The new guys are great, but there’s unfinished business for Patriots
COMMENTARY
Pardon me if the following reads as if it were written in the equivalent a hurry-up offense. Had to get it knocked out and published before Bill Belichick the GM makes three more out-of-nowhere huge moves to help Bill Belichick the coach’s quest to win a third Super Bowl in four years and sixth overall. Boy, they work well in unison, don’t they? They’re both so good at their jobs. It’s almost like one never kills the other.
In all seriousness, the Patriots’ unexpected early participation in the NFL silly season has been a blast, albeit one marked with some still-lingering tension. On the frenetic Day 1 of free agency – the league’s equivalent of the Running of the Brides at Filene’s Basement, but with fewer bargains – the Patriots were a big-spending surprise participant, signing Bills Pro Bowl cornerback Stephon Gilmore to a contract with $40 million in guarantees. A few days later, they dealt their first-round pick in a trade with the Saints for dynamic young receiver Brandin Cooks. And there have been appealing secondary moves as well, most notably trades for Colts tight end Dwayne Allen and Panthers defensive end Kony Ealy.
The notion that the Patriots are “loading up” is a simplistic one, and it comes up every few years when they acquire more than a couple prominent players. They “loaded up” last March, too, but we didn’t necessarily call it that because the moves included signing unheralded Chris Hogan to a $15 million deal and trading Chandler Jones for an injury-prone guard and a draft pick.
There’s a more nuanced way to put it: They’re doing everything they can to win in the immediate and fairly distant future, and the balance is more delicate than merely stacking the roster with names that are familiar. But with apologies to Logan Ryan, Martellus Bennett, Chris Long, Jabaal Sheard, and other helpful Patriots who have found a new NFL home, it does feel as if the talent sum of the additions exceeds the talent sum of the departures by a healthy margin.
Still, as tempting as it might be to give the Patriots an A grade for their offseason maneuvering so far – because there is nothing the national NFL media enjoys doing more than grading transactions and drafts before the acquired players have ever set foot on their new employer’s FieldTurf – the truth is the only grade they can objectively be given right now is an incomplete. There are some fascinating new names scrawled on the depth chart. But this offseason cannot be judged until the status of some familiar names is settled.
Three in particular, and I’ll name them even though I probably don’t have to: Dont’a Hightower, Malcolm Butler, and Jimmy Garoppolo. If Hightower, an unrestricted free agent who no doubt is wowed by the Friendly’s ice cream cake or whatever other birthday gifts the Jets presented to him, and Butler, a restricted free agent whose tender for 2017 is roughly one-tenth of Gilmore’s guarantee, end up staying in New England, well, don’t give the Patriots an A. Give ‘em an A-plus while start wondering whether a trip to Minnesota next February might just be worthwhile.
(Garoppolo’s status, I should note, seems someone unresolved despite proclamations that the Patriots will not trade him. But either way, it’s win-win. If they keep him, that probably means they believe they have their successor to Tom Brady, which is a hell of thing to find. If they trade him, it means some team offered enough picks to keep the Patriots hoarding draft-day talent for years to come.)
Malcolm Butler and Dont’a Hightower teamed up on Ifeanyi Momah in a 2014 preseason game.
But I suspect most Patriots fans, at least those of sound mind and off switches on their radios, need to see how it plays out with two hugely popular and productive mainstays on the defense before judging this offseason. Gilmore is a terrific player, one with a first-round pedigree, but if he comes here at the expense of Butler and new Titan Logan Ryan, I’m not sure how a fan reconciles that beyond muttering, “In Bill We Trust.” Butler is probably the best rise-to-greatness story in Patriots history other than Tom Brady’s, a rookie free agent who saved a Super Bowl with perhaps the biggest play in the game’s history, then grew into a top-notch player at an incredibly difficult position, all the while remaining humble and likable.
Yes, the Patriots have leverage on Butler, and he should understand that. It’s business, and they are operating by the negotiated parameters. But it’s also tough to see them award a fat contract to a player who will probably never approach doing what Butler did for the franchise. It still feels like there’s another shoe to drop with him – that Saints trade rumor will not go away – and it’s going to be disappointing for a lot of reasons if Butler’s Patriots career runs just three years.
Hightower has been a Patriot for five years, but he’s become such a core player, so steady and versatile, that it feels like he’s been here longer, almost as if – and we owe Jerod Mayo preemptive apologies here – he were the direct descendant of Tedy Bruschi, who retired after the 2008 season. He has had some extraordinary moments in big games – his shoestring tackle of Marshawn Lynch in Super Bowl XLIX set up Butler’s heroics, and his strip-sack of Matt Ryan in Super Bowl LI changed the course of the game and history. The longer he lingers in free agency, the more likely it seems he returns – though the upcoming visit with the Steelers does make me somewhat nervous. He’d be an ideal fit there, and they have more to offer than just cupcakes and promises.
There are still smaller moves to be made this offseason, and perhaps a few more will arrive unforeseen. I do wonder whether Cooks’s arrival means a veteran receiver will go. But Belichick the GM has already aided Belichick the coach with some fascinating deals to bring in some talented outsiders. Now, if he can just keep Hightower, Butler, and what the heck, LeGarrette Blount too – talent we have been fortunate to get to know well – this will truly feel like an offseason in which the Patriots really did make all the right moves.
