just adding to it, and no one seemed to even bother to stop and ask, “Was that actually a good deal? Or do we just like it because the Patriots did it?”