The New England Patriots are one of the NFLs best teams of all time but not this year. This year has been a very bad season for the 6 time Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. The Pats are one of the league's worst teams as they finished with a 4-13 record. They are currently projected to get the 3rd overall pick in this year's upcoming draft. The top names for the Patriots to get in the draft are USC QB Caleb Williams, UNC QB Drake Maye, LSU QB Jayden Daniels and Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr. The draft is loaded this year with talent at every position and the best talent is at all the positions the Pats need. If New England has a good draft and brings a handful of young stars to Foxborough and all of the veteran leaders can teach the rookies to get better than the Patriots can be a scary team in the future. The Patriots starting quarterback Mac Jones has been awful this year and he hasn’t been good since his rookie year in 2021. Mac Jones has 2,120 Passing Yards, 10 Passing Touchdowns and nearly a league high 12 interceptions. Mac has not been what the Patriots were hoping for after selecting him out of Alabama with the 15th pick. You can’t put all of the blame on Jones though because the rest of the offense is just as bad. They don’t really have any playmakers on the offense and the receivers hardly if ever get open. The one thing Patriots fans have been excited for this season was the good production from their rookie players. Their best pick was Christian Gonzalez, a cornerback out of Oregon who was taken with the 17th pick. Christian was looking like he was going to win Defensive Rookie of the Year, and he was also a top corner in the whole NFL. Another great pick was wide receiver Demario Douglas who the Pats got in the 6th round from Liberty. Douglas is a small receiver but he is very fast and agile so it is tough to tackle him. Other good picks they had in this draft were Keion White, Bryce Baringer, and Marte Mapu. The Patriots were a middle of the pack team last year as they almost made the playoffs but this year completely changed. They made moves in the offseason that were very questionable decisions. They lost star wide receiver Jakobi Meyers in free agency to the Raiders and the Patriots got JuJu Smith-Schuster instead. It has been an awful decision as Juju has not been great. The worst part is that the contract the Pats offered Juju was the same one the Raiders offered to Meyers, so if the Patriots gave Jakobi that offer he would have come back because he liked playing in New England. The only part of the team that has been okay this year is the defense. They tend to stop opposing offenses a lot and give their offense great opportunities to score but the offense almost always fails. New England has had breakout seasons from safeties Kyle Dugger and Jabrill Peppers. The team's best defender Matthew Judon went down with an injury and he hasn’t returned since. If Judon and Gonzalez played, the Patriots record wouldn’t look nearly as bad. You could also blame poor coaching from head coach Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien who have made terrible calls for the offense. Bill Belichick is the best coach in not just football but all of sports all time but it was time for a change of scenery as the Patriots and the greatest coach of all time mutually agreed to part ways. Former 2008 AP defensive rookie of the year winner Jerod Mayo received the head coaching role to fill in for Belichick. Jerod Mayo was a linebacker for the Patriots from 2008 to 2015 and he won a Super Bowl and made an all pro team with the Pats. Bringing in Mayo was great because he is now the youngest head coach in the NFL and that is what Foxborough needed. Belichick was getting old and he still coaches like back in the day with no energy or enthusiasm. Players now are looking for an upbeat head coach who has energy and wants to be around all of his players. With the Patriots being one of the most iconic football teams of the past couple decades there fans are not thrilled to see how bad they have been this season. After all these players aren’t just playing for themselves they are trying to impress the fans that are watching them. The Pats also need to have a good free agency class and they should consider replacing older players or positions they need. In free agency they should target Wide Receivers, Tight Ends, Offensive Line, Defensive Line, Linebacker, and Cornerback. The Patriots are currently okay at those positions but if they could bring in a good player it would instantly make them better. The Patriots have a lot of young pieces they can develop and turn into good players and they still can but if they want to bring players back and want to make them play for their team then they have to step up their game.