FOXBOROUGH — After 20 years, he's certainly earned this mulligan.
Bill Belichick is already one of the greatest coaches in NFL history. What he built in this town that football seemed to forget for 40-plus years will stand the test of time. What he's done in the salary-cap era will most likely go unmatched.
Six Super Bowl titles. 304 wins. 17 consecutive 10-win seasons. All the numbers are ridiculous. You probably know them by heart.
But Belichick is also not perfect. He's not infallible. This season proved that, not that you didn't know that beforehand.
The Patriots failed this season — and finishing 4-5 down the stretch, blowing a bye with a Week 17 home loss to the Dolphins, and falling 20-13 to the Tennessee Titans in a home wild-card game is failing when you're the New England Patriots — because this team just wasn't good enough.
(Olindo Longo for BSJ)
(Adam Richins for BSJ)- Bring back an old team and several of those aging veterans (James Develin, Patrick Chung, Edelman, Brady, Jamie Collins) suffered injuries at one point or another that affected the team, or simply ran out of gas by the end of the season;
- Go thin with big bodies on the defensive line and they got run through in several games, including the playoff loss;
- Not draft any tight ends to help replace Rob Gronkowski even though that worked well in 2010;
- Have a 42-year-old quarterback but not give him any speed at the receiver position, and not make one meaningful (sorry, first-round receivers are not meaningful here) veteran acquisition at the position in the offseason, leading to the failed Antonio Brown foray (he's still Tweeting);
- Trade a second-round pick for a receiver (Mohamed Sanu) who was average in a good offense with a good quarterback and weapons around him, and he continued to be average — at best — after his trade here with a lesser supporting cast;
- Not try for points with 1:45 left and all of his timeouts against the Dolphins in the Two Minute Surrender;
- Put all his hopes for this team in an aging defense that couldn't stop Lamar Jackson, Deshaun Watson, Patrick Mahomes, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Ryan Tannehill when the game was on the line;
- Have a largely green assistant coaching staff.
