Report: The Patriots are Losing GM Dave Zeigler, and Probably Josh McDaniels, to the Raiders After All

Steven Senne. Shutterstock Images.

As of a few days ago, I was following the published reports where they were leading me. Because that's my job. It would be infinitely easier to make stuff up, but I've got a responsibility to you to go wherever the great forces of the universe take me. It's a burden, to be sure. But I know what I signed up for when I took this assignment. And where the reports led me, was astray:

The Raiders, reports said, were no longer interested in hiring people away from New England. Well apparently they, and by extension I, were wrong:

And so it happens again. The football world claims to hate the Patriots. It insists on diminishing everything Bill Belichick has accomplished. They reduce all his success to cheating, or luck, or the luck of having a quarterback who cheats for 20 years. But by God, they cannot stop hiring anyone who's ever worked for him. It's their only move. They have one play in their playbook, and that's to gain some legitimacy for their lesser franchises by trying to plant Belichick's seed in the fallow ground they've been farming, and desperately hope it turns into a garden. 

Seriously, how many years in a row has their been a brain drain out of Foxboro? Last year it was Nick Caserio. Before him it was Joe Judge, Brian Flores, Matt Patricia. Even Josh McDaniels, when he dropped the Colts at the last minute like they were a hot pan. All the way back to Scott Pioli, Romeo Crennel and Charlie Weis. And I'm leaving out a bunch. Notwithstanding the fact these guys have rarely ever worked out, they just keep getting hired. 

Here's part of what I wrote last week:

That said, if McDaniels [does end up getting hired elsewhere, it's not like it will be the end of the world. … At least with him, there is an obvious and immediate replacement. If he were to give his his two-weeks notice, Belichick would invite him to take a seat, press "1" on his desk phone speed dial, and as it get picked up on the first ring say, "Hey Nick. Yeah, that's why I'm calling. How soon can you get him on flight?"

 Not only has Bill O'Brien run the Patriots Erhardt-Perkins system better than it's ever been run (2007-2011), he just spent a year being immersed in the very same college system Mac Jones was weaned on. Bringing him back would be the no-braineriest of no-brainers.

I stand by that. If this McDaniels thing does happen, I'd have O'Brien here taking meetings with Jones by tomorrow. 

As far as replacing Dave Zeigler, there are plenty of options. He, after all, has only been calling the shots for one year. He was groomed to replace Caserio, and subsequently his replacements have been similarly groomed. Matt Groh is the team's Director of College Scouting. Steve Cargill is the Director of Pro Scouting. And those two just put together the best draft of any team and one of the most successful spending sprees in the history of free agency, respectively. There's also Eliot Wolf. And Matt Patricia is in the mix in a sort of undefined Ernie Adams row. The bottom line is that a front office being run by the 2021 Executive of the Year has no more reason to worry about losing their GM than they did when they lost one last year. 

Losing people to other teams is the only constant around here other than Belichick and winning. Like I also said, the other day, in the words of John Dutton, "It's the one constant in life. You build something worth having, someone's gonna try to take it." 

The only surprising aspect of this is that this guy still hasn't gotten hired away yet. 

But the offseason is still young.