Fine, but will it work?
Again, we will know more in September and beyond than we will right now.
But here’s how this can work.
Offensively, the Patriots are indeed carving out a system built around 12 personnel, creating mismatches with the tight ends and against defenses based on how they treat that personnel grouping. An offense built around a punishing offensive line — see the recent trade for Trent Brown — and athleticism at the quarterback position, given the return of Cam Newton. When you are just looking to two different receivers in this package for production, the WR group of Agholor, Bourne, Julian Edleman, Jakobi Meyers and N’Keal Harry looks a bit better than when you’re trying to pull a three-WR group together for 11 personnel. Agholor last year showed that he can be something of a vertical threat, and Bourne has illustrated that as well. Both players have shown the ability to separate on those downfield routes, something that was truly missing from this offense last season.
In short, an offense rooted in 12 personnel looking to run the football and set up shot plays downfield that now has receivers that can separate. Concerns about Newton from a precision passing/ball placement standpoint are alleviated.
Then defensively, the Patriots have some flexibility up front and some consistency on the back end. They can adjust on the fly as necessary, they have Judon to create pressure off one edge and some emerging talents in Chase Winovich and Josh Uche on the other to create from the opposite side. They’ll get Dont’a Hightower back from his opt-out to patrol the middle of the second level, and Patrick Chung back to help solidify the safety position. This is all premised on the addition of Godchaux up front to solidify the middle of the defensive line, freeing up Butler and Guy to play more at the tackle spot and sometimes moving Guy to the edge opposite Judon to implement four-man surfaces.
That’s how this works on paper.
How does it fall to pieces? Agholor and Bourne’s big seasons a year ago were a function of different schemes and were more of a mirage. Judon fails to live up to the expectations, and his time in New England mirrors another time when the Patriots signed a defender from Baltimore: Adalius Thomas. Smith cannot replicate what he did under Arthur Smith in Tennessee and — this is a big part of the equation — what we saw last year from Cam Newton was not a worst-case scenario, but rather what he is now as a quarterback. That, coupled with the struggles of other quarterback options, might ultimately doom these moves.
Because in the end, what we might truly be learning right now is that the presence of Tom Brady masked all manners of sin when it came to roster construction. The Patriots of the past could miss on moves like the Adalius Thomas signing and still make runs to conference championships and Super Bowls because they have the ultimate fixer in the form of Brady.
Without that, they need to be perfect from a roster construction standpoint.
Time will tell if they have been these past few hours.