I am a New England Patriots fan and love the way Bill Belichick coaches football. I was a New England Patriots fan who always hated the way Bill Belichick drafted quarterbacks. Two things can be true at the same time.
Monday night, the world finally saw what most Patriots fans have denied for decades – the fact that our coach was bad at drafting quarterbacks. Mac Jones starts back after spraining left high left ankle – he’s not playing well. Brian Hoyer, who started the season as a substitute for Jones, was placed on the injury reserve earlier this month after suffering a concussion – he’s never been good. And Bailey Zappe, the New England 4th-round rookie who started a couple of weeks ago, came out and looked great for a total of five seconds before making three returns – Zappe’s numbers in previous weeks may have been good, but he’s not.
Belichick is emperor with new clothes. He was finally exposed because of his horror at always picking midfielders.
When the greatest coach of all time appeared in New England, he had a franchise quarterback in Drew Bledsoe. We all know how it went, as Tom Brady ended up replacing Bledsoe when he was injured – and has never looked back. But, for some reason, Belichick has unjustly earned praise for sketching out the greatest footballer of all time. If you’re a great talent evaluator, it won’t take you the 199th pick to say to yourself, “And this is where we take GOAT off the table.” And while it’s interesting to look back at the six quarterbacks that were drafted before Brady in 2000 (Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn), Belichick didn’t shoot at anyone. among them to be an easy-to-manage backup for Bledsoe on a team that also featured John Friesz and Michael Bishop on the depth charts in his first season in New England.
Having Bledsoe on your list when you show up is a blessing. Turning a guy in the sixth round into the greatest quarterback of all time is a miracle. But never being able to draft a potentially blasphemous backup or eventual heir during your tenure. Rohan Davey, Kliff Kingsbury, Matt Cassel, Kevin O’Connell, Zac Robinson, Ryan Mallett, Jimmy Garoppolo, Jacoby Brissett, Danny Etling, Jarrett Stidham, Jones and Zappe make up the list of defenders Belichick has used since emerge Thanks.
Every guy on that list has been lousy, unstoppable in New England, or found moderate success elsewhere as a capable reserve or on-site duty starter. . The crowd that likes noise and mistakes will defend them and say, “hey, but they’re mostly the ones that get knocked out in the later rounds”, without mentioning the fact that constantly waiting to bring in midfield Going deep into the draft was a deliberate decision by Belichick. .
And for anyone looking to make a case for Garoppolo, just pay attention to the 49ers fans and their love/hate relationship with him. Mind you, this list doesn’t even include the dismal multi-year free agency signings or the COVID-19 disaster of a season featuring Cam Newton. There are also names like Keithen McCant and Eric Zeier, the quartet that Belichick drafted while he was at Cleveland – further proving the point that he has always been terrible at this part of his job.
Belichick gets lazy because he has a persistent centre-back in Brady, a defense he controls, and exceptional team units that don’t make mistakes. It’s the perfect recipe for 20 seasons as it has produced six Super Bowl wins. However, if you pay attention you will see that Belichick is a Michelin star chef cooking in a restaurant without a generator. And when Tom Brady left, the power in the midfield followed him too.
Under Bill Belichick, the mantra in New England has always been “Do your thing”. But on Monday Night Football, NFL fans saw that Belichick hadn’t done a big part of his job since the ’90s — that was learning how to draft a franchise quarterback.
