With the glue guys in place, the Patriots need to find some playmakers in the draft.
Bill Belichick has to make an impact in the draft.It hasn’t exactly been an exciting winter for New England Patriots fans.
Some of you may even consider it a disappointment.
You wanted Mike Wallace and were instead given Brandon Lloyd. Your cries for Mario Williams were heard, processed, and answered by signing Bobby Carpenter.
The Patriots acquired a gaggle of players this winter but the headlines were about as exciting as a tree falling in a forest. Stephen Gregory? This wasn’t the splash fans were looking for.
And even though most casual observers have never heard of any of the players New England signed outside of Lloyd, this will probably end up going down as one of the best played free-agency periods of Bill Belichick’s career.
We know how Hoodie operates, but for some reason we still struggle to view things from his perspective. It’s natural to look at Williams, recall images of the Patriots’ anorexic pass rush, see all the open cap space and peg him into the role, but something like that will never happen.
Belichick doesn’t want those guys. He doesn't sign stars, he makes them. When they price out, most of the time he lets them walk.
Tedy Bruschi, Vince Wilfork, Mike Vrable and even Tom Brady rose to stardom in the system, and only Brady truly transcended the Foxborough city limits and rose to true superstar status.
Randy Moss was also in Brady’s class, but he came to the team under a special set of circumstances and only landed here because it didn’t cost anything to acquire him. If he hadn't, we would still be wondering what it would be like if Brady was even given an elite receiver.
The fact of the matter is that a player like Wallace was never going to fit. Despite our best efforts to twist the pieces and wedge him into the puzzle, he requires too much attention and has too many demands to ever identify with the name on the front of his jersey.
We’re talking about a player that wants to be the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL. Do you really think he’d be happy sprinting up and down the field 30 times a game as a decoy while Rob Gronkowski, Aaron Hernandez and Wes Welker clean up underneath?
It makes for an awesome roster in Madden, but unfortunately life doesn’t always imitate art.
Still, that doesn’t make it any easier to sit back and watch as players like Williams land in Buffalo while Belichick is busy gathering a bunch of guys whose chief responsibility will be to drip oil into the rest of the cogs.
It’s hardly sexy, but rest assured, it was exactly what was needed.
By singing those glue guys, Belichick can now focus on addressing this team’s true needs – lack of depth and talent at safety, an edge rusher – with New England’s two first-round picks in next week’s draft.
Now he just has to go out and finds those players instead of trading the picks away for future opportunities. This may be a fine-tuned Lamborghini already, but the paint could still use some touching up.