Curran: On the prowl for answers to the Patriots offseason

WEST PALM BEACH – It’s been a while since the NFL gathered en masse for their annual meetings. Hell, it’s been a while since I actually got to use an actual dateline because I went somewhere.

But after a two-year, COVID-caused hiatus, the league is back at it again at the opulent Breakers. I’m at the cheaper of two Courtyards in West Palm so don’t be telling me, “Must be nice…”

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Owners, GMs and head coaches with families in tow will be arriving Sunday afternoon, sidestepping us reporters who sit like gargoyles in the lobby waiting for “our guys.”

The AFC Coaches Breakfast is Monday at 7:45 a.m. Which means this picture turns seven years old and it’s the sixth anniversary of Bill Belichick and his Microphone Bulldozing Forearms.

We are scheduled to get 30 minutes with the AFC coaches. Over the years, Belichick has been pretty open, completely closed and – on a couple of occasions – not shown at all at the breakfast. On occasions he missed, he did separate side sessions with New England media.

In 2019 at the Biltmore in Arizona, Belichick was late and prickly. Jeff Howe from The Athletic had the word count and did the analytics on Belichick’s 43-minute session. There were 116 questions and responses were an average of 15.4 words in length.

Bill Belichick fielded 116 questions over 43 minutes this morning (2.7 questions per minute). He said 1,790 words, an average of 15.4 per response. His most frequent phrases were “we’ll see” (21 times) and “I don’t know” (13 times).

— Jeff Howe (@jeffphowe) March 26, 2019

Here’s part of what I wrote on that:

“Offseason conversation is generally about speculation and hypotheticals. The only thing Belichick hates more than speculation and hypotheticals is the Jets.

So questions about how much longer he’ll coach or when Tom Brady’s contract might get redone or how the loss of one player or another will be mitigated are summarily cuffed down one after the other.

Belichick never sat down during his session. My theory on that? He doesn’t like having a pile of tape recorders, phones and microphones set up under his chin and he likes even less when people swoop in, drop a tape recorder in front of him mid-session then, after a few minutes, pluck it up and walk away. It’s rude.

The image of Billy the Bulldozer clearing recording devices out of his way in 2016 remains an all-timer.

So Belichick standing back from the table and speaking in a normal voice in a crowded room with about 300 other chattering people ensured amusing optics and bad acoustics.

When the session ended and we all headed for the buffet, reporters from other markets would stop us and shake their heads sympathetically.

“Why does he have to be like that?” is a general question.

The general answer? Because that’s how he is sometimes. Does it make the job a little harder? Sure. But we’ll live.

The Patriots are in a far different place at these meetings than they were in March 2019. Back then, they were coming off their sixth Super Bowl title, third straight Super Bowl appearance and eighth straight trip to the conference championship.

Now, Brady’s gone, the team hasn’t won a playoff game since he left and the post-Brady rebuild is still in progress. Last March, after the Patriots free agent spending spree, Belichick ducked requests to speak to reporters but owner Robert Kraft did speak on a conference call.

"In the end, if you want to have a good, consistent, winning football team, you can't do it in free agency," Kraft said. "You have to do it through the draft because that's when you're able to get people of great talent, whether it's Willie McGinest or Tom Brady. You get them at a price where you can build the team and be competitive. Once they get to their (second) contract, if they're superstars, you can only balance so many of them. … Really, the teams who draft well are the ones who will be consistently good. I don't feel like we've done the greatest job the last few years and I really hope and believe I've seen a different approach this year."

The Patriots have barely moved a muscle since free agency began. Which is somewhat to be expected. They spent wildly last year, don’t have a ton of cap space and are historically a thrifty team. But with the rest of the AFC going berserk after most of them sat out 2021 because they didn’t have the dough, the Patriots look like they’re getting lapped.

The impressive fact they got to 9-4 in early December and were briefly the top seed in the AFC got blotted out by the staggering finish to the season – 1-4 in the final five games and embarrassed by the Bills in the playoffs.

Are they ahead of schedule in their post-Brady rebuild or behind?

If – IF – someone were to get to Belichick with some truth serum, he’d say that they’re right where they want to be.

Let’s look back to look forward.

The Patriots 2020 season was very similar to 2000, the first year of the Belichick regime. The aim in both seasons was to get right with the cap and take stock of what the team had. In 2020, the Patriots were  31^st in the league in cash spent with 138M according to the NFLPA , but they also carried a significant amount of dead money against the cap which Belichick alluded to in an interview with Charlie Weis during the 2020 season.

In 2021, the Patriots were second in the league in cash spent -- $234.9M -- trailing only the Cleveland Browns with 239.4M. The Patriots spent $160M in the first nine days of free agency. They added two tight ends, one of which is very good and one of which is TBD. They added two wideouts, one of which is very good and one of which is TBD. They drafted their franchise quarterback with the 15^th overall pick. They hit on a defensive lineman and a running back. The 2021 Patriots weren’t as good as they seemed when they were 9-4 nor as bad as they looked at the end.

They didn’t overachieve to the height the 2001 team did but there were definite similarities in terms of where they were in their rebuild.

This year seems like another season of calibration. There’s coaching staff turnover, free-agent departures and a “wait-and-see” approach with players like Jonnu Smith, Nelson Agholor and Josh Uche. The team shed two productive veterans – Shaq Mason and Kyle Van Noy – and got cap savings. The Patriots have $170M in cash spending committed right now which is 28^th in the league according to overthecap.com

Next year, with the cap expected to rise sharply, the Patriots are projected to have more than $100M in cap space (fifth in the league) while having just $92M in cash currently committed (26^th). They are projected to carry no dead money.

Their highest 2023 cap hits are Matt Judon, Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith, Kendrick Bourne, David Andrews, Deatrich Wise, Devin McCourty, Jalen Mills, Trent Brown and Lawrence Guy. A lot of solid players but none are top-five at their position either.

If the Patriots can get development from draft picks that so far haven’t yielded much – Uche, Anfernee Jennings, Ronnie Perkins, Cam McGrone, Devin Asiasi, Dalton Keene for instance – that would be ideal. Then the team won’t have to shop for the talent it didn’t draft and develop.  

But if the holes remain, the Patriots will have the cash on hand to add as needed. Remember, in 2002 the Patriots took a step back to 9-7 and missed the playoffs.

“We won in '01, but in '02 we had a lot of issues," Belichick said back in 2015. "[In] '03, that was a good football team. [In] '04, that was a good football team. I don't think there's any doubt about '01. That wasn't the best team, but that team played the best so we won.

"But I think we saw in '02 more of probably overall where the '01 team was. It's just the '01 team played great when it had to in critical situations in big games. That's why they won. Can't take anything away from them because they deserved it because they were the best team. But that wasn't the case in '02."

It wasn’t until October of 2003 that Belichick’s program and the team hit its stride in historic fashion. It’s a four-year process. The Patriots are starting Year 3 and 2022 is 2002.