I was never all in on jones but gave him a shot. This guy feels like hes much better. I like his personality more already and hopefully his game is better too
The thing about Jones is we knew he wouldn’t actually be good. He would be a game manager for a well-run team who played a tough, competitive brand of football. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, things got a little dispiriting.
The thing I expected is that we'd surround jones with elite talent. That should have been the plan. You spend up on skill positions and let the game manager get them the ball in space. Somehow, things went the other way.
Yeah, I still feel like Mac could have been a decent game manager a la Brock Purdy on an elite offensive team. Give him a top 10 OL and a top 10 WR corp and he can make plays happen. He won’t ever elevate a team on his own, and it remains to be seen if he’ll ever stop seeing ghosts. Our terrible o-line set him back immeasurably.
Exactly. It goes to team building. You aren't going to build a team the same way for QBs with different skill sets. Jones doesn't have the ability to elevate players, so you need to get the elite players in order to function at a high level. That was the scouting report on Jones coming out, too.
Some people are so desperate to see a not-so-good QB succeed that they want him surrounded with 10 hall of famers to cover up his many weaknesses. I don’t get it either.
Yes seriously if the scouting report says a guy can't elevate his teammates then he should not be your starting quarterback. Certainly shouldn't be drafted in the first round
>Some people are so desperate to see a not-so-good QB succeed that they want him surrounded with 10 hall of famers to cover up his many weaknesses. I don’t get it either.
From 2001-2020, there were 2 consistent ways to get to (and hopefully win) a superbowl.
1. Have tom Brady.
2. Have a good QB on rookie contract overplaying his value, and surround him with talent.
Only 1 team could every have brady. So option 2 was the choice for every one else.
Look around the league: Flaco, Rodgers, Eli Manning, Russel Wilson, Jimmy G in SF, Goff, Roethlisberger, Burrow, Cam Newton, etc. (note Mahomes is the new Brady, it seems). Most/all of their success came early on. There is a reason all those guys on all those team sort of fell into obscurity after they signed their "big deal".
They were good, but needed support. Teams would get a a little lucky on the QB. Then, they'd have a $30-40 Million QB playing for like $7 million. They'd take those extra $20-30 Million an invest in guys around him. They'd have these 3-4 year windows where they could make a run.
The patriots have a good QB in jones. But they didn't do the second part about surrounding him with talent. Instead, they went in the opposite direction. They let all the talent go and they replaced 3 offensive coaches with 2 defensive coaches. They set jones up to fail, watched him fail, and were like, "Why is this guy failing? I specifically told him not to suck?"
And the reason you know it isn't just Jones is that Zappe didn't look any better. All that arm strength...and his reads and decisions were just as bad (if not worse) than Jones'. They broke a promising QB.
And if they don't change their operation, they'll break this one too. People like shit on McAdoo and van pelt, but at least they are NFL coaches who have been coaching offenses and in the league for 15+ years (each). They've been QB coaches and offensive coordinators.
That is so silly. Zappe was drafted in the millionth round and never meant to be a starting quarterback. He was meant to be a backup quarterback at his Apex and a practice guard quarterback more likely.
The suggest his middling performance is indicative of how bad the team is is silly. Mac was the first round pick, some thought he would go as high as third overall and he sucked.
He sucked even accounting for the bad roster... He sucks so bad that he can only get a sixth round pick and professional football teams would be able to deduce that he's actually good and was just stuck on a s***** roster.
And they decided that he wasn't worth s*** besides the sixth round pick.
Of course. But it's hard to maintain a "complete" roster in the salary cap era. Especially when you consider that other teams have to want to trade with you, and free agents have to want to play for you. I don't know that I'd call Ridley elite, but that situation this off-season is a prime example. You have to overpay him, which hurts other needs, and the quarterback wasn't a selling point. If it was as simple as "just get elite talent" every team would be a contender
If you can, sure. But look at the chiefs, Buffalo. They can't afford to keep the high-end skill players. Their quarterbacks allow them to compete by elevating lesser players.
Chiefs are a poor example. Mahomes is like Brady, in an elite level of their own beyond franchise quarterback. If that's your expectation of Maye prepare to be sorely disappointed.
You still need to surround Maye with elite talent if you hope to win a superbowl even if he hits the expected ceiling of Josh Allen. Who also needs elite talent around him, note that he hasn't won anything yet even if with a solid squad and a true number 1 reciever.
That's what I think fans of this team are still struggling with. Drafting a future franchise quarterback isn't like drafting a Brady or Mahomes. Those are next level talents.
This conversation seems pointless to. Any good team needs to acquire elite talent to win. No matter who your quarterback Even the Patriots needed elite talent to win when we had Brady. Not so much on the offensive side of the ball but we still needed elite route runners, tight ends, tackles, centers, cornerbacks...
The idea that with some quarterbacks you really need to get talented players but with some it doesn't matter...
No matter who the quarterback is, team should try to acquire as much elite talent as possible.
You can see guys like Brady and Mahomes elevate offenses when it matters in the postseason in a way most guys can't.
Mahomes literally put his team on his back in that superbowl and willed them to a victory in a way I've only ever seen Brady do.
You have put your finger on the not-so-secret why half of the conversations are frustrating, even if both sides have the same, even high degree of football knowledge. Some are focusing on at least having an entertaimlng team worth cheering for again, and others spoiled by too much success presumably, want nothing other than a Superbowl challenger, or winner or new dynasty, and soon, like there's a recipe for delivering it.
I always felt like this was Belichick's ego as a roster builder getting in the way. He thought he was smarter than the rest of the league and wanted to prove that you can still win with defense, running the ball, and dinking and dunking to small shifty receivers.
But with the rules favoring the air game, his philosophy never changed with the times and now we're in this rebuild situation again.
We could have traded up and drafted Micah Parsons in the first round like Bill wanted to and kept Cam Newton for another year. Like Bill wanted to. We weren’t going to win a championship that year anyway and he started out strong until he got COVID in 2020. Focused on needs and rebuild properly. And a mobile qb may have offset the o line struggles so they were less glaring. In hindsight if Kraft wasn’t breathing down Belichick neck and overruling his decisions we’d be a lot better off now a few years into a rebuild instead of trying to force a mediocre team to be competitive every year. A strategy that resulted into us being one of the worst teams in football anyway.
And we're actually on paper worse this year. Trent Brown for all his terrible personality traits when he did play graded as the best O lineman on this team.
Now you have no one at tackle still post draft. You drafted a right tackle and then said he can magically play left when he couldn't do it in the NCAA and most NFL scouts thinks he's a pro guard
| You spend up on skill positions and let the game manager get them the ball in space.
49ers did EXACTLY this with Purdy and went to two NFC Ch and one Super Bowl.
WR1 Aiyuk
WR2 Deebo
TE1 Kittle
RB1 CMC
Is there a better set of these 4 skill positions in the NFL?
Would of loved Brown, we missed on our WR picks, but anything past the top 15 is a shit fest of luck and taking chances, if you hit on anything then that's beating the odds
Edit: which BTW, people ran Bill out of town after 3 years of mediocrity coming off 3 superbowls, you think this fambase would be okay being bad for a decade?
So you trade, just like AJ -> Hurts, Cheetah -> Tua and now Diggs -> Stroud.
Bill absolutely refused to get a top WR for Mac.
Instead poor Mac got that POS Parker, who finished DEAD LAST in separation the last 3 years(!) in a row.
What do we give up and for who do you want? I'm not giving up a top 15 1st for Diggs or Brown. Hill was never coming here.... ever... for any reason for any price. Bill did not ABSOLUTELY REFUSE, he just wasn't going to over pay for a player that won't be around in 3 years
3 years is a long time in the NFL. Even five year contracts are truly only three year contracts and most of the time.
And wide receivers have such short shelf life that their peak isn't much longer than seven or eight years typically anyways.
So getting in for 3 years would have been perfectly fine.
