New England Patriots Rumors: An offseason plan not so obvious
The New England Patriots may have an offseason plan they are implementing, it’s just hard to figure it out.
Clearly, part of the New England Patriots plan was to allow the best player in their history to leave with essentially nothing left behind him except a second-year player Jarrett Stidham, who has thrown the sum total of four passes in his NFL career.
Then they re-signed basically a perennial NFL backup quarterback whom they like personally but who has never cut it as a starter in the league, Brian Hoyer. So is that the plan for the most important position on their team and on any other NFL team? Hope not. If so, it’s a lousy plan.
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The next most important position on the team is offensive left tackle (assuming you have a right-handed quarterback). Before Tom Brady bolted, I argued that this was the most important position for them to address in the NFL draft, in the first round. Left tackle.
Now that Brady is gone, that situation has changed. They have a very talented but smaller left tackle in Isaiah Wynn.
Personally, I’d prefer to see Wynn in an inside position on the offensive line, e.g. offensive left guard, and a prototypical left tackle (e.g. aircraft carrier-like sized Mekhi Becton of Louisville) manning the left tackle position.
While they still need to draft a tackle higher up in this draft, that position now has to be subordinated to the main need, quarterback. They need to draft a quarterback in the first round. I’ve made no secret of my thought that drafting Jalen Hurts of Oklahoma in the first round is the way to go. That is if they really want to rebuild this team.
That gets us back to the plan. What is it? Do they have a plan? Their offseason thus far is almost indecipherable on that score.
Are they trying to rebuild or retool? Keep the old boys in place or move on? Just what are they trying to do? Or, maybe they’re just flying by the proverbial “seat of their pants” and making it up as they go along. That might be it.