The Quest for 7: Patriots' secret weapon, Trade ideas, Rule change, Links 2.7.20

Morning! Welcome to The Quest for 7, where volunteer writer, Steven Viner, scours the net for seven Patriots related articles from other sites offering different points of view on the six-time champs. Paid subscribers not only get to read all seven, but they also get to check out his always fiery "Steve's Soapbox" at the end.

1. The Professor is back! In his 5th of 6 stages in analyzing players, Boston Sports Journal's own, Greg Bedard, gives his findings and analysis on how the Patriots 2019 offense saw their talent level plummet. Some shocking and head-shaking numbers here. Let's all hope Bill Belichick the GM has a bounce-back year.

2. The Patriots love themselves some gooooood cornerbacks. Almost as much as Danny Ainge loves draft picks. (Man he is lucky a class-act like B-Robb covers the Celtics and I don't!) Doug Kyed of NESN explains this savvy Patriots move which makes me wonder, did the Patriots pull a fast one on the rest of the league by stashing this player? He'll certainly have my interest come training camp. Eyes emoji.

3. Brent Sobleski of Bleacher Report plays GM for the entire NFL and comes up with some intriguing ideal trade scenarios for every team. There are a couple ideas for the Patriots and everyone else in his column that would send a quake through the league if they ever came to fruition. I love one of his proposed Patriots trades while hating the other. Perhaps you could guess which sideline I'm on?

4. Like #2 on this list, here is another example of how the Patriots are playing Xbox, while everyone else is playing Atari. Bernd Buchmasser of Pats Pulpit shares this creative move New England has used several times, only to now have the league close one of the Patriots' favorite loopholes. Is anyone keeping track of how many rule changes have been made because the Patriots are just smarter than everyone else?

5. Like Boston Sports Journal, Pro Football Focus digs deep into the numbers and nuances of the game and gives us the top 101 NFL players from the 2019 season. Sam Monson explains the process and what went into the rankings. See which Patriots players made the list.

6. After going through all of these mocks, by the time April comes around, I might become the bald Mel Kiper. Jonah Tuls of The Draft Network lists two rounds worth of his 2020 NFL mock draft. One of my 12 readers — CrazywoldofTroyBrown — will not appreciate the disrespect shown to WR K.J. Hamler here!

7. After the depressing end to this Patriots season, and the long winter-suffering I know most of my family, friends, and readers are slogging through, here's an opportunity for a good laugh. James Dator of SBNation shares this year's Bad Lip Reading video and it may be the funniest one yet. The creative team makes certain to include TB12 a gaggle of times.

STEVE'S SOAPBOX

The place where Steve gets to give his take of the day from the perspective of a Patriots fan.

In this Part 5 of 5 Series, I'll be forcing myself to select the person MOST responsible for the Patriots winning or not winning the Super Bowl out of Belichick the Coach, Belichick the GM, and Tom Brady the QB. So far, 2000 to 2003, 2004 to 2007, 2008 to 2011, and 2012 to 2015 have been featured. Today is 2016 to 2019. Fight me in the comments if you disagree — but no eye-poking the baby-blues!

2016 Tom Brady the QB: +1. If it wasn't for that joke of a suspension, Brady was a lock to win MVP. Martellus Bennet had a sneaky good year, and Gronk's injury robbed us of an offense that could have rivaled 2007 by the end of the year. The defense bounced up and down all season, and when they had a horrible 1st half in the Super Bowl, dropping the Patriots into a 25 point hole, we know what happened when the GOAT put his cape on.

Belichick the Coach: +1 and -3 … Belichick the GM: +2 and -4 … Brady the QB: +2 and -3

2017 Belichick the Coach: -1. Anger has me wanting to write one word and move onto the next one, but I'll put my big-boy pants on and discuss to my chagrin. On top of the most rotten-hearted, moronic, benching in Super Bowl history, here's something that never seems to get brought up: Belichick and Matt Patricia, at one point before Super Bowl LII, ended their meeting and said to each other, "Sounds like a good defensive gameplan to me." No. It was timid, and embarrassing. I've never seen a QB look so relaxed in a game like Nick Foles was.

Belichick the Coach: +1 and -4 … Belichick the GM: +2 and -4 … Brady the QB: +2 and -3

2018 Belichick the Coach: +1. Not quite the Hoodie's masterpiece of 2001, but pretty damn close. Belichick recognized that both Gronk and Brady had declined a step, realized he had the best run-blocking offensive line in Patriots history, (want proof? that bum Michel ran for almost 5 yards a carry) and went old-school by running over all the Nickel defenses in their way, flattening them into communion wafers. Then he realized the potential of his defense, and actually attacked unlike the year before. Great redemption by Grumpy Pants.

Belichick the Coach: +2 and -4 … Belichick the GM: +2 and -4 … Brady the QB: +2 and -3

2019 Belichick the GM: -1. If the receiver and tight end positions are handled like a teenager using a Youtube video to defuse a bomb, who else could it be? And when you have a 42-year-old QB who is still capable, but in need of help more than recent years, that's called setting #12 up for failure. Not to mention it was excruciatingly obvious that this team was too light at defensive tackle, yet nothing was done to address it and the Boogeymen might as well have rolled out the red carpet for teams wishing to run on them.

Belichick the Coach: +2 and -4 … Belichick the GM: +2 and -5 … Brady the QB: +2 and -3

CONCLUSION: These numbers may look bad, but could you imagine simulating this exercise for another team over a 20-year period? Some of the non-Super Bowl years weren't because of Belichick the coach or GM. The true culprit? ... Ego. It's unrealistic to expect a championship every season, but in the years that really felt like the Patriots should have added to their trophy case, ego-driven decisions like Belichick benching Butler and screwing around at the end of the 2015 season, absolutely played a part. When the early stalwarts of the Patriots defense like Bruschi and company retired and that side of the ball struggled for years with way too much bend and plenty of break, not bringing Romeo Crennel back (maybe from worry that some would suggest, "he never won a Super Bowl without Romeo as his D-coordinator?) is fair to question. Not dishing out a few extra bucks to keep Deion Branch, Adam Viniteiri, and Richard Seymour, along with the rest of these choices, may have cost the Hoodie another ring or three. But make no mistake, the two years Belichick the Coach was most responsible for bringing home the Lombardi, (which by the way should be changed to the "Belichick") can't be touched by any coaching job that I can think of. And the years where he may not have been the biggest reason why New England won it all, they still aren't throwing a parade without the Hooded Emperor pulling the strings.

Be on the lookout for more The Quest for 7 features. Want extra Salty Tears and Soapbox? Click on my name above and scroll down for previous Quests!