New England Patriots: The 2020 offseason is one to forget

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New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /

Projecting New England Patriots success (or failure) in the 2020 NFL season.

The New England Patriots are entering a new era in their 60-year (including as the Boston Patriots) existence. For the first time in their history, they must retool a perennial Super Bowl contending team. They have had big losses.

I won’t belabor the point I’ve made before, the loss of No. 12 is incalculable to the team. The “trust in whomever” people think that’s it’s merely a minor reversal and inserting an experience-less quarterback will be just fine. It won’t be.

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The 2020 New England offseason has been a bore. After losing the most famous, exciting, winningest, and polarizing player in their history and that of the league, the Patriots laid an egg this offseason. They really did nothing to bring back the focus where it has been for the past 20 years, on the New England Patriots.

Under Tom Brady, it was the Patriots, and everyone else. They dominated the media. They dominated public attention, and they dominated the rest of the league. The team won 6 Super Bowls under No. 12 in 19 years. It could have, should have been more.

I’ve made my view perfectly clear, bad personnel management precluded them from winning double-digit Super Bowls under the greatest quarterback, the greatest winner in NFL history.

It’s a shame, at least for New England fans. But through inattention, a lack of appreciation, and poor leadership, Brady has now taken his talents elsewhere, and the Patriots and their fans will be the worse for it.

Once the franchise’s icon left, have the Patriots moved aggressively to replace him and his monumental contributions? That’s a rhetorical question. Of course, they haven’t.

Frankly, they haven’t really done much of anything to make up for the loss of the best.

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