New England Patriots know the blueprint to success

The New England Patriots have been writing the blueprint to success for the past twenty years.

What has been so great about being a fan of the New England Patriots is the almost promised consistency week after week and year after year, for two straight decades. The consistency being… success.

A great team is built on rapport, chemistry, and trust. A large part of the New England Patriots’ success over the years has been the ability to keep the same players for long periods of time. Tom Brady has put in twenty-years, Julian Edelman’s done eleven-years, and Devin McCourty has given ten years.

The other part to their success has been the willingness of Bill Belichick to delegate jobs/roles throughout his staff when he knows he needs to. He also always tries to build from within before looking elsewhere in regards to his coaching staff. The “next man up” mentality is surely in effect for the coaches as well.

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What we’re beginning to experience with the historic dynasty of the New England Patriots over the last decade is everyone is aging and it feels like it’s happening all at once. When it happens all at once like this, it becomes extremely challenging to replace all the pieces (players and coaches).

One piece the New England Patriots have never had to worry about replacing is their starting quarterback, Tom Brady. Although, this off-season has the chance to be very different for everyone involved. Tom Brady will become an unrestricted free agent for the first time in his amazing career and could potentially be interested in testing out the market.

Having the luxury of Tom Brady for the past twenty years has allowed the New England Patriots to cover up some of the flaws that lies within the team. The Patriots have always felt comfortable with sub-par pieces because they had the assurance of Tom Brady. The New England Patriots might not have that element of assurance from their quarterback next season.

Tom Brady has been in uncharted territory at 42 years old this past season and he will be entering even more uncharted territory by the start of next season when the six-time Super Bowl champion wants to continue playing for what will be his twenty-first season in the NFL at 43 years old.

It’s still unknown where the Patriots stand on resigning a 43-year-old quarterback, even if he is considered to be the greatest of all time. Of course it’d be great for Tom Brady to finish out his career in New England, but at what cost and will Robert Kraft step in and pull rank over Bill Belichick if things start to get messy?

Due to the NFL being a salary cap driven league, we know that the Patriots are not going to have as much available cap space as some of the other teams around the league who would love to have Tom Brady for a year or two and offer him whatever he wants for a contract.

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Tom Brady has said he’s going to keep an “open mind” about going into the off-season as a free agent for the first time in his career. It might be the unpopular opinion, but one of Brady’s supporters in testing out the market is his former teammate and future hall of fame tight end, Rob Gronkowski.

"“I truly believe that he deserves the opportunity to go explore, to see what’s out there. I mean, he’s been playing for so long, and just the way that he’s been playing, just the level he’s been playing at, he definitely deserves an opportunity to go out there and test the market.” – Gronk, per Conor Roche of Boston.com"

It all comes down to what Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft can come up with. But one thing is for sure, it’s going to be extremely weird to see Tom Brady donning the jersey of another team.

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