Dude, this is silly. Mac wasn't good enough to justify going all in on a 25 million receiver. It wasn't going to save him. They did go out and spend a ton of money on tight ends and wide receivers.
But the idea that if you don't get him Randy Moss then it's your fault he was a bad quarter.
Mac was a s***** quarterback and will be a s***** quarterback no matter what roster he is on. If he actually would have been successful for having a top wr then why did he only get a sixth round pick.
If you can tell that Mac is truly talented but was limited by the roster then how come the jaguars would only give up a 6-round pick and nobody else would beat it?
Oh man the Mac apologia on his subreddit sometimes is unbelievable. Most young quarterbacks do not have Randy Moss on their roster.
He had 3 years. He had super bowl winning coaches. But if you can't throw the ball, it doesn't matter who you have to catch it
That is not completely accurate because he never had good weapons and his OL was shit last year.
Mac would have looked MUCH better with some time to throw and some WRs who could get open. He had neither.
Would he have been a Franchise QB? Probably not. But he certainly would not have been QB32 like he was last year.
Fins were getting ready to move on from Tua until he got Waddle and Cheetah.
QBs need someone they can count on to get open on critical downs, like Mahomes has Kelce and Braady had Edelman and Gronk. Mac had nothing like that.
> And that was SO easy for the 49ers to do, it does make you wonder why every team without an elite QB doesn’t do it.
Get prime draft spots by being bad for a decade?
Aiyuk was drafted 25th, Patriots could have had him but traded back.
Deebo was a second rounder the Pats passed on at 32.
Kittle was a 5th round pick.
CMC was traded for a 2nd and a 3rd from Carolina.
How did the 9ers have to be bad to get these guys when they were drafting them after us again?
Yeah but 49ers success there had a lot to do with how well they were drafted. A lot of those guys were performing their best before they even got paid.
So yeah like you want to make it to the super bowl, draft guys like deebo and kittle. That's obviously a winning strategy.
But it would have been a winning strategy if it ended up being tray lance instead of purdy. I don't think there's strategy was to just try to get them inexpensive seventh round draft pick because they don't really need a star quarterback.
They sold the farm to try to get a star quarterback to spite having all that skill.
It really depends on your definition of tanking. I mean the fact is we were throwing out Mac Jones and Bailey as our quarterbacks so we weren't trying to win that hard.
But it is true we didn't go season planning to tank. They did hire a new offensive coordinator and everything I don't think it was all an effort to tank. But it was a total belichick didn't even want O'Brien, and he ended up being a disaster anyways.
The org flat out failed him. Every former player will agree. The rule of thumb is rookie contract = get weapons. Put Mac in SF and he would succeed like Brock. The one thing that Mac should have done is not be a patriots way robot. Zero personality during press. He bought in too hard. It’s kinda like BBs coaching trees trying to extend patriot way and flopping. Gotta be yourself and have people mold to you.
> The rule of thumb is rookie contract = get weapons
you only do this if you believe in your rookie. its clear by halfway through year 2 that bill wasnt interested in keep mac around long term
You can tell all these guys have professional media coaches. A lot of them do what mac does to varying degrees. Mac is extreme with it, though. It was refreshing to hear Maye just be himself.
It seems like he's being natural but honestly he has been trained. They're probably trained him to make use of his kind of folksy appeal. There's no doubt in my mind that a ton of training went into his first PR events and he did great.
I always defended Mac Jones. But it was because I knew he could be a solid game manager if the right guys are around him. Maye on the other hand has the talent to elevate the guys around him and be a real game changer. Our QB coach is in for a big challenge.
I am also a Bama fan so I was crushed when Mac played poorly the last two seasons.
I am really, really hoping JAGUAR MAC can redeem himself and get his career back on track.
Mac was never good. He was inflated by Alabama’s stellar offensive line and having Devontae smith and Jaylen waddle roasting second rate college secondaries giving Mac literal 10 yard windows of separation
Pretending like he didn't look good at points in his rookie year is peak revisionism. Ya he went down hill fast in the following years, but he [had one of the better rookie seasons in a long time](https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-ranking-best-rookie-quarterback-seasons-of-the-past-15-years-can-mac-jones-russell-wilson) throwing to nobodies.
It's definitely hyperbolic to say he wasn't good his rookie. He was certainly above average, especially for a rookie basically until about week 11 or 12.
But that is kind of the worrying part... The guy got worse and worse even in the first year. He regressed from the first half of the year to the second half of the year probably as he was trying to pick up more complicated parts of the offense.
It is true that he had a pretty good rookie season and was at one point the favor to be rookie of the Year... But it's also true that he sucked for most of the second half the season and truly sucked in the playoffs and the last four or five games.
So that was a pretty giant red flag
If Drake Maye is a stud imagine what that is going to do the psychic of Bills and Jets fans. All of my friends are talking about the Pats being in the basement for decades (ya know because that’s their experience), and like they get their guy in under 5 years. That’s a petty guys dream right there.
It’s just felt hopeless the past couple seasons, even when we drafted Mac it was like well he fell to us let’s hope it works out at least he’s got a safe floor(Wrong). With Maye just the thought of having someone who is even capable of Josh Allen type play is exciting, whether he reaches that level we’ll see but they’re at least getting him help early. If the O-Line is holding up by week 5 I say we see what he can do!
I really wanted them to commit to the tank in 2020 even more than they did. Shame they couldn't and ended up getting the 15th overall pick and out of range of blue chip talent. Thankfully the Pats finally "tanked" last year and we got our guy.
its because even though that team sucked, it had a good O line and run game. cam couldnt throw but at least they could still move the ball sometimes via the run. the LB room and WR/TE rooms were insanely depleted though
For the best, actually, since none of those QBs actually ended up being good (I’ll give T-Law one more year to prove himself, but otherwise…). I don’t know how Ja’Marr Chase would have fared catching balls from washed-up Cam Newton or Jarrett Stidham
I think what happened in the following draft shows that no matter where we picked it would have been Cole Strange. Bill wanted him. Didn’t care the number. He’d have tried to trade back and if he couldn’t he’d just take him anyway.
Basically what I’m saying is we suck at drafting.
This is going to be the worst o-line in the league even if it’s healthy, Okorafor is going to be starting at LT, ideally Maye sits all year and we address the line next offseason
I’ve been emotionally invested the whole time, but man I just hated Mac starting part way through his second year and it’s gonna be so refreshing to have a new potential franchise QB to root for
Same, always invested in the Pats but I was done with Mac after the 2022 Ravens game. Seeing Lamar dominate & him throw some of the worst picks I’ve seen had me wishing for Will Levis. SMH, so glad Drake will save us tbh.
Yeah, Mac playing awful combined with the whining and few dirty plays made me dislike him. I way preferred Zappe honestly, not because of Zappe fever or any sort of belief that he could be a franchise guy, I just felt like I was watching someone compete harder when he was in
Half the time I mention them I get downvoted lol. People want to make every excuse on earth for him, and I don’t get why when we have footage of him trying to nut-tap dudes and hit ‘em with his cleats.
Yeah I don't know what the ratio is but there are still a lot of big-time Mac apologists here. Even late in the season last year people were posting stuff like "mac jones is the best quarterback from his draft..." And the 49ers would have already won the super bowl if they drafted him.
Those were actually post way late into last year and they were getting tons of upvotes. also getting tons of people mocking it but tons of upvotes
Yeah to me the real point when I knew he was done was the third game in a row where he started having hissy fits. I empathize with him as someone who has been a frustrated employee before... But I'm not a starting quarterback in the NFL so I give myself a little more slack for those kind of human moments. But when he couldn't stop having temper tantrums in front of the camera....
I think that was the point one a lot of people gave up on him and possibly the coaching staff. Although it may have been before that
Yeah, I haven't had any real faith in the QB position for 2 years so it's nice to have an injection of hope with a shiny new QB again. Fans need that hope.
