The glory days are at all times glory days for just a few causes.
Joy. Fulfillment. Peak human expertise and connection.
I’ll throw one other one in there: they’re easy.
There’s little doubt about one of the best days or video games or seasons. Gray space doesn’t belong in glory, because the Patriots know. For 20 years, they received a Super Bowl or they failed. That was it. That was the bar, the usual set by the best head coach and quarterback of all time.
Since Tom Brady left, the Patriots have been swimming in a grey space. A 7-9 marketing campaign in 2020 each mirrored lackluster roster expertise and a confluence of circumstances exterior the staff’s management that dragged the season into the sewer: COVID-19, cap hell, accidents and altering league guidelines across the pandemic.
The Patriots’ horrible, horrible, no good, very unhealthy 2022 season packed numerous grey space, too. Was it Mac Jones’ fault the staff struggled? Bill Belichick’s? Joe Judge and Matt Patricia’s? The solely common settlement about that season, each internally and amongst followers and media, was it might by no means occur once more.
Patricia left. Judge was reassigned. Belichick employed Bill O’Brien and has since gotten out of his means in the case of coordinating the offense and training the quarterbacks. And Jones is embracing a prove-it season for his younger profession.
So what is going to success seem like? Improvement is an apparent start line, going from final yr’s mark of 8-9 to 9-8 or 10-7 or even perhaps higher. The Pats can’t merely regress once more. From his proprietor suite, Robert Kraft might be watching with a vital eye, ready to make extra adjustments.
“We’re about winning and doing whatever we can to win. That’s what our focus is now,” Kraft stated final March on the annual homeowners conferences. “It’s very important to me that we make the playoffs. That’s what I hope happens next year.”
So is reaching the postseason the objective then? Already we all know 14 of 32 groups clinch a playoff berth, and not less than a type of 32 — Arizona — is actively punting on this season. That leaves the Patriots with basically a 50-50 shot to succeed in their objective — besides, once you issue of their schedule.
According to oddsmakers, the Pats will face the NFL’s hardest schedule by opponents’ over-under win totals for this season. Is ending within the neighborhood of .500 in opposition to that sort of assassin’s row — together with a December stretch versus Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen and Justin Herbert — actually a failure?
Maybe, possibly not. Injuries, as they at all times do, will issue. But if Jones goes down, or one other pillar of the Patriots’ roster, is that excuse sufficient to let the staff enter the offseason with out extra readability? Or an actual ultimatum from Kraft?
But let’s say they overcome the chances and make the playoffs. They snag a Wild Card spot, beating out not less than one of many Bills, Dolphins or Jets, who’re all anticipated to complete forward of them within the division.
If they get blown to smithereens once more, like they did in a Wild Card recreation at Buffalo to cap their 2021 marketing campaign, how will you’re feeling? Will Jones should have his fifth-year choice picked up? Should Belichick make extra adjustments? And if he’s reluctant, ought to Kraft power him to spend extra, shuffle his workers or roster?
By then, the Patriots’ final 5 years may have included two empty playoff journeys and 0 postseason wins. How does a area whose identification is so embedded with its championship sports activities groups reckon with that? And that’s considered one of their higher case-scenarios.
The Patriots, on the very least, are self-aware. Refusing to go all in on new weaponry and a bolstered offensive line round Jones, even whereas he performs out his team-friendly rookie contract, more than likely displays an absence of perception in him. And what has he carried out to deserve that all-in remedy?
Jones adopted top-of-the-line seasons by a rookie quarterback in NFL historical past with a four-month, 17-game dud. Perhaps it was Belichick’s fault. Or each of theirs. The staff doesn’t know. Again, it’s a grey space.
In an try and make clear his expectations, Kraft acknowledged the grey again in March. He spoke to the actual fact the Patriots have been wandering the NFL wilderness with different mediocre franchises, a spot profitable groups can solely survive for therefore lengthy.
“But in the end, this is a business. You either execute and win or you don’t. That’s where we’re at,” he stated. “I think we’re in a transition phase.”
Here’s hoping subsequent yr, if not this season, they will discover a means out.
Source: www.bostonherald.com