Happy Tamprin’ Day!!!

Diving in. As Phil Perry pointed out earlier in the day, culture will be a determining factor in who the Patriots pursue in free agency.

Doesn’t mean that guys they don’t chase -- like DK Metcalf, who went to Pittsburgh for the low, low price of a second-rounder and $30 million or so per year – are dinks. It just means that, in Drake Maye’s second year, they want the most important voice he hears to be that of Josh McDaniels. Not a $30-something mil a year wideout who is accustomed to 130 targets and 90 catches who may not be wholly understanding if he’s not getting his.

Because, hard as it may be to accept, the Patriots are still at Ground Zero in their rebuild.

Last season was supposed to be a foundational season. Didn’t work. Actually, the team got worse thanks to yet another low-impact draft (obligatory: “aside from Drake Maye” qualifier) and a heinous performance in free agency.

The Patriots' PROGRAM is better right now because Maye enters his second year, the coaching staff has been radically improved and the man in charge -- Mike Vrabel -- has a blueprint to follow. But the players aren’t.

The team’s at a tender stage. And if you’re paying a guy two times as much as anyone else in the building, he better be a good dude who lifts everyone else up.

Three things Vrabel said in his opening remarks back in January stick out:

1. "I want to galvanize our football team. I want to galvanize this building. I want to galvanize our fans."
2. "We're going to remove entitlement from our football team. We're going to get everything that we've earned from the head coach to the position coaches, all the way down to the players. We're going to earn the right to be here every single day."
3. "I don't know if we're good enough to take advantage of bad football. I'm unsure. Like, we're undefeated right now, but if we can just work towards taking advantage of bad football and being good enough to, when somebody makes a mistake, capitalizing on it and not being the ones that make the mistakes, and focusing on the little things and the details and helping them do their job better, that's a great place to start."

Meanwhile, at the NFL Combine, Vrabel went a little further, saying -- in as many words -- you get on board or you GTFO.

“We’re going to have a foundation," Vrabel said. "We’re going to give them something to believe in and to be proud of, and hopefully, they’re able to hold each other accountable to that standard. And if not, then my job is to protect the football team.”

Even though the Patriots are loathe to admit it, this is another year in which they metaphorically go through the rubble of their team decide what to keep, what to toss and how to add. For the second year in a row.

Meanwhile, 2022 and 2023 were years spent on the slide to ground zero. And 2020 was, as Bill Belichick notably called it, a “reset” year.  

Between the Patriots' selectiveness, good players re-signing with before they hit the market and free agents seeing options for more immediate success, a free agent BONANZA like 2021 may not be in the cards. As we’ve been saying since November.

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It’s a "no shortcuts" situation. You get better through the draft. You spackle with free agency. Because with the draft, free will is eliminated. You go to who picks you. Free agents have agency.

You can’t make players come at the point of a bayonet. No doubt the team was bummed left tackle Ronnie Stanley didn’t even last to the tampering period before re-signing in Baltimore. And you can assume Stanley knew he’d be passing up better financial offers.

But he wasn’t even interested in being squired around the country. As a result, the Patriots weren’t even able to give a full pitch. Same goes for Chris Godwin in Tampa Bay.

The addition of Harold Landry and the retention of Austin Hooper are fine first steps. Landry is an edge rusher. The team -- quite literally -- didn’t have one after trading Matthew Judon and Josh Uche. Hooper was part of one of the only position groups that had a good season last year.

The Patriots need to be -- as Vrabel pointed out -- mobile and agile.

“I think having different plans and having an Option A, an Option B, I mean, things are going to change,” Vrabel said at the Combine. “Everybody’s looking at the same players. So we have to be ready to pivot and adjust and have a vision for each player, I would say, at each level.

"There’s going to be this high level that things are going to get done very quickly. That’ll transition then to maybe just some mid-range dollars, and then obviously, you look at opportunities.

"So free agency gets broken down into compensation, and then it gets broken down into opportunity. I feel like we’re in a position to offer both as far as compensation and opportunity for some of these players.”

How attractive do individual players find those two factors here in New England? We’re finding out.