New England Patriots: 5 burning questions in 2018
By Cody Rivera
3. Is Bill Belichick at all concerned about finding a QB successor?
At one point in time, Bill Belichick had everything planned out. He drafted Jimmy Garoppolo in the second round of the 2014 draft with the intention of letting him learn under Brady for a year or two, then be the next face of the franchise when the aging Brady called it a career.
The only problem was, Brady wasn’t ready to call it a career as quickly as Belichick had foreseen. That left Belichick in the awkward situation of being forced to trade Garoppolo to San Francisco for next to nothing, and leaving the future of the Patriots in doubt. With Brady about to turn 41, Belichick had another chance to find a new successor in the 2018 draft. With two first round picks, he could’ve easily gotten his hands on a very high-rated QB, such as Lamar Jackson or Mason Rudolph.
I myself heavily lobbied for the Patriots to select Rudolph – I just really liked his game and his numbers at Oklahoma State and thought he would translate really well to the NFL – but Belichick did nothing. Instead, he chose LSU’s Danny Etling (Danny who?) in the seventh round. It’s hard to imagine seeing him as the future of the team, but rather a guy that the Pats could groom to be a decent backup in the league if he’s lucky.
After Belichick just straight up ignored the issue at hand during the draft, it seems as if he doesn’t even care about finding the team’s next franchise quarterback. Could he really be that pissed off about how things went down with Garoppolo that he’s just going to leave the team hanging on this matter? Or does he have his eye on someone that he expects will be available in the 2019 draft?
It’s never easy to tell what Belichick is thinking. But the fact of the matter is, his starting quarterback will be 41 years old this year. His time is almost up, and somebody else is going to have to take over the reins sooner rather than later. Is Belichick going to bother to find that person?