Andre Tippett, the New England Patriots All-Time best linebacker is not walking through that door, folks. Neither is Tedy Bruschi, another great. Both are retired.
In the past, the New England Patriots have often had tremendous talent at linebacker which at times has been the top strength of the defense. Those days are over.
The position is now littered with untested or not so productive younger players and one top player, Dont’a Hightower who opted out in 2020. Without Hightower, this group was mediocre at best.
Unlike other positions of need, linebacker and edge players have been given unusually high draft attention by the New England Patriots the past two years. In the 2019 draft, they invested a third-round pick in Chase Winovich from Michigan.
The New England Patriots addressed the linebacker position in the 2020 NFL Draft
In the 2020 draft, they invested even more heavily with two top picks. A second-round pick was invested in Josh Uche of Michigan and a third-round pick in Anfernee Jennings of Alabama. Neither of the 2020 picks did much to justify their high draft status (see below).
What has traditionally been an ongoing strength of the New England Patriots defense, linebacker/edge, is now a position of relative weakness.
Along with the previously explored defensive line, it is not a productive unit on a defense from which a lot more was expected. Highly touted in 2019 and 2020, the defense didn’t measure up to its press clippings.
The entire defense needs an infusion of talent. Linebacker and defensive line are the top needs. The defensive line has been explored previously, now it’s time to take a look at linebacker.
So let’s take a look at the active players who may still be walking through that door, and see who might stay and who may go.
Dont’a Hightower
Dont’a Hightower gets no grade for 2020 since he opted out due to coronavirus as every player had the right to do.
Hightower had an excellent season in 2019 racking up 71 tackles and 5.5 sacks for the campaign. Solid numbers for a solid player. The New England Patriots best at the position.
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The problem here is that Hightower will be 31 in March. Not ancient but not young anymore. He’s had his share of injuries and he carries a whopping salary cap hit in 2021 and huge cap savings if he is released or traded.
The New England Patriots have a decision to make on Dont’a Hightower
The New England Patriots can add $9,945,313 to their cap space by parting ways with Hightower in the offseason. For a rebuilding team, that’s big-time capital to invest in the future to bring in solid young talent to help jump-start the reconstruction.
Make no mistake, this team is in great need of an infusion of youth and vigor.
Yet, even though, it’s anything but an easy decision on Hightower. He’s a gamer, a leader, a solid citizen and oh yeah, he makes big plays in big games (see Super Bowl vs. Atlanta).
But this team is in rebuild mode. Anyone who thinks they are in need of just a tweak here and there, well, that’s just not going to do the job.
If New England wants to rebuild and start a process that may take a few years to get back into contention, never mind domination, it needs monumental change.
Hightower is a player who might fetch super value on the trade market since he could be just the type of asset that a team on the cusp of Super Bowl contention needs. He may fetch a haul of draft picks, though, as mentioned previously, this team is a dreadfully poor drafting team.
Maybe a player and lower picks would be the optimum return for a player of Hightower’s age and pedigree. Getting a solid player back in an area of great need like receiver or tight end would be a big plus for the New England Patriots if that player has an accomplished track record.
There’s little recommendation here for amassing draft picks. The New England Patriots bizarre draft strategy is totally befuddling and they will likely just toss them away anyway.
In any event, it’s probably time to cut ties with Dont’a Hightower and his nearly $10M cap hit. It’s a tough call, one of the toughest on the entire roster. But, it’s just time.
Tough call, but Hightower goes.
John Simon
John Simon has been a solid if an unspectacular player for the New England Patriots since joining the squad in 2018. He logged 53 tackles albeit with a meager 2 sacks in 2020.
Simon is another of those decent but unspectacular members of the Patriots team.
Now, having many of that type of player on a squad is hardly a bad thing. In fact, if you’re going to contend for anything, you need a bunch of them. But when too many of these types of players are manning starting positions, you have a problem. You’re not going to be a playoff team.
John Simon will be a bargain for the New England Patriots, but is he even worth that?
Simon is an unrestricted free agent and will save just above $2m on the cap if he’s leaves. That’s not a boatload of cash. But since this fictitious version of New England Patriots’ team composition planning is seeking to remake the team and every dollar counts. $2M is still a decent amount of cap savings.
Simon is an OK rotational player who is better suited to backup status at 30 years old. He’s served the Patriots well but they can do better. It’s time the team started drafting players who can immediately slot in and produce big for a change. Too few lately have and more simply must.
Since John Simon is a good player, it is possible that he would accept a reduced value contract to stay in New England as a backup. He’s too good enough o start on a playoff team at this stage of his career.
The salary would have to be halved.
Otherwise, it’s time to allow a rookie or a second-year player to fill this slot. It’s unlikely that he would accede to this reduction in salary though.
John Simon goes.
Chase Winovich
Chase Winovich is one of this writer’s all-time favorite New England Patriots draft picks.
