Minutes after passing his summer time conditioning check, one final useless dash away from the rubble of final season, Patriots captain Matthew Slater stood behind a podium Tuesday and appeared ahead.
He smiled.
Soon, although, the road of questioning dragged Slater’s grin sideways and his focus to the previous. Last yr, his particular groups allowed half of the kick return touchdowns within the NFL. Oh, and the punters shanked every little thing in sight. And the kickoff group couldn’t produce sufficient oft-taken-for-granted touchbacks, which had been partially accountable for these return touchdowns.
How did Slater plan to repair all this? He answered the query, however extra to the purpose, supplied an inadvertent state of the franchise deal with.
“I think the time for excuses is up,” Slater mentioned. “We’ve had enough excuses the last couple of seasons. It’s time for us to put up or shut up.”
Amen.
After a three-season slog, and 4 years and not using a playoff win, that is the place the Patriots are. It’s time to show themselves once more.
Blind religion shouldn’t be anticipated. The advantage of the doubt is a luxurious they now not deserve. And that goes for everyone.
Bill Belichick? He is each the best coach of all time and a coach who’s 25-26 the previous three seasons, one accountable for nuking his group’s 2022 marketing campaign and weak to criticism for working off the best participant ever in 2020.
Mac Jones? He was each one of the vital profitable rookie quarterbacks in NFL historical past and a whiny, second-year disappointment who wilted below stress whereas working an Offense For Dummies playbook.
Bill O’Brien? He might be hailed because the summer time hero in New England, and maybe into the common season. But earlier than he sits down for one more head-coaching interview — and that’s the aim — O’Brien should show he’s a greater coach than the fiery headman fired in Houston and the Alabama play-caller whose last days followers counted down like a New Year’s Eve ball drop.
There is, after all, a technique for all events to earn again that belief.
Win.
That’s it.
If the Patriots are who they consider themselves to be — the hardest-working franchise in soccer, as they’ve bragged to varsity prospects — show it.
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Exceed expectations. Win on the margins, the place nice teaching reveals itself. Play smarter, extra disciplined soccer. Supposed Patriot soccer.
On Tuesday, Slater and fellow captain David Andrews largely spared reporters from the firehose of cliches gamers are instructed to spray in Foxboro. Their honesty concerning the ache of falling wanting expectations, about what the remainder of the football-watching world has plainly seen the final three years, was refreshing.
“It’s not good enough,” Andrews mentioned of the previous three seasons. “And we know that.”
“The expectation here is for us to be winners and to be competitive every year. And for those of us who have been here for any (amount) of time,” Slater added. “We have not enjoyed this past couple of seasons.”
And the ache could not probably have been restricted to dropping. The damaged belief that undid their 2022 marketing campaign surfaced nicely earlier than the season formally resulted in Buffalo. Worst of all, the pillars of Belichick’s program all toppled, one after the other.
The Patriots do not beat themselves? They completed because the ninth-most penalized group in soccer.
Belichick’s protection neutralizes an opponent’s No. 1 possibility? Sorry, Stefon Diggs simply casually smoked his secondary but once more, because the Bills beat the Pats for the sixth time in seven tries.
The Pats play their finest soccer after Thanksgiving? Check the report. They have not completed robust since 2017, when the final installments of “The Avengers” had but to hit theaters.
No shock, motivation waned within the locker room. Players questioned their teaching and defied Belichick. Change swept by the power this offseason, changing coaches, finishing up the discontented and galvanizing outdoors hope.
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Now, the stakes have been raised.
Start with the lengthy checklist of gamers in contract years: Hunter Henry, Kendrick Bourne, Trent Brown, Kyle Dugger and Josh Uche, to call a couple of. A contract yr is nothing if not a prove-it season. These gamers’ subsequent paydays might be instantly tied to their efficiency this yr.
Then, take into account the quarterback. If Jones needs to comply with in Dak Prescott’s footsteps, because the uncommon quarterback to undergo from Year 2 regression after a formidable rookie exhibiting and rebound the remainder of his profession, he should stare down stress. He should elevate his teammates.
If Jones fails, the Pats will decline his fifth-year possibility subsequent season and sure transfer on. His future will resemble the realities Baker Mayfield and Marcus Mariota reside now, as former first-round picks and NFL nomads.
And Belichick? His seat is heat, little doubt, for all the explanations talked about above. Kraft is on the report saying he believes in Jones, this group and its playoff probabilities. Another 8-9 end, or worse, may imperil Belichick’s possibilities of breaking the NFL’s profession teaching wins mark in New England.
If Belichick needs to interrupt Don Shula’s report, he should belief and empower his finest assistants, not these whose loyalty to him is timeless. He ought to handle video games with extra calculated aggression to maximise his offense’s probabilities as an alternative of taking part in to guard his protection within the title of subject place. And he should re-establish the pillars of his program, beginning with the obvious and basic beliefs.
One of his captains put it succinctly Tuesday whereas quoting considered one of Belichick’s longtime idols, Paul Brown.
“Football is a game of errors,” Andrews mentioned. “The team that makes the least amount of errors wins. … And we have to figure out ways to win. And it’s not just one side of the ball – it’s the New England Patriots.”
In soccer, the reality of a group typically lives within the area between the way it sees itself and the scouting studies written by opponents. For twenty years, the Patriots operated inside a fastidiously constructed narrative, insulated by successful, Belichick’s genius and Brady’s heroics. Like all different victors, they gained not simply the battle, however the appropriate to jot down the story of the way it occurred.
Even the narratives that wriggled out of their grasp — Spygate and Deflategate — grew to become footnotes within the higher historical past of the franchise; public relations scars on the underside of their ft, as they marched to championship after championship. But the final three years of on-field failures and self-inflicted wounds, which can’t be spun, have damage extra.
“It hasn’t been fun for us,” Slater admitted Tuesday.
The ink is dry on these tales. Their solely possibility is to maintain writing.
Pick up the pen. Prove it once more. Win.
Source: www.bostonherald.com