ESPN Writer Grades the Patriots Offseason, and Handjobs Seem to Be a Big Part of the Equation

When ESPN publishes their offseason grades for all 32 NFL team, it’s worth checking out. Is it worth the paywall it’s behind? Not to me. But if it is to you and you’ve got the paid subscription, here it is. Have at it.

Personally I’m interested in what Mike Sando’s evaluation of the Patriots 2019 offseason. He’s a good writer and football analyst and I’m interested in his opinion. Which is to say, I’m interested in his free opinion, because I’m cheap and refuse to give ESPN my money for reasons I could do 50 blogs on but won’t get into here.

For what it’s worth, I love their offseason so far. Yes, they had losses. They always do. They lost a defensive end to the usual overpayment by a downtrodden franchise looking to squander a huge chunk of their salary cap looking for a shortcut to success like a guy buying a magic monkey paw in a creepy Chinese novelty store. And they lost a coordinator, as happens every three years on average. Plus Gronk retired. Maybe. Or semi-retired. Ish. We’ll see.

But they also got the highest draft grade of any team:

And we find out they had N’Keal Harry graded higher than the end of the 1st round:

So their No. 1 target fell to them the way Vince Wilfork fell to 21 back in 2004. Which to my way of thinking, makes it even better.

So what did Sando do? He gave them a grade of C. Which is fine. He’s entitled to his opinion. I have no axe to grind, other than he works for Fuhrer Goodell’s own personal Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. But hey, everyone needs to earn a living.

It’s just the reasons for the C that gets me. When you’re evaluating a team’s offseason and work into the equation that the owner received the world’s most talked about handjob, that’s where I step in. At least when I don’t have to pay for it, as I didn’t when Sando explained his rationale on this free ESPN podcast:

Q: A team I thought you were too harsh on, they just got a C, was the Patriots.

Sando: Part of it for me was that it was a tough offseason from a staffing standpoint. Right? They lost guys and you can’t control that. But then they brought in [Greg] Schiano and he leaves. That took them down about a half a tick for me. Now, I didn’t take them down because their owner did that thing down there. But that put the spoiled cherry on top a little bit. That wasn’t a good thing.

If you’re going to have a checkmarks, boxes of columns of what went well and what went poorly, right? To me, the poorly is staff leaving, Schiano leaving, Kraft issue, Gronk leaving. And that might be the extent of it.

I’m not going to put too fine a point on it, because he claims he didn’t mark the Pats down over The Tug Rule. But for a grader who didn’t think the owner’s orgasm was a factor in the grade, he certainly talks about it a lot. I mean, it’s one thing if you feel like Trey Flowers and Gronk are losses they can’t overcome. And that somehow Greg Schiano changing his mind about the coordinator job leaves a void too big for Bill Belichick to fill.  While I disagree, those are all legitimate opinions. And to be fair, he did go on to praise moves like getting Michael Bennett to replace Flowers and adding Demaryius Thomas, Ben Watson and some others.

I’m just trying to figure out how the owner getting fingers up his ass crack and a happy ending is somehow even worth bringing up. A couple of times. The way I look at it, the Pats are 2-0 since Mr. Kraft’s 14 Minutes of Heaven at the Orchids of Asia. With one of their all time wins at Kansas City and a stellar defensive performance putting a Denver Boot on the Rams two weeks later. Then they signed all those veterans. Had the best draft of anybody in the league. And the man is waving Barstool towels at Bruins games to tumultuous standing Os. Not to mention, his lawyers essentially have a 158.3 Passer Rating in court.

If anything, I’d give his team extra credit for that handjibber. A “spoiled cherry”? I beg to differ. That thing was an apple on the teacher’s desk.

P.S. So I’m assuming that after Kareem Hunt, Tyreek Hill and Richie Incognito, the Chiefs and Raiders get F-minuses?