New England Patriots: Bill Belichick risks it all with offensive line gaffes

New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is risking the team’s entire season needlessly with bad calls on the makeup of his offensive line.

Belichick’s decision-making on how he deploys his offensive line talent since the injury to Trent Brown is an indication of either his hubris or stubbornness. And it risks everything this season.

Trent Brown was their best move of the offseason. Now, he’s out and he needs to be replaced at all costs. The health of his young quarterback is at risk.

An injury to Mac Jones will torpedo the New England Patriots’ season faster than Mercury Morris could run 50 yards downfield.

Belichick is setting the stage for just that until and unless he shelves his totally obtuse offensive lines selections and does the right thing.

How New England Patriots Bill Belichick should deploy his offensive linemen

Belichick’s choices in offensive line deployments since Trent Brown went down with a calf injury have been questionable. And now they are getting wider audiences.

Here’s what cbssports.com had to say about one of Brown’s replacements against the New York Jets,

"Stock down: Yasir DurantA calf injury sidelined starting right tackle Trent Brown for Sunday’s contest and his absence was apparent throughout the day. Yasir Durant started in place of Brown and struggled mightily. According to PFF’s metrics, Durant was responsible for two of Mac Jones’ three sacks on the day and was eventually benched for Justin Herron. Neither tackle has been able to fill the shoes of Brown during their time at right tackle, so getting the 6-foot-8, 359 pounder is becoming paramount."

Yasir Durant allowed two sacks on Mac Jones against the Jets, that’s wonderful. And his replacement, Justin Herron is just as ineffective. These guys are waiver-wire types.

And one more comment on Durant; does anyone in their right frame of analysis think that the Kansas City Chiefs are going to bequeath a starting quality offensive tackle to the New England Patriots?

And that would be for a seventh-round draft pick no less. That was Durant. Even though the Chiefs got nothing, this guy was headed for the waiver wire. He’s no Trent Brown.

The Chiefs, who have personnel sense (they signed Joe Thuney and the New England Patriots got Durant, not a great swap) will be laughing all the way to next year’s seventh round.

Don’t be surprised to see Belichick bring in a whole host of these sub-par players to try to plug the hole in the dam. Trust me, it ain’t gonna work, Bill. It never does. Or almost never.

The irony in all of this, and the fear in seeing the future of the New England Patriots, Mac Jones, getting pulverized each week, is that the answer is right in front of the head coach.

Either he is oblivious to it or won’t acknowledge it. The solution to the New England Patriots offensive line woes in light of Trent Brown’s injury, one might call it the “X-factor”, are two players on the squad right now.

They are Michael Onwenu and Ted Karras. Onwenu is an immediate solution to the right tackle situation. He played there almost all of 2020 and excelled.

The left guard spot he vacates will also be immediately and very professionally be filled by Ted Karras, who ostensibly Belichick re-signed for just such an eventuality.

So meanwhile, instead of implementing the sensible solution (hopefully a temporary one), Belichick persists in deploying the wrong solution.

He keeps playing these terrible turnstile tackles who risk the season on every play because they cannot block anyone at all.

Belichick’s logic defies explanation. It makes no sense whatsoever. Hopefully, he will realize he is wrong.

Belichick needs to make these changes before an unfortunate play demolishes what could be a playoff season. He threw Tom Brady out of town (how’d that work out for him and us).

Now, he’s persisting in a stubborn policy of non-deployment of his best players in a most critical position on the team and jeopardizing the entire season in the process.

Let’s see how long it takes for him to make these changes. Hopefully, for the New England Patriots and for Patriots Nation it won’t be too long.