The move was the latest in a push to secure several in-house assets on new deals. Along with Stevenson, Wolf has re-signed or extended Christian Barmore, Mike Onwenu, Kyle Dugger, Hunter Henry, Kendrick Bourne, Anfernee Jennings, Josh Uche, and starting center David Andrews.
Although these contracts have sound reasoning, let’s play devil’s advocate for a second. Didn’t the Patriots part ways with former head coach Bill Belichick because of his roster-building failures? Wasn’t Bill the GM the problem? I thought Belichick couldn’t evaluate offensive talent. Funny, now they’re re-signing all of Belichick’s guys.
The narrative is that the new regime hasn’t overhauled a 4-13 roster: why move on from the greatest coach ever just to keep most of the same personnel from a four-win team?
We’ll continue using the analogy that coach Jerod Mayo and Wolf bought a house. Rather than viewing it as a complete tear-down project, it’s an extreme makeover, Patriots edition. Wolf and company are keeping the elements of the most dominant 20-year run in sports history that they like while remodeling the broken-down parts of the house in Foxboro.
Certain personnel and systems will remain in place. However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that New England’s brass essentially wiped out the quarterback room, ending the Mac Jones era with a completely different talent-evaluating approach by selecting Drake Maye third overall. Gone are the days of chasing Tom Brady’s shadow with “cerebral” pocket passers. Instead, the Pats are now in the tools-based business at quarterback with Maye and sixth-rounder Joe Milton.
Furthermore, the Patriots are installing an entirely new offensive system. Van Pelt is bringing the West Coast offense to the East Coast, replacing the Erhardt-Perkins system that players used to refer to as “calculus” over the years. AVP’s scheme will hopefully be more player-friendly while simplifying the game by taking some of the mental load…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News…