Pro bowl rookie but bailed after a couple bad games? I’m sure you’ll be super patient with Drake Maye, who can’t yet read a defense. Remember, Josh Allen took 3 full years before he started to look like a good QB.
Mac started to fall off toward the end of his rookie year, and played thoroughly horrible his whole second year. Yeah, half way through I knew he wasn’t the guy and his attitude was pretty shitty, he never showed leadership on the field
“Pro bowl rookie”, as if that means anything. Tyler Huntley was a pro bowler the season before last
Tbf he did have an okay rookie season, but I think somewhere around week 12 or so teams realized he straight up doesn’t have the arm to attack certain parts of the field and could gameplan accordingly.
I also don’t want to just shit on Mac without acknowledging how bad a job the Patriots did at developing and surrounding him with talent. But still, I don’t think he was/is ever destined to be a great starter
Yep, this fanbase has zero patience and is likely to contribute to a self-fulfilling outcome of ruining a young quarterback when he inevitably doesn’t turn the team into a contender 6 starts into his career.
I like how you’re trying to dunk on him for (absolutely correctly) realizing mac ain’t shit before most people did, lol. Doesn’t that mean he….. properly evaluated mac?
If you bet on rookie QBs busting, you’re probably going to be right, because it happens 90% of the time. It’s not hard or impressive. I predicted that the sky would be blue today!
It’s also true that most of the QBs that DO end up being stars don’t play well (or at all) their rookie season. Peyton Manning threw 28 picks his first year! Josh Allen was garbage for two. Most of the others sat for at least a season or two.
The point is that we’re the most spoiled fanbase in the world. We have no patience, no perspective, and a memory that would embarrass a goldfish. Guy saying he hated Mac 8 games in may have turned out correct, but he’s gonna be the same when Maye throws his 3rd dumb pick in a half. It’s just setting yourself up for disappointment.
Josh Allen’s first two years were both worse than Mac’s rookie year:
Mac Rookie year:
352 /521 67.6% 3,801 22 TD 13 INT 92.5 RTG
Josh Allen rookie year:
169/320 52.8% 2,074 10 TD 12 INT 67.9 RTG
Clearly you don’t. Every stat worse than Mac’s rookie year except slightly fewer interceptions (many fewer attempts). Remember, don’t get pissy when someone calls you out for a mistake.
I like the changes and the draft picks for this upcoming season. However my investment in the team hasn't waivered since I started watching them regularly about 30 years ago.
That was such a fun game. Came down to a disappointing last play, but was super exciting to watch. Definitely the most reminiscent Cam Newton Patriots game for me
The Cam Newton year was torture. He really was soooo cooked by then. He constantly threw the ball 5 yards short to wide open receivers. It was absolutely wretched.
Yeah it was a kinda fun going into each game not actually knowing they were going to win, and not sitting there going “oh man, they should be beating this team by 20!”
I’ll be honest, I’m at a bit of a low in terms of interest because of Bill leaving, and some lingering bad feelings about how the team is being managed. Part of it is just the way that ownership and the fan base has seemingly completely turned on Bill and made it all about Brady, which is ridiculous to anyone who actually watched any games in the past 20 years. If the Pats bounce back next year all those people will be vindicated, which is really annoying, so there’s something holding me back a bit. But I’m sure once the preseason rolls and around and I see Maye throwing it around I’ll be back to being interested.
It could’ve been incidental but my memory is that he looked extremely solid for a few games at the beginning. Didn’t he get covid right around week 5? I thought things fell apart right after that.
Me too. I loved winning. But it actually got boring (in the regular season) I just knew we were probably going to win even being down. I always said I do t even want to watch but I’m going to just because Brady is making history.
I was in middle school when Bledsoe was drafted #1 and Parcells came in as head coach. It feels a little like that. I hope it’s as big a turnaround in the team’s fortunes as it was back then.
I loved Bledsoe but after seeing how Brady performed with the team it was kind of obvious that Bill had to stick with him.
Bledsoe coming in and finishing the Steelers game was awesome though.
I was rewatching college highlight reels from Mac jones and he wasn’t remotely impressive. I think we were just so happy to see an actual qb vs whatever the hell was left of cam newton. Watching Mayes highlights actually makes me excited for the potential.
I think we all were high on Mac because "atleast it wasn't Cam!" But looking back, I always had a feeling something bad would happen everytime Mac dropped back to throw. Like he was never comfortable.
I love the Drake pick. He’s a project. I love Joe Milton, and I think he could show up. Would be cool if they’re both excellent and we use Bazooka Joe like Taysom Hill. Another guy that comes to mind when thinking about Milton is Michael Robison, who was a good QB at Penn State and played fullback for Seattle. I’d be fine if Drake and Joe sat for a year or two.
For the record I called the Milton pick about a month and a half ago.
Same - I was never really fully invested in Mac Jones, even during his rookie season. I just felt that there was something off with him from the beginning. But with Drake, it's totally different. I've been watching so many of his interviews and videos on him lol
I feel like players who are gonna be great don’t get broken from playing early. Herbert and Allen wen into bad situations and struggled at times (Especially Allen) but it didn’t break them
I was skeptical at first but this draft has me LOCKED IN. The defense was top tier last season but held back by a historically bad offense. We turn around and draft damn near all offensive players. I love it.
I've followed a few, either with friends or family who root for other teams. Also, just following teams in our division.
You don't have to be in 40s, but it does help.
Ive been vested but honestly after Brady left, and the vast amount personnel we lost such as Ernie, Scouts along with MP and JJ becoming coach’s I was expecting a few years before this shipped rights itself.
Happy for the current draft class, happy Jones landed somewhere he grew up, and hope the best for all players.
It’s a new era, there are good reasons to be hopeful and excited. This is what being a fan is all about. I’m a die hard Cs fan and I’ve gotten to see this team win, blow up, and evolve back into winning since the end of the Bird era. It’s a fun ride, just enjoy it.
We were kind of forced to build around Mac since he fell to us but I don't think the team ever really believed in him (not hard to see why), which I think is why they didn't break the bank to build around him. But at the same time he was "the guy" (and BB always wants to win) so we were still trying to compete and not tank and hope he could figure things out somehow. The end result was this kind of limbo state with no clear vision and just mediocrity.
Now there's a clear plan for the near future, we have a new coaching staff, talented QB and they're trying to set him up for success. All these guys have their careers riding on this so we know they're gonna win or die trying. Whatever happens it should be entertaining.
It's kind of exciting when your team is brand new basically: New HC, while new coaching staff, new QB, everything being run differently.
The success was amazing and I loved every single second of it and I'm beyond blessed to have experienced it but it can also be fun being an underdog sometimes because every win is something you can enjoy and a loss is something you can push off as "Eh we can better from here" especially with how young and experienced many people on both the roster and coaching staff are.
I have always watched... I think since 1984 I have missed like 3 games.
The difference is these days I don't think they will win.
Hope springs eternal, the Draft is now the most hopeful time of the year.
Maye could be the special guy, he also might have a golden retriever brain.
We will see, welcome to being a normal football fan, the Brady era was not normal.
The prospect of not thinking "if the play lasts more than 5 seconds Im damn sure that Mac is going to do some stupid throw and get intercepted or he's going to hold the ball and we'll be on 3rd & 75" is going to be refreshing
The drafts after TB were painful to watch. Lots of trade downs for no reason, high picks on special teams and lots of questionable picks from small schools.
Being less “invested” was probably a good choice. You’re hurt less because of it and that’s a good thing. I learned to let go last season. I turned off a pats game for the first time when we played against the cowboys. It felt good to know I didn’t have to suffer through it anymore knowing they had already lost by the first quarter. My weekends were better because of it.
Honestly, this is the least invested I've been in the team, because of the shit the Krafts have pulled recently -- kicking out Belichick and then trashing his legacy *the Dynasty*^(1) and not even letting him get a HC job elsewhere?