Over many, many years the team has seldom drafted a player whom this writer thought they should. They did with Winovich. It was a great moment.
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The Michigan player has a great motor, as they say. He goes all-out on every play. He also had some versatility always a plus for the New England Patriots. And he had some character to add to a usually dull team.
So, how has it gone on the field? Winovich’s first season in New England showed great promise. In fairly limited snaps, he accrued 5.5 sacks and made things happen when he was on the field.
Chase Winovich could still be the future of the New England Patriots defense
The future looked bright. Some speculated that he was the next legend on New England’s defense. Not yet.
His second year projected improvement didn’t materialize. Winovich logged the same number of sacks at 5.5 but he did increase his total tackles from 26 to 48.
Yet, those 2020 statistics were just not what had been expected from the Michigan dynamo. Not at all.
Winovich disappointed in 2020. Significantly. And more recently, it has been reported that his let’s say verbal demeanor may not be what the New England Patriots are looking for.
Whatever the reasons, Winovich’s performance in 2020, on the stat sheet and generally, was just not good enough. he was expected to excel and he didn’t. Double-digit sacks were predicted here, and they didn’t happen.
In fact, Winovich had 2.5 sacks in his first four games, and only three in the last 11 in which he played, two of which came against the hapless Jets in the last and most meaningless game of the year. Not exactly the breakout season hoped for and predicted.
The keyword for Winovich in 2020 is disappointing. Hopefully, 2021 will be a renaissance of his hoped-for emergence as a force on New England’s defense. He gets at least one more chance.
Chase Winovich stays.
Ja’Whaun Bentley
Ja’Whaun Bentley was arguably the Patriot’s most consistent linebacker in 2020. He logged in a solid 91 tackles and 1.5 sacks while playing in 13 games. Those are good statistics for an inside linebacker and while Bentley isn’t a game-breaker, he is certainly a solid rotational NFL linebacker.
Ja’Whaun Bentley’s story is a solid and successful one. He was drafted in the fifth round by New England in 2018. And it can easily be said that he has exceeded expectations.
He has become a starting level player and that’s more than can be said for lots of New England Patriots’ draftees, high picks or not. He’s also a productive player. He’s young and he’s not going anywhere.
Ja’Whaun Bentley is an NFL starter, but is he right for the New England Patriots?
Bentley can start on your team, but he needs a superior player to complement him if you are going to be a playoff team. New England doesn’t seemingly have that player on their roster at present at linebacker as they don’t in any number of positions.
The problem for New England is that while players like Bentley belong in the league and on the New England Patriots squad, there are no super talents that can lead the unit and make all of the players around them better.
New England has a number of linebackers on the squad, as they do in several positional units on the team, that at present are just rotational, back-up level players. Outside of Hightower in the past, they are what they are.
Some are solid players, like Bentley, but there are no Pro-Bowl level players and certainly no budding superstars apparently on board. But Bentley is a solid participant and may get even better.
Ja’Whaun Bentley stays.
Anfernee Jennings
Anfernee Jennings was a rookie third-round pick from Alabama drafted to play the edge and inside linebacker for the New England Patriots.
He was in on 20 tackles with no sacks while appearing in 14 games. While this author liked the player before the draft and felt fine about the pick, he wasn’t a difference-maker for the Patriots at all this season.
Musket Fire
Having an Alabama background is always a plus for prospective New England draftees but that didn’t take Jennings very far toward making an impact in 2020. He basically didn’t make any.
Jennings along with fellow third-rounders Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene were a trio of high picks who did little if anything in their rookie years to justify their high draft selections by the Patriots’ personnel operation.
Expect more from New England Patriots linebacker Anfernee Jennings in 2021
Yet none of the three are likely to be jettisoned no matter what their production or lack thereof was in 2020. To cut loose a high draft pick after one year would certainly cast aspersions on the whole personnel operation and its leader, coach Bill Belichick.
That isn’t about to happen, no matter how poor the high picks played in year one (or probably in year two, as well). And it’s not saying here that they should be.
We can only go by the production of draftees in their rookie years, and for the three third-round picks, there was precious little. And it cost New England dearly on the field. Maybe a playoff spot.
Any production whatsoever by the three third-round picks, including Jennings on defense, may have just given the New England Patriots enough to win those few games that determined whether or not they made the playoffs, even if they limped in to do so.
Anfernee Jennings stays.
Josh Uche
Josh Uche was a player drafted in the second round by New England who was another underperformer in 2020. He played in 9 games and only logged nine tackles and one sack total. That’s not exactly over-the-top production, especially for a second-round draft pick.
As someone for whom this author had high hopes after the draft because of his speed off the edge, he was a huge disappointment, as most of New England’s draft class in 2020 was. But that’s the norm for New England draft picks, not an aberration.
Since Uche played little and was a second-round pick, he’s clearly going nowhere. The hope is he gets his sea legs under him in 2021 and becomes a player.
Josh Uche stays.
Next up, Defensive backs. There will be some changes made.