Belichick Takes Shot at GM Ryan Poles, Hints at Bleak Future

Poles has had his missteps, but there's a lot of hindsight going on here.

The line play in the last two games has not been representative of their prior play. This line performed far better last year than they have been recently, whatever some meatballs might say. Last season they were at worst average and very often good. Especially in the run game. But even the pass protection was decent most of the time. Other than the center, who was replaced, and some questions about Nate Davis's motivation those in the know felt pretty good about this line and the stats agreed. There wasn't an apparent need to remake the line. Just focus on bringing in BPA and continue to upgrade the line where possible.

Why they are performing like this now is the real question given that they performed much better last year. A lot of the issues, aside from Shelton getting clowned on the regular, seem to be coordination issues. People not picking up stunts, or blocking the wrong man, and generally not being dialed in. Who's fault is it? I don't know. The players always have the most responsibility. But the OL coach and the OC also bear responsibility for getting them on the same page. I've seen some tape where one player is inside zone blocking on the same play another player is outside zone blocking. That's often a coordination and coaching issue. Again they didn't look like this last year so what exactly has changed?