The Patriots are tanking the 2020-21 season. Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots are going long during the 2020 offseason by unloading talent in an effort to tank the 2020-21 season with the hopes of landing some big picks in the draft following. Since the conclusion of the 2019-20 season, we’ve seen The Patriots either dropped or failed to resign Stephen Gostkowski (albeit after coming off an injury plagued season in 2019-20), Nate Ebner, Elandon Roberts, Ted Karras, Duron Harmon, Danny Shelton, Jamie Collins, Kyle Van Noy, and of course Tom Brady who went to Tampa Bay on March 17th.

original source: Jeffrey Beall – Wikipedia

The Patriots also picked up OG Joe Thuney for $14.7mil on a 1 year contract, and some draft picks, leaving them with a little over $5mil in cap space for next year. These moves are more to clear up cap space for the 2021 season. The Patriots look to shed over $20mil in dead cap space being paid next season to players not currently on their roster. If there’s no major re-signings over the next year, the Patriots will find themselves with $110mil~ in cap space for the 2021-22 season. Along with this, a handful of potentially very good picks being filtered into the Patriot’s development system. This number will go down because there definitely will be re-signings and free agent pickups. But, the Pats won’t find themselves in as much cap trouble as they currently are ahead of the 2020-21 season.

Tanking for Trevor Lawrence

original source: Thomson200 – Wikipedia

There are reports that The Patriots are tanking specifically for Trevor Lawrence, by not signing Andy Dalton, who was on the market following the 2019-20 season. But, I think it’s bigger than that. Dalton would have helped, but does he help them long term? Are the tools the Pats would be able to provide him with adequate considering how little cap space they have this year? Are they going to win a Super Bowl with Dalton?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think The Patriots intend to win many games next year, it’s estimated they’re -14WAR this offseason (and counting) as per this tweet by PFF:

Patriots breaking the Improvement Index scale with Brady's departure assuming the leftover QB snaps are split between Stidham and Kessler. This probably understates the loss pic.twitter.com/eHD3N3drWN — Kevin Cole (@KevinColePFF) March 17, 2020

Although such advanced metrics are speculative, that’s just such a huge loss in talent to not be taken seriously. Unless Belichick truly is the ultimate coach, and able to take literally anyone to a Super Bowl, I think next year is going to be looked at as a tryout for the following one. The players are all still going to be trying their best, and Belichick is most likely too competitive to not do everything in his power to still try and pull out wins. With that being said, I still highly doubt they will be making the 2021 playoffs.

Also, history has shown us that its not smart to tank for just one player in football. the NFL isn’t like the NBA or NHL where one player can be a big of enough difference maker (I covered some of the most famous tanks in professional sports in a past article here). Football tanks need to be a lot more involved and generally mean sacrificing one or two season to load up with 20 or 30 draft picks and prospects to work with. With a 53 man roster to worry about, teams can’t afford to tank solely for one player.

No one’s saying New England is going to be throwing games, but with the loss of their franchise Quarterback, the Tom Brady-era of the Patriots is officially over. Its time to turn the page and start fresh. But let’s call a spade a spade, this is tanking on par with the 2019 Dolphins. Nobody in the New England Patriots organization wants to set the stage for a decade of disappointing 8-8 seasons. Nor do they want to panic buy and pay too much for players that can’t quite get them to a championship. Winning is always the goal in New England, but sometimes in order to do that in a salary cap league, there has to be some growing pains.

The Patriots have seen an incredible 20 year run where they have a combined win-rate of 0.69 in the regular season, along with 6 Super Bowl wins in 9 appearances, which is a truly remarkable feat unlike any dynasty we’ve seen in modern-day professional sports (and maybe unlike any we’ll ever see again). I wouldn’t give up hope after a mediocre season next year, or even the following. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see the Patriots back in Super Bowl contention within the next 5 years.

If there’s one thing the last few decades have taught us, is that its never smart to bet against Belichick, so part of me almost looks forward to eating my words. You just know that leading a scrappy young/undervalued team to a championship is the kind of thing he lives for.

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