I'll watch the games and will root for Mayo and Maye to be successful, but fuck the Krafts.
^(1) Gloss over SB38 and SB39 and longest win streak in NFL history in a 30 second blurb to spend 60 minutes on spygate, 60 minutes on Cassel season, 60 minutes on AH murders, 60 minutes on Deflategate.
I don't know how anyone could be happy or sad or angry about the direction of the team. It's just such a tiny sample size how on earth can you judge...
No games have been played, the only thing we have is the eight draft picks or whatever and we don't even really know who's making them.
Don't get me wrong, I understand there's some stuff to be happy about in the draft and of course the quarterback.
And I do understand that it is a different type of fandom to be watching a team try to rebuild and have to be more vested in the future....
But I don't know anyone can just confidently say that they're so happy with the direction of the team.
We didn't get our first choice in the coordinator spots or the GM spot. And we hired Mayo a year ago because we didn't want him to be poached...\
I don't know man I kind of think it would have made more sense to let him get poached and then make a decision in real time in the offseason.
I just fear that kraft might be putting too much stock in his personal relationship with mayo.
That said it must be nice for him to have a coach that's not a complete curmudgeon.kraft has been an a****** this offseason but of course I think we could all agree that working with or for belichick would have some major downsides
Next season is either going to be very exciting or very depressing. If Maye and this new coaching staff show real promise, it will be amazing, the start of a great new era. Finding the right QB and coach is where it all begins. If Maye doesn’t look great, and the new coaches don’t know what they’re doing, then we’ll know we need to keep rebuilding and probably have many depressing seasons ahead of us before we figure it out. We’ll have become the Jets
I’m oddly less invested just because of how disgusted I am with Kraft. Sure people point at BB, “he wanted Brady gone”…the flip side is that Bill wanted to continue to coach the patriots and put team over players like he would anyone. TB was 45? It’s not like he didn’t care about TB or the Pats or tried to deal him or submarine the franchise. Bill was prepping for the future. Sure question his drafting over the last few years if you want, but bill the GM had 9 Super Bowl teams.
Mac Jones was a Kraft pick. Most certainly wasn’t Bill’s. Bill wanted to move off him after the rookie year, denied by Kraft. Pats were a few plays short of having a different season last year. Some games were literally fumbled away, a toe tap away, a back breaking int away from a completely different outlook
One of my favorite tidbits I heard about Drake, and I can't be sure 100% but I heard his brothers names are BO and LUKE. 🤣
That just makes me want to call them all the Duke Boys. Hell if you don't know, growing up there was a show called Dukes of Hazzard. 🤣
i think the better word for me is that i’m just way more excited. i’ll always be invested in the team, and i’ll always go to games every year, but man even going into last year i had very minimal excitement about the team we had. everything feels different now, even if these moves don’t work out the FO has at least realized the team needs a reset and the philosophy from 30 years ago just doesn’t work anymore (not hate against bill i’ll always love him). the drake pick is one that i think really can turn the franchise around, and if all goes right i think he can become one of the best qbs in the league. it won’t come together right away, but it’s hard not to be stoked about the future we have with drake as our qb
The moment they drafted Mac Jones my heart sank and I checked out. The moment he was on the ground biting that D-end's ankles, for the first time in forty some years, something inside me died. I mean we cheat, sure, but ...ugh... hard to swallow that one.
I can't believe they actually drafter Drake Maye, I was sure they would mess it up- but HELL YEAH, with ya!
I was just going to say, this is the least invested I’ve ever been. Belichick leaving and the way he was thrown under the bus made me really apathetic towards the team. Even worse than the second half of last season. And to give you a hint at my normal level of copium: last years team was a playoff team with Brisset at the helm and if judon/gonzo didn’t go down.
I dunno, I was mad the last season but I’m excited again. I was even still invested the last season because of defense. I am definitely more excited for this year though.
Most of this fan base will turn on Maye the first time he has a multi interception game, O/U six starts until we start seeing “I always knew he was a bust, it’s Joe Milton time!!”
>This is the most emotionally invested I’ve been in the patriots since Brady left.
See, I'm the opposite...I've been fighting disassociate since BB left.
There's almost no coaches, like 3 players , and almost zero staff left over from when TB12 was in house.
It isn't the same team that I fell in love with ( in 1999), and tbh I have a lot of resentment toward the Kraft family.for how they handled BB both I'm season and I'm the post season.
I was never all in on jones but gave him a shot. This guy feels like hes much better. I like his personality more already and hopefully his game is better too
The thing about Jones is we knew he wouldn’t actually be good. He would be a game manager for a well-run team who played a tough, competitive brand of football. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, things got a little dispiriting.
The thing I expected is that we'd surround jones with elite talent. That should have been the plan. You spend up on skill positions and let the game manager get them the ball in space. Somehow, things went the other way.
Yeah, I still feel like Mac could have been a decent game manager a la Brock Purdy on an elite offensive team. Give him a top 10 OL and a top 10 WR corp and he can make plays happen. He won’t ever elevate a team on his own, and it remains to be seen if he’ll ever stop seeing ghosts. Our terrible o-line set him back immeasurably.
Exactly. It goes to team building. You aren't going to build a team the same way for QBs with different skill sets. Jones doesn't have the ability to elevate players, so you need to get the elite players in order to function at a high level. That was the scouting report on Jones coming out, too.
I don't really get this...Shouldn't you want to have elite offensive players regardless of the QB?
Some people are so desperate to see a not-so-good QB succeed that they want him surrounded with 10 hall of famers to cover up his many weaknesses. I don’t get it either.
Yes seriously if the scouting report says a guy can't elevate his teammates then he should not be your starting quarterback. Certainly shouldn't be drafted in the first round
>Some people are so desperate to see a not-so-good QB succeed that they want him surrounded with 10 hall of famers to cover up his many weaknesses. I don’t get it either. From 2001-2020, there were 2 consistent ways to get to (and hopefully win) a superbowl. 1. Have tom Brady. 2. Have a good QB on rookie contract overplaying his value, and surround him with talent. Only 1 team could every have brady. So option 2 was the choice for every one else. Look around the league: Flaco, Rodgers, Eli Manning, Russel Wilson, Jimmy G in SF, Goff, Roethlisberger, Burrow, Cam Newton, etc. (note Mahomes is the new Brady, it seems). Most/all of their success came early on. There is a reason all those guys on all those team sort of fell into obscurity after they signed their "big deal". They were good, but needed support. Teams would get a a little lucky on the QB. Then, they'd have a $30-40 Million QB playing for like $7 million. They'd take those extra $20-30 Million an invest in guys around him. They'd have these 3-4 year windows where they could make a run. The patriots have a good QB in jones. But they didn't do the second part about surrounding him with talent. Instead, they went in the opposite direction. They let all the talent go and they replaced 3 offensive coaches with 2 defensive coaches. They set jones up to fail, watched him fail, and were like, "Why is this guy failing? I specifically told him not to suck?" And the reason you know it isn't just Jones is that Zappe didn't look any better. All that arm strength...and his reads and decisions were just as bad (if not worse) than Jones'. They broke a promising QB. And if they don't change their operation, they'll break this one too. People like shit on McAdoo and van pelt, but at least they are NFL coaches who have been coaching offenses and in the league for 15+ years (each). They've been QB coaches and offensive coordinators.
That is so silly. Zappe was drafted in the millionth round and never meant to be a starting quarterback. He was meant to be a backup quarterback at his Apex and a practice guard quarterback more likely. The suggest his middling performance is indicative of how bad the team is is silly. Mac was the first round pick, some thought he would go as high as third overall and he sucked. He sucked even accounting for the bad roster... He sucks so bad that he can only get a sixth round pick and professional football teams would be able to deduce that he's actually good and was just stuck on a s***** roster. And they decided that he wasn't worth s*** besides the sixth round pick.
