On the surface, the Patriots’ desultory 20-13 wild-card playoff loss to the Titans on Saturday night at Gillette Stadium seemed to represent a figurative opening of gates for the AFC and the entire NFL.
The reign of the league’s undisputed kings for the past two decades — participants in nine Super Bowls, winning six of them, winners of 17 AFC East titles and 30 playoff games — appeared to be over the moment the Titans began celebrating wildly on the turf where the Patriots had won their past eight playoff games and 23 of the previous 27.
Winds of change, as frigid and unforgiving as the gusts that blew through the entire Northeast corridor on Sunday, are indeed blowing in New England.
For starters, most of New England believes quarterback Tom Brady has thrown his final pass as a Patriot.
Bill Belichick’s offensive guru, Josh McDaniels, is yet again a hot candidate for head-coaching openings, expected to interview with the Giants this week, as well as in Cleveland and Carolina.
Belichick’s trusted director of player personnel, Nick Caserio, whom the Texans tried to lure away last year, is expected to depart for a larger front-office job elsewhere.
Adding to the Patriots’ uncertainty is the fact some of Belichick’s key veteran players, like special teams leader Matthew Slater, defensive back Devin McCourty and tight end Benjamin Watson, might mull retirement, and other key players, like linebackers Kyle Van Noy and Jamie Collins and guard Joe Thuney, are free agents who could flee for more lucrative contracts.
Many more questions face the Patriots in this offseason than they’ve faced in the past two decades of dominance, and the start to every one of those questions is whether Brady will remain with the team.
There’s financial incentive for the Patriots to re-sign Brady: If they don’t, he’ll cost them $13.5 million in dead cap charges for 2020, plus another $6.75 million for 2021. If he does depart, the Chargers, Colts and the Panthers — with McDaniels — could be landing spots.
In his meeting with reporters on Sunday in the aftermath of the loss to Tennessee, Belichick came prepared to answer nothing about the future of Brady, himself, the team or even the weather outside.
“I’m sure there are a lot of questions about the future, [but] nobody has thought about the future,’’ Belichick said as part of his opening statement before a question could be asked. “Whatever’s in the future, we’ll deal with at some later point in time. We’re certainly not going to deal with it now.’’
When he was asked if he has a “timeline’’ in his mind for when he’d like to sit down with Brady, who becomes a free agent on March 18, Belichick said, “No.’’
When he was asked if he’d like to “get clarity’’ on Brady’s situation before the new league year begins in March, Belichick said, “Honestly, look, I know it’s out there, just like there’s a lot of other things out there. We could bring up 50 questions just like that one, and I told you what my state [of mind] is on that. You can ask all 50 of them and it’s going to be the same answer 50 times.
“We’ve been working on Tennessee, it’s 12 hours after the game, [I’m] not going to talk a lot of things about the future because … I’m not prepared to talk about it. They’re all questions that need to be answered at some point in time by the organization, by myself, by the coaching staff, by some of the players. But, those are collective decisions that are not made by one person. They’re made collectively, and there’s a lot of time, thought, effort and communication that goes into that. Now is not the time.
Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, Devin McCourty“All the future questions are the future.’’
No future is more important to the Patriots than that of Brady, who sounded somber and wistful after the game, saying, “I love the Patriots” and calling the Patriots “the greatest organization and playing for [owner] Mr. [Robert] Kraft all these years and Coach Belichick, nobody has had a better career, I would say, than me, just being with them.
“I don’t know what the future looks like and I am not going to predict it,’’ Brady went on. “I don’t want to get too much into the future and stuff. I don’t know what is going to happen and I am not going to predict it. No one needs to make choices at this point.’’
