If anyone thinks a top-three draft pick at quarterback would solve all of the New England Patriots’ offensive issues, Trent Brown believes those individuals could be in for a rude awakening, if other problems aren’t addressed first.
“I think he’d see the same set of issues,” Brown said in an interview with NESN’s Dakota Randall, when asked if a rookie quarterback could find success with the current team.
Brown was candid in his responses in Randall’s deep-dive interview with the outspoken offensive tackle, who is set to enter the offseason as an unrestricted free agent this year.
Clearly, there have been personnel issues for the Patriots that have spanned multiple years. They’ve whiffed on draft picks, undervalued key positions, lost top-tier talent and made questionable free agent signings. Brown sees the team’s struggles more as a culmination of bad decisions that no longer go unnoticed.
“There just needs to be more attention on signing and drafting good players,” said Brown. “And also understanding that Foxboro is not a vacation spot. You’ve gotta spend some money to get good players, and you’ve gotta spend money to keep your good players in-house. And once they’re in-house, you’ve gotta treat them with some respect and common decency as a human being.”
Brown even took up for Patriots quarterback Mac Jones in the interview. Jones was benched multiple times during the season before finally being replaced by Bailey Zappe.
The former first-round draft pick out of Alabama took a huge chunk of the blame from outsiders, but in Brown’s eyes, he sees a situation where Jones was set up to fail.
He pointed to Jones taking the Patriots to the playoffs as a rookie with a good offensive line and a quarterbacks coach/offensive coordinator he was comfortable with in Josh McDaniels.
After that season, the Patriots lost McDaniels to the Las Vegas Raiders and then turned to Matt Patricia, a longtime defensive coach, to coach the offense. That led to a dysfunctional situation that ultimately ended up stunting Jones’ growth.
Yet, those issues were compounded by even more bad decisions on the personnel side of things in the 2022 offseason.
The Patriots didn’t pay center/guard Ted Karras what he was worth, and he ended up signing with the Cincinnati Bengals to help fortify the offensive line for Joe Burrow. And then the Patriots made the odd choice to trade their incredibly athletic veteran guard, Shaq Mason, to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“If you pay Ted Karras, who played a hell of a season at left guard before he left to go to Cincinnati, I think that solves an issue,” Brown told Randall. “I think if you don’t trade Shaq Mason, who’s an All-Pro guard, that solves an issue. I don’t think it was necessary for those moves to be made. And then to not really replace them with guys of their caliber.”
It’s hard to refute Brown’s points given the product the Patriots put on the field in a year where the team fell to 4-13 and finished dead last in the AFC East division.
These points are the very reason why a legendary coach like Bill Belichick is sitting on the hot seat with his job up in the air.