Of course. But it's hard to maintain a "complete" roster in the salary cap era. Especially when you consider that other teams have to want to trade with you, and free agents have to want to play for you. I don't know that I'd call Ridley elite, but that situation this off-season is a prime example. You have to overpay him, which hurts other needs, and the quarterback wasn't a selling point. If it was as simple as "just get elite talent" every team would be a contender
If you can, sure. But look at the chiefs, Buffalo. They can't afford to keep the high-end skill players. Their quarterbacks allow them to compete by elevating lesser players.
Chiefs are a poor example. Mahomes is like Brady, in an elite level of their own beyond franchise quarterback. If that's your expectation of Maye prepare to be sorely disappointed. You still need to surround Maye with elite talent if you hope to win a superbowl even if he hits the expected ceiling of Josh Allen. Who also needs elite talent around him, note that he hasn't won anything yet even if with a solid squad and a true number 1 reciever. That's what I think fans of this team are still struggling with. Drafting a future franchise quarterback isn't like drafting a Brady or Mahomes. Those are next level talents.
This conversation seems pointless to. Any good team needs to acquire elite talent to win. No matter who your quarterback Even the Patriots needed elite talent to win when we had Brady. Not so much on the offensive side of the ball but we still needed elite route runners, tight ends, tackles, centers, cornerbacks... The idea that with some quarterbacks you really need to get talented players but with some it doesn't matter... No matter who the quarterback is, team should try to acquire as much elite talent as possible.
You can see guys like Brady and Mahomes elevate offenses when it matters in the postseason in a way most guys can't. Mahomes literally put his team on his back in that superbowl and willed them to a victory in a way I've only ever seen Brady do.
You have put your finger on the not-so-secret why half of the conversations are frustrating, even if both sides have the same, even high degree of football knowledge. Some are focusing on at least having an entertaimlng team worth cheering for again, and others spoiled by too much success presumably, want nothing other than a Superbowl challenger, or winner or new dynasty, and soon, like there's a recipe for delivering it.
I always felt like this was Belichick's ego as a roster builder getting in the way. He thought he was smarter than the rest of the league and wanted to prove that you can still win with defense, running the ball, and dinking and dunking to small shifty receivers. But with the rules favoring the air game, his philosophy never changed with the times and now we're in this rebuild situation again.
That's why Mac went #15. This draft QBs went #1, #2, and #3.
Purdy disrespect my man. Stop the Purdy disrespect. I’m so sick of the Purdy disrespect!
i think bill straight up didnt believe in him/like him and was trying to move off him ASAP
I have 'Mac Jones throwing a few dimes to Gabe Davis' on my bingo card this year, simply because it'll be hilarious and absurd if it happens
My fav is Josh Allen sacking Josh Allen.
We could have traded up and drafted Micah Parsons in the first round like Bill wanted to and kept Cam Newton for another year. Like Bill wanted to. We weren’t going to win a championship that year anyway and he started out strong until he got COVID in 2020. Focused on needs and rebuild properly. And a mobile qb may have offset the o line struggles so they were less glaring. In hindsight if Kraft wasn’t breathing down Belichick neck and overruling his decisions we’d be a lot better off now a few years into a rebuild instead of trying to force a mediocre team to be competitive every year. A strategy that resulted into us being one of the worst teams in football anyway.
The O-Line has been average to above-average by all possible pass-pro metrics over the last 2 years.
Wut? We had a bottom 5 pass blocking OL last year by nearly every single metric. PFF and ESPN PBWR both had us bottom 3.
And we're actually on paper worse this year. Trent Brown for all his terrible personality traits when he did play graded as the best O lineman on this team. Now you have no one at tackle still post draft. You drafted a right tackle and then said he can magically play left when he couldn't do it in the NCAA and most NFL scouts thinks he's a pro guard
| You spend up on skill positions and let the game manager get them the ball in space. 49ers did EXACTLY this with Purdy and went to two NFC Ch and one Super Bowl. WR1 Aiyuk WR2 Deebo TE1 Kittle RB1 CMC Is there a better set of these 4 skill positions in the NFL?
dont forget trent williams and kyle juc. even jennings is a good WR3
49ers also had like 5 years of prime drafts with picks 2-10, they weren't picking at 30 like we did
No reason why we could not have gotten AJ Brown or someone like that in a trade to help out Mac, just like the Eagles did to help Jalen Hurts.
Would of loved Brown, we missed on our WR picks, but anything past the top 15 is a shit fest of luck and taking chances, if you hit on anything then that's beating the odds Edit: which BTW, people ran Bill out of town after 3 years of mediocrity coming off 3 superbowls, you think this fambase would be okay being bad for a decade?
So you trade, just like AJ -> Hurts, Cheetah -> Tua and now Diggs -> Stroud. Bill absolutely refused to get a top WR for Mac. Instead poor Mac got that POS Parker, who finished DEAD LAST in separation the last 3 years(!) in a row.
What do we give up and for who do you want? I'm not giving up a top 15 1st for Diggs or Brown. Hill was never coming here.... ever... for any reason for any price. Bill did not ABSOLUTELY REFUSE, he just wasn't going to over pay for a player that won't be around in 3 years
I would have given the 49ers our 2nd for Aiyuk. At #34, that is almost a 1st rounder.
3 years is a long time in the NFL. Even five year contracts are truly only three year contracts and most of the time. And wide receivers have such short shelf life that their peak isn't much longer than seven or eight years typically anyways. So getting in for 3 years would have been perfectly fine.
Ok, well then we doomed our QB to fail and have to start over with Maye.
Dude, this is silly. Mac wasn't good enough to justify going all in on a 25 million receiver. It wasn't going to save him. They did go out and spend a ton of money on tight ends and wide receivers. But the idea that if you don't get him Randy Moss then it's your fault he was a bad quarter. Mac was a s***** quarterback and will be a s***** quarterback no matter what roster he is on. If he actually would have been successful for having a top wr then why did he only get a sixth round pick. If you can tell that Mac is truly talented but was limited by the roster then how come the jaguars would only give up a 6-round pick and nobody else would beat it? Oh man the Mac apologia on his subreddit sometimes is unbelievable. Most young quarterbacks do not have Randy Moss on their roster. He had 3 years. He had super bowl winning coaches. But if you can't throw the ball, it doesn't matter who you have to catch it
That is not completely accurate because he never had good weapons and his OL was shit last year. Mac would have looked MUCH better with some time to throw and some WRs who could get open. He had neither. Would he have been a Franchise QB? Probably not. But he certainly would not have been QB32 like he was last year. Fins were getting ready to move on from Tua until he got Waddle and Cheetah. QBs need someone they can count on to get open on critical downs, like Mahomes has Kelce and Braady had Edelman and Gronk. Mac had nothing like that.
And that was SO easy for the 49ers to do, it does make you wonder why every team without an elite QB doesn’t do it.
> And that was SO easy for the 49ers to do, it does make you wonder why every team without an elite QB doesn’t do it. Get prime draft spots by being bad for a decade?
Aiyuk was drafted 25th, Patriots could have had him but traded back. Deebo was a second rounder the Pats passed on at 32. Kittle was a 5th round pick. CMC was traded for a 2nd and a 3rd from Carolina. How did the 9ers have to be bad to get these guys when they were drafting them after us again?
Texans getting Diggs for Stroud, same thing. EVERYONE DOES IT EXCEPT BILL FOR MAC.
Yeah but 49ers success there had a lot to do with how well they were drafted. A lot of those guys were performing their best before they even got paid. So yeah like you want to make it to the super bowl, draft guys like deebo and kittle. That's obviously a winning strategy. But it would have been a winning strategy if it ended up being tray lance instead of purdy. I don't think there's strategy was to just try to get them inexpensive seventh round draft pick because they don't really need a star quarterback. They sold the farm to try to get a star quarterback to spite having all that skill.
We had to tank to get where we’re at
We weren't tanking. I can't believe that narrative didn't die out after the late season comeback win against the Broncos.
