Twice in the past month, Robert Kraft has made comments about the 2023 Patriots, and each time he referenced the difficulty of the AFC East for this upcoming season:
June 8th at the Myra Kraft Community MVP Awards: "I think we have the most difficult division in the NFL, the best balance of teams — all the other three teams are good. So we’ll have our challenges. But I’m really hopeful about this team.”
June 27th at Fanatics Merch Madness event: "I'm really excited for this upcoming season and training camp. I think we've had a great offseason, and I like our draft. We're probably playing in the toughest division in football. But I love our team."
I mean, what are we doing here? Did Chaim Bloom sneak into One Patriot Place?
Funny, I don't remember any comments about how easy the AFC East was when there were essentially no good quarterbacks and good head coaches in the division for 20 years.
Now the Patriots have been passed by at least two teams (Bills, Dolphins) and oddsmakers feel strongly that a third (Jets) will do it this season ... now the owner wants to talk about how tough the division slate is?
Whatever happened to ignore the noise? You are what your record says you are? The schedule is the schedule?
There's a well-worn sports saying that says you're either getting better or getting worse, but you never stay the same.
What have the Patriots been doing since the end of 2019?
I don't get it, and what really vexes me is the potential correlation between Kraft's comments and Bill Belichick's job performance.
Just in the past few years, we've slid from how Kraft was "not happy that we haven’t won a playoff game in three years" (March 29, 2022), to "it's very important to me that we make the playoffs" (March 27, 2023) and now the division is really tough.
I'm sorry, but did this just happen overnight? Is Belichick not the director of all things football operations as coach and general manager? Were the Patriots helpless in this?
The Jets are thought to have passed the Patriots because they have a great defense (4th in points allowed despite awful offense), drafted the offensive and defensive rookies of the year in one swoop in 2022, and now have traded for Aaron Rodgers.
New England, which had the 11th-scoring defense, could have some of those things, especially Rodgers. It chose not to.
Miami boosted the 24th-scoring defense by signing vaunted defensive coordinator Vic Fangio. The Patriots have the offensive equivalent in Bill O'Brien to fix their similarly ailing unit, but Belichick let last season's disaster happen and we don't know what kind of lingering effect it has on this year.
On offense, the Dolphins sold the farm for Tyreek Hill and he instantly changed the direction of Tua Tagvailoa's career and the fortunes of the entire unit. To the point, the Patriots have only added mid-tier receivers (Nelson Agholor, Kendrick Bourne, DeVante Parker, Juju Smith-Schuster) and tight ends (Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith, Mike Gesicki). Two different paths. To this point, one has worked, and the other we're waiting to see.
The Bills went and got Stefon Diggs for Josh Allen, which changed the course of his career to some extent. They went and got a potential top-end TE/WR in Dalton Kincaid. The Patriots have not done those things. The Bills aggressively went after Von Miller and took big draft swings in the front seven. The Patriots have done similar — not a surprise given Belichick's defensive lean — but have gone the cheaper route on offense.
These are the decisions the Patriots/Belichick have made over recent seasons, compared to their divisional brethren. They may pay off this season, but they have not to this point. That is why they have fallen behind in the division, it didn't happen out of the blue.
The Bills, Dolphins and Jets (we'll see) have executed their team-building better than the Patriots have in recent seasons (before we even touch the Tom Brady decision). That's just a fact. That's not to say Belichick's vision can't come to fruition this year. It can, especially if you believe in all this four-year plan stuff from Cleveland and the New England early days.
But if the Patriots finish behind two or possibly all three AFC East teams again this season, it wasn't bad fortune or the luck of the draw. It's because the Patriots made a series of poor decisions, and the other teams hit at a better rate.
And it's absolutely a reflection directly on Belichick, and he should be held to that previously high standard by ownership.