Trades, etc., spell Beginning of the End

[Parliament10]

We have suffered significant changes before. Such as losing both the Offensive and Defensive Coordinators at the same time.

But, what the Patriots have done is part natural occurrence, coupled with blatant and intentional stupidity and arrogance.
The Patriots are not some invincible mechanism. They are – or were – a symbiotic organism, that was greater than the sum of its parts.
But they've been breaking up the Band lately, and it has – and will – cost us.

Natural Occurrence:
Departure of Scott Pioli. Apparently, Pioli was a lot of our personnel management.
Departure of Josh McDaniels.
Retirement of Rodney Harrison.
Retirement of Tedy Bruschi.

Intent:
A) Trading valuable personnel who know our complicated scheme, for Newbies who wont really know it for a year.
B) Late whistle on some of these trades. Coming late, unexpected, and without proper replacements who are up to speed.

Trading Mike Vrabel, a cornerstone of the defense, and without a proper replacement in place. Not to mention, getting basically nothing for it.
Trading Ellis Hobbs hasn't hurt us much, even though he was accustomed to our system. Leigh Bodden and Shawn Springs actually make up the only functional part of the Defense.
Trading Richard Seymour, though, so late and unexpected. Ditto on not having a proper replacement ready.
There were a lot of little things that kept this team on top, and when you ignore that – well, we are seeing the results.

Other mistakes. Trading valuable backups leaves us thin on Depth:
Backups Ray Ventrone, Le Kevin Smith, Tank Williams, Russ Hochstein? Why on God's green would you trade Hochstein? He backs up 4 positions; 5 if you count Long Snapper.
The list goes on. But, the point is that you can't change everything, all at once, and expect to persevere.
No contract extension for Wilfork shows that the damage isn't over.
The success of this team has always been because we had a TEAM philosophy, that-goes-beyond-the-actual-players.
The Patriots are headed for a fall, that when realized, will be about 20 wrong moves too late.

[Celtics_Champs]

Dude you already made a thread like this after the pre-season loss. Stop freaking out and making the same threads after every loss.

I'm gonna keep this open though because I was gonna make a comment about how angry I get when people, announcers mainly, bring up this subject. At least you made it clear that Bruschi and Harrison retired. Announcers seem to think the patriots traded them and replaced them with crap. Oh and Hobbs, really? He was a great kick returner and a bad CB. People have to stop acting like we traded Champ Bailey.

From:

Bruschi to Mayo
Harrison to Meriweather and Chung
Vrabel to Burgess
Hobbs to Bodden and Butler

For years we heard how old we were, so when bb fnally decides to get younger, everyso called expert decides to rag on him saying we're gonna miss the veterans. Give me a break.

[greenbeans]

I'm happy they got rid of the old guard, no offense to your memory, but they were terrible the past couple years.