The 'Patriots Way'-ward Part 2 (2 0f 3)

In the post-mortem of the 2021-22 New England Patriots season, it is hard to find positives with the specter of a thorough 47-17 beating at the hands of the division rival Buffalo Bills sitting on the minds of any Patriots fan. For one, the Patriots seemingly have found its quarterback of the future in Mac Jones. During the course of the season, he displayed toughness, resiliency and the aptitude to lead an offense. Of course, there were difficult times, but his baptism in the NFL went about as well as any fan would hope: the team won more games than it lost and made the playoffs. Just the simple state of having a future at the most important position on a football team puts the Patriots in a very favorable position moving forward. In my opinion, that is where most of the positives as the organization looks towards the horizon ends. There are many functional aspects of the Patriots organization that have either failed, fallen into significant disrepair or are so glaring that the ownership must scrutinize and suggest an overhaul of major proportions in order to create a competitive environment in the 2020's NFL structure.

Most readers of this site understand that I am a proponent of a healthy management structure within all aspects of business. Despite our emotional attachments or feelings about our favorite teams or individual figures, all levels of sports is, at the end of the day, a business. As I have watched the Patriots in particular, over the past six seasons I have noticed significant fissures within the management of the organization from the top on down. These fissures have in many cases, made their way down to the locker room and visibly affected the product on the field. During the early portions of this period a player donning jersey#12 was able to sufficiently paper over these issues with his ability to translate his competitive nature to the entire roster, which in 2018, enabled the team to squeeze another Lombardi trophy out of a roster that was grossly devoid of any young talent that could carryover a championship culture to the next generation of Patriots.

In this series, I will attempt to analyze management-related issues that have festered for well over a decade within the New England Patriots organization which culminated in a 47-17 playoff loss to the rival Buffalo Bills. My analysis is not designed to be the 'be all end all' and nor do I wish to put forth personal attacks upon individuals who are only trying to do their collective jobs. The 'Patriots Way' was successful in the past and can be similarly successful moving forward, but it will never get to that point unless serious questions about internal management practices are fully scrutinized and addressed.

Brain drain and an inexperienced hierarchy

Over the past 20-plus years, the Patriots' success has become the envy of the league. How can they keep winning with players that were marginal at best elsewhere? How do they keep their salary cap so clean and are able to acquire talent at below market rates? What is it they are doing that allows them to acquire players that fell out of favor or are unproductive elsewhere and either return them to all pro production or build them into better players? The obvious answer would be the front office and the coaching staff for most followers of sports (however, this is a vastly overrated aspect due to numerous factors). Every team in the NFL wants a piece of that formula and will back up the Brinks truck in order to install a similarly efficient program within their organization with the promise that they too can become a perennial contender just like the Patriots.

However, this plan comes with may caveats; there is no real way to evaluate whether the individuals poached from the Patriots coaching staff and front office have the capabilities to lead a program full of grown men that are highly paid and highly motivated within a competitive environment in which their livelihood can be ended within a split second. Are the individuals chosen for key organizational roles leaders of men or are they mere foot soldiers within an inflexible organizational pecking order? Are these individuals innovative with their own identity, ideas and ideologies or are they flawed individuals that respond to adversity by cosplaying other people? Sadly, most of these individuals are the latter; there is a rogue's gallery of former Patriots assistant coaches that have received an opportunity to sit at the head of their own program. They are often paired with other former members of the Patriots organization and together, they have often attempted and often failed at re-creating the magic that took place in Foxboro. They have signed former Patriots players, given promotions to low level staffers and carbon copied the organizational edicts, but collectively, out of six coaches given that opportunity to be a head coach, they have won two playoff games. Out of the litany of executives that have left the Patriots for opportunities to lead other organizations, they have one Super Bowl appearance and no championships.

Much can be speculated upon why these coaches have not succeeded, but a deeper dive into the circumstances in which they were relieved of those opportunities belies the lack of agency, innovation and voice Patriots' staffers have within that organization. Most of these coaches in conjunction with their compatriots in the front office overleveraged their abilities because they have failed to recognize that knowledge and adherence to a strict set of principles set forth within the Patriots organization do not necessarily apply elsewhere.

Let's examine the four factors that influence the application of 'The Patriot Way' in other locales. 1) Ownership: When a new coach or executive is hired, there is usually an air of desperation within an organization which is full of people, especially within the ownership groups, that will believe anything told to them. 2) Press corps: The press is usually tired of reporting about problems and wishes to change course and report about positives which can attract readership and more branding; therefore, during the honeymoon period it common for the press corps to gladhand strange moves and draft strategies (the Patriots did it, so it must hold some promise). 3) The fanbase: This is generally a very fickle and disillusioned group; they have experienced losing programs and will accept any dubious move so long as it seems Patriots-like with the end goal of their team winning a Super Bowl. They will buy the merchandise and tickets believing that the light is at the end of the tunnel. 4) Inherited personnel: The Patriots' reputation of what have you done for me lately, bad faith requests for pay cuts, positional changes and propensity to trade players brings a justifiable air of finality. However, the previous cultural iterations that were positive are eschewed in favor of the Patriots conception of a winning culture. A winning culture cannot be installed like a light bulb; it must be grown and adjusted according to what players bring combined with the previous institutional knowledge of the incoming coach or executive. Discarding everything that was in existence and hard lining a 'better' path forward alienates people regardless of how many former Patriots players are brought into the organization.

The fact that most of these coaches, save for one who was fired under very suspicious circumstances, have left a relative dumpster fire in their wake full of terrible draft picks, salary cap woes, alienated players, poor free agent acquisitions, a negative press corps and a further disillusioned fan base indicates that these individuals lacked identity, self-awareness, nuance, resilience and the ability to bring people together within a focused vision within a healthy environment aimed toward winning games.