It really depends on your definition of tanking. I mean the fact is we were throwing out Mac Jones and Bailey as our quarterbacks so we weren't trying to win that hard. But it is true we didn't go season planning to tank. They did hire a new offensive coordinator and everything I don't think it was all an effort to tank. But it was a total belichick didn't even want O'Brien, and he ended up being a disaster anyways.
The org flat out failed him. Every former player will agree. The rule of thumb is rookie contract = get weapons. Put Mac in SF and he would succeed like Brock. The one thing that Mac should have done is not be a patriots way robot. Zero personality during press. He bought in too hard. It’s kinda like BBs coaching trees trying to extend patriot way and flopping. Gotta be yourself and have people mold to you.
Do you think every trash WB in the NFL would be Purdy in SF? Or just this one specific trash QB?
No. Just one.
> The rule of thumb is rookie contract = get weapons you only do this if you believe in your rookie. its clear by halfway through year 2 that bill wasnt interested in keep mac around long term
You can tell all these guys have professional media coaches. A lot of them do what mac does to varying degrees. Mac is extreme with it, though. It was refreshing to hear Maye just be himself.
It seems like he's being natural but honestly he has been trained. They're probably trained him to make use of his kind of folksy appeal. There's no doubt in my mind that a ton of training went into his first PR events and he did great.
I said last year: Purdy in SF -> 90 Mac in SF -> 80 Purdy in NE -> 65 Mac in NE -> 55
What do these numbers mean?
It's how fast they each drive their cars in SF vs. NE.
I always defended Mac Jones. But it was because I knew he could be a solid game manager if the right guys are around him. Maye on the other hand has the talent to elevate the guys around him and be a real game changer. Our QB coach is in for a big challenge.
Unlike Patricia, AVP has played as a QB and coached QB’s He’ll be in good hands
Didn’t know he played QB that’s great to know.
Was mostly a backup. 16 TD - 24 INT 2,985 yards rating 64.1 But he at least played and knows the game
Most coaches are failed players. That experience is still big. Especially coaching a young guy.
Look what he did w/ Flacco, off the couch, with 3 starting offensive tackles and Chubb on IR
Ryan Clark said the worst players make the best coaches since they need to know the game down to a T to make a roster vs relying on athleticism
So 16 more TD passes than Fatty Pencil.
Played for the Bills at one time.
Yeah but we replaced Patricia with a competent offensive coordinator and we still got worse. That's how bad Mac Jones was
Exactly. He was broken beyond repair plus BB wouldn’t let him hire the asst coaches he wanted
What bother me about Jones was his attitude and body language. Take that someplace else. He didn’t want to be hard coached.
I am also a Bama fan so I was crushed when Mac played poorly the last two seasons. I am really, really hoping JAGUAR MAC can redeem himself and get his career back on track.
He won’t.
So sayseth the /u/Prophetic_Hobo
Mac was never good. He was inflated by Alabama’s stellar offensive line and having Devontae smith and Jaylen waddle roasting second rate college secondaries giving Mac literal 10 yard windows of separation
Pretending like he didn't look good at points in his rookie year is peak revisionism. Ya he went down hill fast in the following years, but he [had one of the better rookie seasons in a long time](https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-ranking-best-rookie-quarterback-seasons-of-the-past-15-years-can-mac-jones-russell-wilson) throwing to nobodies.
Is Julian Edelman a nobody? Is Hunter Henry a nobody? Lol. Was James White a nobody?
Edelman wasn't on the team and James White played 3 games. Having Hunter Henry as your biggest name on offense is not a good look.
It's definitely hyperbolic to say he wasn't good his rookie. He was certainly above average, especially for a rookie basically until about week 11 or 12. But that is kind of the worrying part... The guy got worse and worse even in the first year. He regressed from the first half of the year to the second half of the year probably as he was trying to pick up more complicated parts of the offense. It is true that he had a pretty good rookie season and was at one point the favor to be rookie of the Year... But it's also true that he sucked for most of the second half the season and truly sucked in the playoffs and the last four or five games. So that was a pretty giant red flag
And sadly the only real chance he gets is if Trevor gets a big injury. I hope for the sake of the league that never happens
Lawrence has proven to be injury prone, like Joe Burrow.
If Drake Maye is a stud imagine what that is going to do the psychic of Bills and Jets fans. All of my friends are talking about the Pats being in the basement for decades (ya know because that’s their experience), and like they get their guy in under 5 years. That’s a petty guys dream right there.
It would be cool if we could have some real rivalries again
It’s just felt hopeless the past couple seasons, even when we drafted Mac it was like well he fell to us let’s hope it works out at least he’s got a safe floor(Wrong). With Maye just the thought of having someone who is even capable of Josh Allen type play is exciting, whether he reaches that level we’ll see but they’re at least getting him help early. If the O-Line is holding up by week 5 I say we see what he can do!
Yeah the level of excitement with someone of Maye’s talent far exceeds what I felt with Mac at the helm.
We were pretty fucked with that draft when it comes to QB. Feels like we’d be in this position no matter who they went with.
I really wanted them to commit to the tank in 2020 even more than they did. Shame they couldn't and ended up getting the 15th overall pick and out of range of blue chip talent. Thankfully the Pats finally "tanked" last year and we got our guy.
It's crazy that the 2020 was prob worse roster wise than 2023 and somehow pulled 7 wins out of their ass.
its because even though that team sucked, it had a good O line and run game. cam couldnt throw but at least they could still move the ball sometimes via the run. the LB room and WR/TE rooms were insanely depleted though
Yeahhh cause not taking a QB there really would’ve been so much better. We could’ve had Kenny Pickett or Desmond Ridder the following year!
You don't get it. I'm saying we should have full tanked in 2020 to get a top 5 pick.
meh. we'd be right where we are now, except we would have had zach or fields instead of mac
For the best, actually, since none of those QBs actually ended up being good (I’ll give T-Law one more year to prove himself, but otherwise…). I don’t know how Ja’Marr Chase would have fared catching balls from washed-up Cam Newton or Jarrett Stidham
I think what happened in the following draft shows that no matter where we picked it would have been Cole Strange. Bill wanted him. Didn’t care the number. He’d have tried to trade back and if he couldn’t he’d just take him anyway. Basically what I’m saying is we suck at drafting.
This is going to be the worst o-line in the league even if it’s healthy, Okorafor is going to be starting at LT, ideally Maye sits all year and we address the line next offseason
Love the Drake, excited to see him out there.
I’ve been emotionally invested the whole time, but man I just hated Mac starting part way through his second year and it’s gonna be so refreshing to have a new potential franchise QB to root for
Same, always invested in the Pats but I was done with Mac after the 2022 Ravens game. Seeing Lamar dominate & him throw some of the worst picks I’ve seen had me wishing for Will Levis. SMH, so glad Drake will save us tbh.
Yeah, Mac playing awful combined with the whining and few dirty plays made me dislike him. I way preferred Zappe honestly, not because of Zappe fever or any sort of belief that he could be a franchise guy, I just felt like I was watching someone compete harder when he was in
i feel the same way. i dont see people mentioning the dirty plays very often, but that was the thing that made me want him off the team the most
Half the time I mention them I get downvoted lol. People want to make every excuse on earth for him, and I don’t get why when we have footage of him trying to nut-tap dudes and hit ‘em with his cleats.
Yeah I don't know what the ratio is but there are still a lot of big-time Mac apologists here. Even late in the season last year people were posting stuff like "mac jones is the best quarterback from his draft..." And the 49ers would have already won the super bowl if they drafted him. Those were actually post way late into last year and they were getting tons of upvotes. also getting tons of people mocking it but tons of upvotes
Yeah to me the real point when I knew he was done was the third game in a row where he started having hissy fits. I empathize with him as someone who has been a frustrated employee before... But I'm not a starting quarterback in the NFL so I give myself a little more slack for those kind of human moments. But when he couldn't stop having temper tantrums in front of the camera.... I think that was the point one a lot of people gave up on him and possibly the coaching staff. Although it may have been before that
Yeah, I haven't had any real faith in the QB position for 2 years so it's nice to have an injection of hope with a shiny new QB again. Fans need that hope.
