Will Belichick do what’s best for team or what’s best for himself ?
While there are still winnable games on the schedule, the Patriots can’t mask the facts as they face the NFL’S 4 p.m. trade deadline Tuesday, which happens to be Halloween. They’re staring at a climb so steep to get back in the AFC playoff chase it should come with a sherpa and an uncertain future at coach and quarterback.
They are 2-6 for the first time since 2000 following Sunday’s 31-17 loss to the Dolphins, and it’s time for coach Bill Belichick to put the words he employs to explain unpopular or inscrutable decisions into pragmatic action. It’s time for him to do what’s in the best interest of the team, which is to move players and try to move the team closer to genuine contention again.
Belichick doesn’t need to hold a Foxborough Fire Sale, but he should acquire draft capital for certain players in the final years of their contracts that the Patriots seem unlikely to re-up. Players like part-time passrush specialist Josh Uche are easy to part with, but the Patriots also should dangle pending free agents guard/ tackle Mike Onwenu and safety Kyle Dugger. Doing that holds more value in the long run to the franchise than holding on to them to squeeze two or three extra wins out of this season for the sake of pride, the preservation of some faded winning culture, and Belichick’s pursuit of Don Shula’s wins mark.
This is where the ineluctable conflict of interest that comes with empowering Belichick in the dual role of coach and chief player-picker could prove problematic. Coaches are programmed to think about the next game and current season, to never waver, to never give in, to treat each game as sacred. A personnel executive has to take a bigger-picture view and think more macro.
Nobody has ever balanced the two better than Belichick. However, it was much easier when he was collecting double-digit wins and a division title every season. Now, saddled with the worst winning percentage (.250) in the AFC at the effective halfway mark of the season, it gets tricky. It’s where his true loyalties and actual ethos will reveal themselves.
Can Belichick subjugate his ego and repress his instinct to scratch out every win to prioritize instead the big picture of finding a way to restock the roster?
It’s time to see if he is willing to do what he has asked his players to do many times — sacrifice personal achievements, stats, and self-interest in the name of what’s best for the team. We’ll find out if that philosophy applies to him as well.
We also should find out how comfortable ownership is with him making this important call on the team’s future when his comes with some doubt.
As deposed Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom learned, you can’t prioritize the short term and the long term concurrently.
In fairness, there’s a calculus that figures into whether the Patriots are willing to move on from starter-caliber players at the deadline.
What type of return can they get for rental players such as Uche, Onwenu and Dugger? Admittedly, it’s probably not worth it if all you’re getting back are sixth- or seventh-round picks; all three players should command more than that.
Are they willing to franchise-tag one of them?
How does the team feel about the 2024 draft? The prevailing NFL wisdom is that it’s deep at positions of need for the Patriots such as offensive tackle, wide receiver, and, yes, quarterback. So, extra capital could have greater value than waiting until 2025 to potentially receive compensatory draft picks for players who depart this offseason.
The esoteric compensatory-pick formula is also dependent on what the Patriots add this offseason in free agency. According to Overthecap. com, the Patriots are projected to have the third-most cap space in the NFL entering 2024. The site has them at about $79 million in effective cap space factoring in signing their rookie class and the Top 51 rule for salaries in the offseason.
If the Patriots spend lavishly in free agency as they did following the 2020 season, then even with the possible departures of pending UFAS Hunter Henry, Trent Brown, Kendrick Bourne, Onwenu and Dugger they may not net out 2025 compensatory picks, the highest of which start after the third round. So, in essence, you would be letting some of those players go for nothing more than a shot at having seven, eight, or nine wins, instead of five or six.
For years, the Patriots personnel polestar has been value. Squeaking out a few more wins this season is not great value for this great franchise.
But it could be quite valuable to Belichick. Every win counts in staying on the job and the chase to surpass Shula and to do it by his 50th season coaching in the NFL and 25th as Patriots coach, which is next season. He’s 17 away.