Random Thoughts (January 26, 2010)

This offseason represents Bill Belichick's biggest challenge as the leader of the Patriots since he built them into a perennial Super Bowl contender. Along with the many key decisions that have to be made on players, Belichick also has an important decision to make on his coaching staff. Defensive coordinator Dean Pees will not return next season and finding a replacement who can make the Patriots defense into the feared unit that it was in the Super Bowl years might decide if the Pats contend for the Lombardi Trophy in 2010. There are two obvious candidates currently on the coaching staff, defensive line coach Pepper Johnson and linebackers coach Matt Patricia. Considering that his playing career was largely spent under the direction of a Belichick coached defense and his ten years as a Patriots assistant coach, Johnson would be an excellent candidate. He has worked his way up the ranks under Belichick and assuming the responsibilities of a coordinator is the next step in his coaching career. Vince Wilfork agrees with this line of thinking and I'm sure Johnson has many more supporters in the lockerroom. Patricia, on the other hand, has been with the Patriots since 2004 and has been linebackers coach since 2004. He has done an admirable job at preparing the linebacking corps, which has been made up of one stud - Jerod Mayo - and a collection of aging veterans and raw rookies. My guess is that Belichick will choose Pepper Johnson for the job while also expanding the responsibilities of Patricia. Having two trusted assistants running his defense will allow Belichick to concentrate on helping the offense, which struggled at times under the play calling of Bill O'Brien... With the pre-draft evaluations kicking off this week at the Senior Bowl, let the Tim Tebow debate begin. Tebow's place in the NFL will be argued by football fans more earnestly than the Republicans and Democrats bitch about universal health care. There are some who think Tebow will never amount to anything beyond a backup quarterback and on the other side, there is a group who believes Tebow can be a successful NFL signal caller. My take is that Tebow can help a team immediately as a hybrid quarterback-fullback-tight end with the ability to develop into a solid quarterback in a few years as he adapts to the NFL. If the Patriots were to draft him in the late second round, I would be a happy man. I just don't think that he will drop to the Pats... Brett Favre owes his fans, both in Minnesota and nationally, just one thing this offseason. Let them know! If Favre wants to return, publicize it. If he wants to retire, fine, just open your mouth. If you are undecided and need time to think, don't keep it a secret. Favre's mistake the last two summers was insisting he was done, only to come back in August. The drama about his choice is growing stale and I hope he keeps us informed of his decision so we don't have a stream of endless SportsCenter clips of Rachel Nichols reporting from a high school field in Mississippi... I have never understood why an AFL team never took a shot at Forrest Gump when he graduated from Alabama. Gump was an All-American and had proven himself against the best competition in the country in the SEC. I highly doubt that the fledgling AFL could not have used a talent like Gump... No one is stopping Kentucky... Let's hope that "Uno Uno" can do more to help the Celtics return to the championship form better than "Big Baby" was giving them... How 'bout dem Bruins... Enjoy John Wall tonight...