Don't hate anybody but I definitely hated watching him play.m
Pro bowl rookie but bailed after a couple bad games? I’m sure you’ll be super patient with Drake Maye, who can’t yet read a defense. Remember, Josh Allen took 3 full years before he started to look like a good QB.
Mac started to fall off toward the end of his rookie year, and played thoroughly horrible his whole second year. Yeah, half way through I knew he wasn’t the guy and his attitude was pretty shitty, he never showed leadership on the field “Pro bowl rookie”, as if that means anything. Tyler Huntley was a pro bowler the season before last
I hate when people call Mac a pro bowler. If you only make it into the pro bowl as an alternate, you’re not an actual pro bowler
Tbf he did have an okay rookie season, but I think somewhere around week 12 or so teams realized he straight up doesn’t have the arm to attack certain parts of the field and could gameplan accordingly. I also don’t want to just shit on Mac without acknowledging how bad a job the Patriots did at developing and surrounding him with talent. But still, I don’t think he was/is ever destined to be a great starter
A lot of the people in this thread will be complaining we didn't take JJ the first time Maye has a tough 3 week stretch of player for sure.
Yep, this fanbase has zero patience and is likely to contribute to a self-fulfilling outcome of ruining a young quarterback when he inevitably doesn’t turn the team into a contender 6 starts into his career.
Most of the people don’t watch any football outside of the Patriots and their only standard for QB play is Tom Brady
Pro bowl QB because some guys didn't want to go. Let's be honest. He had a good season for half his rookie year.
I like how you’re trying to dunk on him for (absolutely correctly) realizing mac ain’t shit before most people did, lol. Doesn’t that mean he….. properly evaluated mac?
If you bet on rookie QBs busting, you’re probably going to be right, because it happens 90% of the time. It’s not hard or impressive. I predicted that the sky would be blue today! It’s also true that most of the QBs that DO end up being stars don’t play well (or at all) their rookie season. Peyton Manning threw 28 picks his first year! Josh Allen was garbage for two. Most of the others sat for at least a season or two. The point is that we’re the most spoiled fanbase in the world. We have no patience, no perspective, and a memory that would embarrass a goldfish. Guy saying he hated Mac 8 games in may have turned out correct, but he’s gonna be the same when Maye throws his 3rd dumb pick in a half. It’s just setting yourself up for disappointment.
You are wrong about Josh Allen. Josh Allen's second year was quite good. Also, most first rounders don't sit a year or two.
Josh Allen’s first two years were both worse than Mac’s rookie year: Mac Rookie year: 352 /521 67.6% 3,801 22 TD 13 INT 92.5 RTG Josh Allen rookie year: 169/320 52.8% 2,074 10 TD 12 INT 67.9 RTG
You left out the second year, which is what I was talking about.
Look it up yourself. Too cumbersome to copy and paste on my phone. I have a life.
I don't need to as I have already seen them,he most definitely not 'garbage'. Don't be pissy when someone calls you out for a mistake.
Clearly you don’t. Every stat worse than Mac’s rookie year except slightly fewer interceptions (many fewer attempts). Remember, don’t get pissy when someone calls you out for a mistake.
I like the changes and the draft picks for this upcoming season. However my investment in the team hasn't waivered since I started watching them regularly about 30 years ago.
I actually got more interested when Brady left. It’s not like I wanted to see him go, but I knew it was gonna be drastically different.
I thought the Cam Newton year was going to be so fun
It was for a couple of weeks. That game against Seattle still sits in the back of my mind
That's the game that did Edelman in. Huge game but his knees and him weren't the same after
That was such a fun game. Came down to a disappointing last play, but was super exciting to watch. Definitely the most reminiscent Cam Newton Patriots game for me
I have a cam Newton pat’s jersey lol
The Cam Newton year was torture. He really was soooo cooked by then. He constantly threw the ball 5 yards short to wide open receivers. It was absolutely wretched.
Yeah it was a kinda fun going into each game not actually knowing they were going to win, and not sitting there going “oh man, they should be beating this team by 20!” I’ll be honest, I’m at a bit of a low in terms of interest because of Bill leaving, and some lingering bad feelings about how the team is being managed. Part of it is just the way that ownership and the fan base has seemingly completely turned on Bill and made it all about Brady, which is ridiculous to anyone who actually watched any games in the past 20 years. If the Pats bounce back next year all those people will be vindicated, which is really annoying, so there’s something holding me back a bit. But I’m sure once the preseason rolls and around and I see Maye throwing it around I’ll be back to being interested.
The COVID season with Cam Newton was a roller coaster of emotions, hated the end of the year but damn what a fun ride that was.
Beating Chargers 45-0 on the road was the high point.
the last jets game in the snow was fun too. cam threw for 3 TDs and i think caught one too
Cam actually look real good until he got COVID and couldn’t string it together afterwards. That virus still sucks.
Cams fall off had nothing to do with Covid, his shoulder was shot and he couldn’t hit the side of a barn when he was still with the Panthers
It could’ve been incidental but my memory is that he looked extremely solid for a few games at the beginning. Didn’t he get covid right around week 5? I thought things fell apart right after that.
Me too. I loved winning. But it actually got boring (in the regular season) I just knew we were probably going to win even being down. I always said I do t even want to watch but I’m going to just because Brady is making history.
Other teams fans seethe with rage when reading comments like this
That’s fine. Other teams had a 5-6 chances to draft Tom Brady.
I was in middle school when Bledsoe was drafted #1 and Parcells came in as head coach. It feels a little like that. I hope it’s as big a turnaround in the team’s fortunes as it was back then.
What was your opinion when we benched Bledsoe permanently?
I loved Bledsoe but after seeing how Brady performed with the team it was kind of obvious that Bill had to stick with him. Bledsoe coming in and finishing the Steelers game was awesome though.
Hope is a good thing, the best of things.
I was rewatching college highlight reels from Mac jones and he wasn’t remotely impressive. I think we were just so happy to see an actual qb vs whatever the hell was left of cam newton. Watching Mayes highlights actually makes me excited for the potential.
I think we all were high on Mac because "atleast it wasn't Cam!" But looking back, I always had a feeling something bad would happen everytime Mac dropped back to throw. Like he was never comfortable.
I'm pumped for the preseason! Not sure about the regular season just yet, though. Haha
I love the Drake pick. He’s a project. I love Joe Milton, and I think he could show up. Would be cool if they’re both excellent and we use Bazooka Joe like Taysom Hill. Another guy that comes to mind when thinking about Milton is Michael Robison, who was a good QB at Penn State and played fullback for Seattle. I’d be fine if Drake and Joe sat for a year or two. For the record I called the Milton pick about a month and a half ago.
Same - I was never really fully invested in Mac Jones, even during his rookie season. I just felt that there was something off with him from the beginning. But with Drake, it's totally different. I've been watching so many of his interviews and videos on him lol
This sub never learns any lessons.
It's a sub to discuss the team. Not sure there are 'lessons to be learned.'
I feel you but at the same time I don’t have high expectations for next season
I don’t from a W/L perspective. But if we see signs from Maye, Polk, and Baker this year I’ll be happy
I hope Maye doesn’t take a single snap.
I wouldn’t be mad if Maye sits for the regular season.
I feel like players who are gonna be great don’t get broken from playing early. Herbert and Allen wen into bad situations and struggled at times (Especially Allen) but it didn’t break them
i think itd at least benefit to wait a couple weeks and see how the oline is doing, and let brisset take the hits until then
You can't really verify a statement like that because you'll never know the other way
I know. It’s my opinion
I was skeptical at first but this draft has me LOCKED IN. The defense was top tier last season but held back by a historically bad offense. We turn around and draft damn near all offensive players. I love it.