For the Patriots, losing such key personnel at positions of need within the coaching staff and front office creates more responsibility being dumped at the feet of the individual that designed a winning organizational structure through the proper trial, error and risk-based methods. The pressures faced within this paradigm is probably immense for a healthy man in early 30's, not even taking into account that the current leader is approaching 70 years old. Bringing in new coaches, communicating the edicts of the program, integrating personnel into the process and putting out the fires of their mistakes is a daunting task. The Patriots have created a pipeline of coaching and executive talent that usually either leaves for better opportunities elsewhere or are elevated within the organization.

Position coaches and coordinators are rarely fired; when the team is winning there is no need and if a contract is not renewed, it is once again a much ado about nothing because all of the 'outside noise' among the press and the fans will not question a team that is constantly advancing deep in the playoffs. Therefore, when a family member or close friends of members of the coaching staff that have little to no NFL experience are elevated within the system, there are rarely questions. The train keeps chugging along and save for the Covid-19 optout/salary cap hamstrung 2020 season, a twenty-year string of equity ensures a semblance of hope.

However, what happens when this ‘well-connected to the coach/general manager’ group of inexperienced coaches falls flat or the team is no longer competitive in high leverage situations? Combine that with the player development issues delineated in part 1 of this series and it begs one to ask who is qualified within this coaching staff dynamic that can respond to adversity and refocus the players effectively? When the coach's son is running the defense against an experienced former Patriots staffer-turned offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills, does he have the ability to counterattack, or does he just simply lean on all he knows and all he's been taught? It says a lot when the former standout NFL player-turned coach working alongside the son gets the head coaching interview calls, but the son doesn't. The lack of strategic flexibility leads to individuals that lack a voice or innovative methods, which can alienate players as their athletic potential or knowledge is not fully tapped.

As times change, the profiles, attitudes, aptitudes, athletic ability and goals of the players change as well. The pipeline of college talent has changed over the past twenty years as much as their approach to their individual careers. Overall, many teams within the league have adopted newer offensive concepts in order to tailor their philosophies to the talent in order to maximize the return on investment in relatively short order. Under these circumstances, the coaching staff must be able to change with the times and integrate newer concepts in order to find ways to create production. For years, the Patriots have used 'the system' to justify puzzling personnel moves whether it be personnel acquisition, jettisoning personnel or the manner in which the personnel is deployed. Chief among these issues is the 'red-shirting' of players, which loses a valuable year of in-game experience for the player. Why write off salary for one season when one can find out what the player does well and put him in position to do it? If they cannot be integrated immediately, there was no use in drafting them in the first place. See part 1 for the consequences of such a strategy.

When the winning is happening, one can lean on 'the system' because the Lombardi trophies trump any criticism. The struggles of the 2020-2021 seasons have revealed that 'the system' is inflexible and designed for the 'needle in a haystack', ready-made individual that can replicate the passion, experience, nuance and abilities of the guy that wore #12 for 20 years. It is amazing when it happens, but the rarity in which something like that occurs is not worth the waste of resources, the confidence of players and the potential compromise of a winning culture.

Since many former players that have been employed as defensive assistants are rarely elevated in the system in favor of friends of the core coaching staff, valuable resources leave the building without adequate replacements. This is not an indictment on those who've manned the positions or those who've hired them. The Patriots had a winning formula for many years, but the fissures within that formula have been evident for years and laurel resting along with the refusal to cast out underperformers at the same frequency as the players they are responsible for, prevents adequate self-scouting. This leads to the brain trust hiring personnel that can be trusted to stay for the long haul, like the sons of the coach and close friends of the coaches that have been mainstays.

Questions that must be asked within this situation are: How do these coaches communicate or relate with the players since players have more than likely not seen such an arrangement since high school? Are they knowledgeable enough to answer football specific questions from an NFL player's perspective or do they send the player to another coach, which undercuts their own legitimacy? Do they have the knowledge and agency to properly adjust in-game, or do they just keep doing the only things they know how to do? Does the head coach need to step in at critical times, which undercuts the authority of the coach? A player caught within this kind of arrangement can easily lose trust in 'the system' under these circumstances. These kinds of elements lead to embarrassing 47-17 beatdowns in the playoffs in front of a national television audience.

The Bills lost six games during the 2021 season. There is a common theme among all of them: get pressure on Josh Allen up the middle and from the edges. Make him rush his reads and keep him in the pocket. Run the ball in order to set up the pass and don’t try to get cute with your play-calling. All of the victors, including the lowly, and poorly coached Jacksonville Jaguars did this.

Since the Patriots were unable to do most of these things to the Bills during the 2021 season, the common thread here is that the team lacked the sufficient talent, personnel and coaching acumen in order to replicate the formula. On defense, in order to hide deficiencies, the Patriots employed the 'Patricia defense' where schemes dictate that the personnel play it safe, so you don’t get beat deep, an unwillingness to attack and the edict to sit back in zone and pray that the offense makes a mistake. On offense, it is even more simple…"run the same system we’ve been running since 2007”. Perhaps all of those players who’ve been 'redshirted' for one or two seasons could have helped? If not, then the player evaluation side of the operation has failed, and changes need to be made. If not for these reasons, how has the coaching performed? Is everybody a ‘yes man’ without their own voice? Is the team getting the absolute best out of these players? If not, why?

Perhaps there is a very obvious reason. Check in for part 3, where we discuss systematic atrophy and my suggestions for a logical and innovative way forward.