FanPost

A Moratorium on Passing Offense

Where do we begin? The President, Supreme Court Judge, Speaker of the House of Patriot Place - Bill Belichick, is inevitably that place. As much as some people abhor criticizing him, and some wait patiently to bash him, we know the preamble (9 SBs, 6 rings, annihilation of the East and AFC overall).

The GM and commander-in-chief of the draft war room has caused this largely. The biggest piece was Tom Brady leaving, which was also heavily influenced (we can only assume) by BB as well. But this isn't about how dreadful the past 5-6 drafts have been or the gaffes we could easily rattle off (cough - Sanu, AB, Brady, tagging a guard, having no interest in Diggs or Hopkins potentially, not trading/signing a TE over 2-3 years - cough).

This is just a simple post examining the passing offense, so let's dive in:

TE -

- Ryan Izzo: 20 targets, 13 receptions, 199 yards, 0 TD
- D. Keene: 3 targets, 2 receptions, 10 yards, 0 TD
- D. Asiasi: 4 targets, 0 receptions, 0 yards, 0 TD

The Punchline! - The Patriots entire TE group combines for 209 yards and 15 receptions. This is less production than 44 individual TEs this year.

Ross Dwelley of the SF 49ers has more yards than our TE roster combined. Who? No clue. O.J. Howard played 4 games this season and has 146 yards himself. George Kittle played 6 games and blows us out of the water with 474 yards. Jacob Hollister has 203 yards alone, a former Patriots practice squadder.

Verdict? Pathetic. Belichick ignored and neglected the TE position for the past 3-4 years. A Gronk replacement should have been drafted. We cannot suck the bulls--- through a straw, some fans love to parrot "we draft players to fill holes a year or two early" but apparently that doesn't apply to offense and here we are boys and girls. Also "we didn't have cap space to sign a TE!" Yeah we franchise tagged a guard for 14 million though.

QB -

- Cam Newton: 221/338, 65.4% completion, 5 TD, 10 INT, 2,415 yards, Y/A 7.1, Air yards/Attempt 6.8, 28 sacks

- 78.1 rating, 45.1 QBR, 126 rush attempts, 513 yards, 12 TD, 4.1 YPC.

- Jarrett Stidham: Irrelevant
- Brian Hoyer: More than irrelevant

The Punchline! - The Patriots rank 31st in passing attempts, 30th in passing yards, 32nd in passing TDs, 26th (bad) in interceptions, 28th in offensive points scored, 29th in offensive total yards.

Verdict? Well this is the bread and butter, this is where the turkey is carved now, not holding punches. First off, half the fan base has stockholm syndrome. Don't blame them either, going from Tom Brady for 20 years to a crippled mannequin of a formerly ~good but overrated QB who had one anomalous MVP season, to see this result? It's shocking.

A case study could be done on this site's fans and fans around NE. Stockholm Syndrome manifested. Delusional defending of Cam Newton all season, even now. But to the actual football, Cam is horrible. He's trash a--, he is one of the worst QBs in the entire league. BB is riding with him though all way to week 17. That's fine, but the objective analysis here by anyone with a brain is that he's terrible. You might like his attitude, his swag, his Carolina days, whatever the f--- you want, but he's still trash. No one is defending Joakim Noah and Derrick Rose today, they suck too. Injuries, age, it happens.

WR -

- Jakobi Meyers: 74 targets, 53 receptions, 661 yards, 0 TD, 12.5 Y/R (9.5 games)
- Damiere Byrd: 74 targets, 46 receptions, 597 yards, 1 TD, 13.0 Y/R
- James White: 55 targets, 45 receptions, 315 yards, 0 TD, 7.6 Y/R
- J. Edelman: 39 targets, 21 receptions, 315 yards, 0 TD, 15.0 Y/R
- N'keal Harry: 55 targets, 31 receptions, 292 yards, 2 TD, 9.4 Y/R

The Punchline! Fans saying Harry doesn't get opportunities or targets when he has the same number as James White and barely less than two guys who are clearly more effective than him. Not here to rip on Harry. But this is the weakest punchline, oh here we are - the fact that Meyers as benched for 8 weeks straight by this coaching staff.

Verdict? Underrated unit. Not "good" by any means, but it's no where close to the pile of stinky feces trash that TE and QB currently are. Meyers has emerged, he ranks 53rd in receiving yards despite only really playing 8.5 games. He holds a 77.3 grade on PFF.

Byrd is 64th in yards (with Newton throwing to him, making it 1.6x more impressive) and a 63.7 PFF grade which is decent-ish. Meyers can be your slot guy, Byrd is a solid WR3 that is currently being asked to play X WR1 (where have we seen that before, cough Phillip Dorsett).

Edelman was obviously good but is pretty much done now with an arthritic knee. Harry...is clearly a bust. But he can still be something, a possession WR2-3 perhaps if he turns it around and proves that statement wrong.

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Conclusion and Grades:

QB: F-

TE: F-- *

WR: D+ to C-

Conclusion?

Bill Belichick is to blame.

Now I know the Belichick boys of the wall will cry about that call me an idiot, and then the guys who want to bash Bill will be ready to smash him after reading that one sentence. But it's the truth. It doesn't mean he's a bad GM, far from it. It doesn't erase the past 20 years, he's the best coach and GM ever probably.

But in the past 5-7 years the drafting spearheaded by dictator GM Bill has been awful. Close to awful at least. And the roster moves outside of the draft in the past 2-3 years have been abysmal too.

BB has neglected the offense in favor of defense with blatant favoritism for too long.

The rebuttal will inevitably be: You moron! he traded a 2nd for Sanu, drafted Harry with a 1st and tried to sign AB! (as tears are held back because their father and lover Belichick is insulted).

But they would still be wrong. Is BB a college student in freshman year or the best GM ever? I thought it was supposed to be the latter? Then why the f--- is he starting work on the term paper 3 hours before it's due? That's exactly what those moves were. Desperation guaranteed money tossed at AB, desperation drafting and a shi--y pick to boot on Harry, and a desperation overpay for a 31 year old slot receiver/WR3?

BB is to blame. The only way for me personally to absolve him is if 2020 was an organic tank all along. And I think it very well might be, by GM Bill. But it still doesn't excuse the roster building over the past 3 years at receiver. If Bill wasn't bailed out by Puff the Magic Gordon for 0.75 seasons in 2018 and 2019 combined, it would have looked like 2020 sooner.

Well it's been a long post. At least we as fans will have some hope in the form of the draft soon enough. Yep we had 20 years of amazing success, but any other fanbase would also be 100x worse than us (complaining, negative, trashing) if they had to endure a full season of 2020 Cam Newton. And a happy new year 2021.

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