“It’s OBVIOUS that they should do it,” Nick Wright strongly believes Lamar Jackson is Bill Belichick’s best bet to turn the Patriots’ fortunes around
First Things First analyst Nick Wright is of the opinion that if New England Patriots HC Bill Belichick wants to keep his job, he should jump on the opportunity to trade for Lamar Jackson.
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Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots are reportedly not pursuing Lamar Jackson. (IMAGE: AP/ GETTY IMAGES)
The NFL offseason has been bizarre for Lamar Jackson. One of the most versatile quarterbacks in the entire NFL who has changed the game in many ways and has sent defensive coordinators scrambling to find ways to slow him down, remains to play on a team that is reluctant to commit to him for the long term. The contract talks between Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens appear to have fallen through as the team imposed the non-exclusive franchise tag upon him for the next season.
With the Baltimore Ravens’ reluctance to offer Lamar Jackson a multi-year deal with a significant portion of it guaranteed, the possibility of seeing him on a different team is very real. While the Ravens did hope that other teams across the league would consider drafting a rookie QB out of the draft rather than consider shaking up their cap space by signing Lamar and they did guess right as teams are not going all in for Jackson.
Scouts of many teams have their eyes on Lamar but at the same time, the teams that are in dire need of an upgrade in the QB room happen to have the top picks in the NFL draft this year. This means Lamar Jackson is a backup option for them, in case they are unable to get their choice of QB in the draft. The New England Patriots were one team that supposedly had some interest in Lamar Jackson but that is no longer the case. A new report suggests that the Pats are no longer pursuing Lamar and will rely upon their existing QB room comprising Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe.
Nick Wright believes Bill Belichick’s position as the HC and GM of the New England Patriots is at risk
Nick Wright’s net worth is around $2 million and shared his two cents on this report. The analyst believes New England will stick to its strategy of signing players to short-term deals, which means they will not be willing to offer Lamar what he is looking for from a financial perspective. “I don’t think Belichick cares about the long-term precedent ramifications but I do think he cares about the year-to-year salary cap stuff because he’s trying to build out the whole team and the Patriots refuse to borrow from tomorrow to pay for today...they have been going year-to-year cap wise, they don’t have dead money deals, they try to avoid that.”
While that is a rather safe and sound strategy, it does limit the team from getting access to highly skilled players. The Patriots, however, have had a history and culture of drafting players and grooming them into stars, but in the past couple of seasons, HC Bill Belichick has not done the best job in that area. “You’ve got to hit on your free agents, you’ve got to hit on your draft picks and they haven’t done a great job in either regard,” Nick Wright goes on to continue.
Here’s what Wright thinks will happen with Lamar Jackson in the next couple of months, “Here’s what I think is going to end up happening with Lamar because I do think someone is going to trade for him either via just the straight two first-round picks or they’re going to work out a deal with the Ravens. It’s going to happen after the draft, there is no team in the league that is going to be looking at the draft pick they would be giving up this year and say to themselves, ‘Well if we add Lamar Jackson, is our draft pick going to be better or worse in the coming years.’“
Nick does not see Lamar going anywhere until after the draft concludes, as it will give teams more clarity on their roster. New England has the 13th pick in the draft this year and the team is likely to focus on acquiring wideouts and tight ends.
The analyst strongly believes the Patriots should trade for Lamar. “To me, it is obvious that they should do it. The part of it for Belichick is this, he’s 30 wins behind (Don) Shula for the all-time record. That doesn’t sound like much but if you win 6 or 7 games a year, now you need 5 years. If they’re not good for 2 more years, I don’t know that he gets to finish in New England and I don’t think he wants to break that record somewhere else…Lamar is not a sure thing at QB but it’s the best available option you have by far,” Wright concludes.
Will Bill Belichick finally change his strategy and trade for a big-time player who puts New England in a better position to win rather than stick to his old ways? It appears highly doubtful, but considering Lamar Jackson’s style of play, one cannot completely dismiss it. The Pats love to run the ball and so does Jackson.
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Sumedh Joshi
(2259 Articles Published)