Patriots 2024 Offseason Thread

No I have an issue with the shifting priorities of the franchise. If you want your best chance to win today, then Jacoby shouldn’t be starting next week. If you want to protect and develop your best offensive player, then maybe Jacoby starts but Drake gets the development in practice. You can’t have both things, highest competitive level and long term development, if Jacoby gets the reps in game and in practice. I don’t care what kind of meta verse you got plugged into the players lounge.

(And before we get started with strawmen, Jacoby is not Brett Favre, Aaron Rodger’s, or even pro bowler Alex Smith (which cost the Chiefs a potential Super Bowl)).

We don't know what the OL will look like when given time to gel, the unit we watched last game was together like a week all training camp. Which is 100% a coaching issue. It's crazy complex compared to what we've seen the last 25 years. You literally have the OG doing an X on the play the ran into each other.

Sow and Andrews are the only two that have been top OL at the same position all camp.

Who knows if it can be halfway decent and injuries could destroy it, but I'd say there's a good chance they gel with more time together and it gets better than last game.

It's not Okorafor at LT that's my biggest issue, it's he played RT almost all camp. They started with Anderson, then it was Wallace for weeks, then Lowe for Weeks at LT, then Okarafor the last week.

They started this in mini camp, moving Onwenu to RG and Okorafor to RT. It's almost criminal to convert a career RT to LT, then have him play RT 90% of camp before moving back to LT.

One week before preseason game and two weeks before first game will be the longest run Okorafor has had at LT and Owenu at RT in this system.

Our old great OL coach always talked about players gelling as a unit and growing together. Which has been impossible given how they kept switching everyone. To make it worse it's a completely new OL system that none of the players have experience in and it looks rather complex

Has it been reported Maye will play scout team? If so that's good news, typically backup QBs don't get any top reps during season. Scout team QB will play against the top defense in practice and a bunch of our young WRs are on 2nd team. That will be very good experience for him.

You don't name a starter, then split starter reps or give them all to the backup. Only way Maye gets the starter reps is if he's starting.

Because the leaks and statements out of camp were that Maye isn’t as prepared to run Van Pelt’s offense. I could care less if Drake Maye can impersonate Joe Burrow on a week’s notice (newsflash: he can).

I’m with you on the second part. Although I would say that Polk and Baker should be starting with Bourne out.

Drake Maye is good at football. He probably needs to continue developing in Van Pelt’s offense.

Quit with the Alex Smith slander: led the NFL in passer rating in 2017 while Patty sat & watched; had a 116 passer rating in playoff loss. He didn't hold that team back.

Right right, I completely forgot how they hired a whole other, worse, offensive coaching staff to coach the backups, specifically so that they would be unprepared to play in the 'real' offense when the time came, and would hopefully fail to develop as players.

Bolden cleared waivers, so I expected he'll be back. So they've done a good job. Building depth and keeping the players you really needed to keep.

I wouldn't mind a QB to push Milton lol.

Also another TE wouldn't hurt.

Sounds like you do know what to say. That Drake Maye taking starter reps in practice would be akin to playing madden. Does that sound right?

Did someone say Drake Maye can’t develop unless he’s taking first team reps? I know I said they should give him the first team reps if they are prioritizing his development. That’s a big difference from your statement, so I’m gonna assume you are referencing something that someone else said.