Banner: Here's Where I See Belichick, Patriots in 2024

(EDITOR’S NOTE: To listen to the Joe Banner interview, please click on the following link: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/eyetestfortwo?selected=BRCM1104030292)

For the first time in weeks, nobody is predicting a New England defeat Sunday. Of course, that’s because the Patriots don’t play. They’re on their bye. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped New England fans from talking about their woebegone franchise, and what they’re talking about has less to do with the team and more to do with its head coach.

In short, they want to know if Bill Belichick is back with the Patriots in 2024.

Once upon a time, that thought was unimaginable. Nobody in the NFL has been more successful, with the Patriots winning six Super Bowls on his watch. But that was when he and Tom Brady were the Lennon-McCartney of the NFL, and everything they did together worked to perfection.

But then Brady left, and so did the Super Bowls. Worse, so did the playoffs.

Since the departure of TB12, the Patriots are 20-24, haven’t won a playoff game and, at 2-8 this year, are off to their worst start since 2000 … or the year before Brady took over as quarterback. Now, they’re not only last in a division they once owned; they’re last in the entire AFC.

It’s such a rapid and unexpected descent that it’s provoked a tsunami of criticism, most of it aimed at Belichick and embattled quarterback Mac Jones – with disgruntled fans and media calling for one … if not both … to be dismissed. That decision is up to team owner Robert Kraft, and so far he’s said nothing other than “so far, this is not what we expected.”

So then, what should we expect? Will this be Bill Belichick’s last season as head coach in New England?

“I’m going to say 'no,' if really pushed,” said former league executive Joe Banner on the latest “Eye Test for Two” podcast. “I don’t know that he’s got a long leash, but I’d be surprised if he didn’t get another year.

“That doesn’t mean that Kraft … in his own mind … (hasn’t) thought about it and has some idea which direction he would go in if he did make a change. He’s not a 'fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants' type of guy. He’s very detailed and preparation oriented. So I don’t think a decision has been made.”

Banner is more than an interested observer. He headed the Philadelphia Eagles’ front office in the 2000s when only one other team won more playoff games … and that was New England. He grew up in suburban Boston, attended school there, and started a business there before leaving to join the Eagles in 1994 where he then got to know Kraft “reasonably well,” as he put it -- especially in 2004 when the Patriots and Eagles met in Super Bowl XXXIX.

“Despite Belichick's record," he said, "if (Kraft) was really convinced that the future was best served by his departure, he kind of has the … whatever you want to call it – guts … foolishness … anybody would have a different word – to, in fact, make that kind of decision.

"On the other hand, he isn’t somebody who doesn’t have any kind of loyalty; and he is somebody that has the capacity to understand that Belichick could also be a great coach and the right answer for the future, even though things look terrible at the moment.”

That’s one way to describe it. It’s not even Thanksgiving, yet New England already is out of the playoff picture and headed for its second consecutive losing season. Quarterback Mac Jones has been benched, the offense is a mess, there’s a dearth of playmakers everywhere and the penalties, turnovers and mistakes once characteristic of others now happen in abundance to New England.

With 16 turnovers, for instance, the Patriots rank 30^th in the NFL’s takeaway/giveaway differential (only Chicago and Las Vegas are worse), and their 63 penalties are tied for 11^th most in the league. By contrast, in 2018 – the last year New England won a Super Bowl – the Patriots were the fourth least-penalized team and ranked fifth in the takeaway/giveaway differential at plus-10. They committed 18 turnovers that season, or two more than they have now.

Part of that is due to an inept offense that ranks 31^st in scoring, ahead of only the Giants. Part of it has to do with Jones, who’s been benched multiple times and whose future with New England is “finished,” according to Banner. But part of it must have something to do with coaching, too -- especially with team discipline, once a hallmark of the franchise, notably lacking.

And that leads to Belichick.

“He’s absolutely responsible for what’s going on,” Banner said. “He’s not doing a great job. But I still think that if you evaluate him in the context of his career … not just the last three or four years … you see somebody who, when it comes to the intricacies of the game and the attention of detail, that you say ‘yes’ to.

“Now you don’t say ‘yes’ for the most recent history, but we know what he’s capable of and what he’s done. He didn’t just suddenly lose the ability to fix those aspects or have a team that's really good at those aspects. So I wouldn’t evaluate him on too short a time frame.

"We know what he’s capable of with the right talent. And I don’t think the right talent is just by having the greatest quarterback in the history of the game.”

But what, Banner was asked, happens if Belichick decides that he's had enough and asks out? He was unsure, though he said he considers it “a long shot,” mostly because of a reported contract extension that pays Belichick through 2024.

“It’s really complicated for him to leave,” he said, “unless they did come to a mutual understanding. It’ just hard for me to picture Belichick walking in and saying, ‘Listen, I’m miserable here, I’m not coaching here, we need to find a way to kind of end this’ and then find his way to a place like (another team). (But) I don’t think there’s anything you can rule out.”

OK, then, what can we rule in? In other words, what should the Patriots look like in 2024? 

For Banner, it's what he called “a radically different organization.” He envisions Belichick returning to coach a team with a significant change in personnel, possibly in staff, too, and with a new starting quarterback – either a veteran or a high pick in the 2024 draft.

“If the Patriots are within range of getting one of these top quarterbacks,” he said, looking ahead, “and they rate them as highly at least as we’ve all preliminarily rated them, they’re going to make a big move. I really think they’ll do anything, even remotely within reason.

“They may appreciate now more than anybody, as great as Belichick is, that the quarterback is everything. They knew that, obviously, but now maybe it’s more front than center … I think you’re going to see a dramatic change.”