Curran: Reasons for cautious optimism about the Patriots heading into '23

It may be time for Bill to bring out The Shackleton. If you’re not familiar, Sir Ernest Shackleton was an English explorer who sailed to the South Pole in 1915 with hopes of crossing Antarctica by foot.

It didn’t go so well. Boat got wedged in the ice. Fellas were stranded a few hundred miles from land. Five months of misery wandering across ice floes followed.  

BUT ERNEST BROUGHT HIS MEN THROUGH IT!!!! Books were written. Movies were made. And back in the summer of 2001, when the IMAX film “Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure”  was playing in Providence, Belichick had his team take a training camp trip from Bryant College for a night at the movies.

It wound up being an appropriate learning tool for the 2001 Patriots, a team that overcame, overcame, overcame and wound up with a Super Bowl win despite the outrageous litany of tragedy and adversity that should have broken it.

"It's a movie that sends so many good messages, not only to a football team, but really, to anyone," Belichick said at the time. "I had talked to the team about how it's going to be a long season, a lot will happen, and there will be obstacles along the way. When you see what they faced on that boat, you realize that your problems are small by comparison."

By now, we all pretty much get what’s happened this year. Regardless of justification, decisions made with the offensive coaching staff made by Belichick ultimately stranded the Patriots on an ice floe. They have a hard time scoring. They look amateurish. It’s bad. Facts.

But what are they gonna do? Eat each other? Doubt it. So how do they fix things over the final three games and during the 2023 offseason to get back intact after this fairly miserable 10-month voyage since March? What do they have to build upon? I got five for you.

The pieces are here

The team is not 3-11. It’s 7-7. Despite its offensive struggles, it’s still sniffing around the hindquarters of a playoff berth. Defensively, they have two very good pass rushers with Matt Judon and Josh Uche. They have a talented, young defensive tackle in Christian Barmore. Deatrich Wise has grown in his expanded role. Their safeties are top-notch and Kyle Dugger is incrementally approaching being a Pro Bowl-caliber player. The corners they drafted this year -- Marcus Jones and Jack Jones -- are hits. It’s a good defense.

On offense, they have a fleet of punishing running backs and the interior of the offensive line -- Cole Strange, David Andrews and Michael Onwenu -- are plenty good enough to compete. Mac Jones is either pretty good or just OK. You can win with him, as was proven last year. Hunter Henry and Jakobi Meyers have provided enough plays over the last two seasons (more in Meyers’ case) to prove they are more than competent at being a part of the solution.

Having Matt Patricia orchestrate the offense and call plays is like handing a 5-year-old oven mitts and asking him to pound out a piano concerto. But addressing that misstep in the offseason and getting a cogent plan that has a lot less, "We’ll see ..." in it will be helpful.

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So bad it's actually good?

The dizzying offensive heights reached during The Days of Zappe and the Minnesota outburst are long gone. The year-long situational numbers -- red zone and third down in particular -- speak more loudly than the flashes of competency that can be pointed to. Those were the exception, not the rule.

Doug Pederson’s arrival in Jacksonville has Trevor Lawrence pointed in the right direction. Mike McDaniel’s presence in Miami has helped Tua Tagovailoa make a leap. Daniel Jones’ competency has taken a leap with Brian Daboll in charge. Jalen Hurts is an MVP candidate with former Indy OC Nick Sirianni in the head job. Want Mac Jones’ arrow to start pointing up again? Get him a true offensive coordinator. Bill O’Brien is the default option but -- hopefully -- Belichick’s seen the need for someone being a "made man" in the New England ecosystem is less vital than finding someone who’s really good at building offensive game plans. Robert Kraft said in March that he believed he had the right coach and quarterback combo for the Patriots to make a return to contention. He does. What the head coach needs is to cast a wider net for offensive brainpower.

There should be no qualifiers, no "yeah, buts ..." no explaining away how bad it’s been. It hasn’t worked because the offensive coaching hasn’t been good enough. And the team has paid for it.

Mac-turation

In August, I said that, by the end of the season, Mac Jones’ biggest improvement would be ... resiliency. Most of us believed the team would be slow to improve with the offensive changes being made. But the Patriots being the Patriots, things would get better as the season wore on. That hasn’t happened. And Jones’ demeanor from October when I wrote the linked article above has gone from frustrated to exasperated to semi-unhinged at times.

We all get it. It’s tough when you pour yourself into something and feel like you’re getting hung out to dry. Especially when you suspected the plan was doomed from the start and you’ve been hung out to dry.

But the histrionics are starting to seep from passion and urgency to obvious, "You guys suck!" blame-laying. And the guys he’s saying suck are the ones orchestrating the offense. The ones Bill Belichick decided to put in place. And that’s very, very thin ice for Mac to be jumping up and down on.

You’re the main leader. You affect the whole team. Don’t want to feed an us-vs.-them mentality with the coaching staff, tempting as it may be, because Bill Belichick probably isn’t going anywhere. And, TBH, you have to be playing a little better to be laying that blame. On Wednesday, Jones passed on the chance to say he didn’t want to show anyone up, instead restating that the game’s important to him and he’s big on the details. Who doesn’t love that? That’s something any boss can work with. My guess is that, by the time 2023 starts, Belichick and Jones will have a better relationship precisely BECAUSE of this rocky patch.

They have the dough

The Patriots have a little more than $56M in cap space for next season, according to current projections from the website overthecap.com. That’s the fourth-highest amount heading into next season. They need to get into the offensive tackle pool and spend. They’ll need to make a hard decision on Jakobi Meyers who has an expiring contract. Damien Harris is up as well and -- productive as he’s been since arriving -- the depth at the spot is impressive. The ugliest contract they’re dealing with is Jonnu Smith’s. He’s got a $17.4 cap hit in 2023. Of that, there’s a $6.25M portion of his $10M salary that’s guaranteed and there’s also a ton of signing bonus money that’s been prorated over the life of his deal. As a result, there’d be $19M in dead money if the Patriots tried to move on from him. They have to figure out a way to use him.

Wide receiver also needs attention. Nelson Agholor’s contract is expiring. Kendrick Bourne has a year left but things have gone pretty sideways this year and a change may do both sides good. Unfortunately, the free agent wideout class projects as underwhelming.

The Patriots may have to get into the trade market which is how the Raiders landed Davante Adams and Miami got Tyreek Hill. The 2021 shopping spree was necessary but -- as we’ve seen from the production of the skill position players they grabbed -- the value hasn’t matched up. They’ll need to be shrewder this time around.

Motivation

In 2020, the Patriots had an obvious explanation for their dip to 7-9. They’d just moved on from the greatest quarterback of all-time and their cap situation was a shambles. On a shoestring budget with a broken-down Cam Newton they were plucky but not very talented. That was a rebuild/reset year and their hands were tied. Two years later, we’re seeing a dip with a talented, highly-compensated roster. This wasn’t a scheduled rebuild year. This is a Grade A underachievement/disappointment and Sunday’s finish ushered in a new low. The Patriots are -- for this week -- a punch line and the pile-on has gone national.

Meanwhile, Belichick remains 20 wins behind Don Shula’s record for career wins. I don’t know what motivates him most -- that record, fixing what broke this year or winning another Super Bowl. But the combo is going to stoke his fire this year the way 2020’s 7-9 stoked the results of 2021.

Pitter-patter, let’s get at ‘er.