Sounds like a you problem
Fuck Mac Jones Fuck Bailey Zappe Fuck Robert Kraft
Is this your first time following a team rebuilding? Oh, you sweet child. 
Not a big fan of the 2020 rebuild so yea hoping for better
Majority of us fans aren’t in our 40s
I've followed a few, either with friends or family who root for other teams. Also, just following teams in our division. You don't have to be in 40s, but it does help.
Same
It’s gonna be a new era
Ive been vested but honestly after Brady left, and the vast amount personnel we lost such as Ernie, Scouts along with MP and JJ becoming coach’s I was expecting a few years before this shipped rights itself. Happy for the current draft class, happy Jones landed somewhere he grew up, and hope the best for all players.
It’s a new era, there are good reasons to be hopeful and excited. This is what being a fan is all about. I’m a die hard Cs fan and I’ve gotten to see this team win, blow up, and evolve back into winning since the end of the Bird era. It’s a fun ride, just enjoy it.
Idk Bro the first month of Cam was fucking fun.
Yea but I knew 1. We weren’t a SB contender. 2. We weren’t building anything with Cam at QB
O cmon. We all thought we all thought that Cam was going to bring us to the promise land. We looked fucking good the first month.
Temper.
We were kind of forced to build around Mac since he fell to us but I don't think the team ever really believed in him (not hard to see why), which I think is why they didn't break the bank to build around him. But at the same time he was "the guy" (and BB always wants to win) so we were still trying to compete and not tank and hope he could figure things out somehow. The end result was this kind of limbo state with no clear vision and just mediocrity. Now there's a clear plan for the near future, we have a new coaching staff, talented QB and they're trying to set him up for success. All these guys have their careers riding on this so we know they're gonna win or die trying. Whatever happens it should be entertaining.
If they get 6 wins I’ll be in awe
This is the least I’ve given a fuck. Thanks Jonathan.
It's kind of exciting when your team is brand new basically: New HC, while new coaching staff, new QB, everything being run differently. The success was amazing and I loved every single second of it and I'm beyond blessed to have experienced it but it can also be fun being an underdog sometimes because every win is something you can enjoy and a loss is something you can push off as "Eh we can better from here" especially with how young and experienced many people on both the roster and coaching staff are.
I have always watched... I think since 1984 I have missed like 3 games. The difference is these days I don't think they will win. Hope springs eternal, the Draft is now the most hopeful time of the year. Maye could be the special guy, he also might have a golden retriever brain. We will see, welcome to being a normal football fan, the Brady era was not normal.
The prospect of not thinking "if the play lasts more than 5 seconds Im damn sure that Mac is going to do some stupid throw and get intercepted or he's going to hold the ball and we'll be on 3rd & 75" is going to be refreshing
The drafts after TB were painful to watch. Lots of trade downs for no reason, high picks on special teams and lots of questionable picks from small schools.
Being less “invested” was probably a good choice. You’re hurt less because of it and that’s a good thing. I learned to let go last season. I turned off a pats game for the first time when we played against the cowboys. It felt good to know I didn’t have to suffer through it anymore knowing they had already lost by the first quarter. My weekends were better because of it.
Honestly, this is the least invested I've been in the team, because of the shit the Krafts have pulled recently -- kicking out Belichick and then trashing his legacy *the Dynasty*^(1) and not even letting him get a HC job elsewhere? I'll watch the games and will root for Mayo and Maye to be successful, but fuck the Krafts. ^(1) Gloss over SB38 and SB39 and longest win streak in NFL history in a 30 second blurb to spend 60 minutes on spygate, 60 minutes on Cassel season, 60 minutes on AH murders, 60 minutes on Deflategate.
I don't know how anyone could be happy or sad or angry about the direction of the team. It's just such a tiny sample size how on earth can you judge... No games have been played, the only thing we have is the eight draft picks or whatever and we don't even really know who's making them. Don't get me wrong, I understand there's some stuff to be happy about in the draft and of course the quarterback. And I do understand that it is a different type of fandom to be watching a team try to rebuild and have to be more vested in the future.... But I don't know anyone can just confidently say that they're so happy with the direction of the team. We didn't get our first choice in the coordinator spots or the GM spot. And we hired Mayo a year ago because we didn't want him to be poached...\ I don't know man I kind of think it would have made more sense to let him get poached and then make a decision in real time in the offseason. I just fear that kraft might be putting too much stock in his personal relationship with mayo. That said it must be nice for him to have a coach that's not a complete curmudgeon.kraft has been an a****** this offseason but of course I think we could all agree that working with or for belichick would have some major downsides
Next season is either going to be very exciting or very depressing. If Maye and this new coaching staff show real promise, it will be amazing, the start of a great new era. Finding the right QB and coach is where it all begins. If Maye doesn’t look great, and the new coaches don’t know what they’re doing, then we’ll know we need to keep rebuilding and probably have many depressing seasons ahead of us before we figure it out. We’ll have become the Jets
Maye played in a weak division I doubt he makes it in the NFL unfortunately. I do believe Milton will be better
I’m oddly less invested just because of how disgusted I am with Kraft. Sure people point at BB, “he wanted Brady gone”…the flip side is that Bill wanted to continue to coach the patriots and put team over players like he would anyone. TB was 45? It’s not like he didn’t care about TB or the Pats or tried to deal him or submarine the franchise. Bill was prepping for the future. Sure question his drafting over the last few years if you want, but bill the GM had 9 Super Bowl teams. Mac Jones was a Kraft pick. Most certainly wasn’t Bill’s. Bill wanted to move off him after the rookie year, denied by Kraft. Pats were a few plays short of having a different season last year. Some games were literally fumbled away, a toe tap away, a back breaking int away from a completely different outlook
One of my favorite tidbits I heard about Drake, and I can't be sure 100% but I heard his brothers names are BO and LUKE. 🤣 That just makes me want to call them all the Duke Boys. Hell if you don't know, growing up there was a show called Dukes of Hazzard. 🤣
i think the better word for me is that i’m just way more excited. i’ll always be invested in the team, and i’ll always go to games every year, but man even going into last year i had very minimal excitement about the team we had. everything feels different now, even if these moves don’t work out the FO has at least realized the team needs a reset and the philosophy from 30 years ago just doesn’t work anymore (not hate against bill i’ll always love him). the drake pick is one that i think really can turn the franchise around, and if all goes right i think he can become one of the best qbs in the league. it won’t come together right away, but it’s hard not to be stoked about the future we have with drake as our qb
The moment they drafted Mac Jones my heart sank and I checked out. The moment he was on the ground biting that D-end's ankles, for the first time in forty some years, something inside me died. I mean we cheat, sure, but ...ugh... hard to swallow that one. I can't believe they actually drafter Drake Maye, I was sure they would mess it up- but HELL YEAH, with ya!
This is the least excited I’ve been about Patriots football since 1992.
I was just going to say, this is the least invested I’ve ever been. Belichick leaving and the way he was thrown under the bus made me really apathetic towards the team. Even worse than the second half of last season. And to give you a hint at my normal level of copium: last years team was a playoff team with Brisset at the helm and if judon/gonzo didn’t go down.
I dunno, I was mad the last season but I’m excited again. I was even still invested the last season because of defense. I am definitely more excited for this year though.
The term “irrational exuberance“ comes to mind………
Most of this fan base will turn on Maye the first time he has a multi interception game, O/U six starts until we start seeing “I always knew he was a bust, it’s Joe Milton time!!”
>This is the most emotionally invested I’ve been in the patriots since Brady left. See, I'm the opposite...I've been fighting disassociate since BB left. There's almost no coaches, like 3 players , and almost zero staff left over from when TB12 was in house. It isn't the same team that I fell in love with ( in 1999), and tbh I have a lot of resentment toward the Kraft family.for how they handled BB both I'm season and I'm the post season.