Patriots coach Bill Belichick acknowledged in an interview with Bill Lekas and Charlie Weis on Sirius XM NFL Radio that the Patriots are young and that due to their cap situation, they have not been able to add quality depth.

“We’re playing more young players than we’ve played in the past (for a) combination of reasons. We were pretty heavily invested in our team in the past few years. From a salary-cap standpoint, we didn’t have much flexibility at all. I think that was obvious on the Cam Newton contract.”

The admission is a surprise considering Belichick’s history of being tight lipped about the roster. It is not like him to be so transparent. Is he being transparent or making excuses because he constructed this roster?

I think it is a little of both. Like everyone else, Belichick knew that the 2020 season was going to be difficult with COVID-19. It became even more difficult after eight players led by Dont’a Hightower opted out. It also doesn’t help that the Patriots have $26 million in dead money sitting on their cap. It is money being paid on contracts to Tom Brady, Antonio Brown and Stephen Gostkowski. Belichick acknowledged that the cap situation is an issue.

“This is kind of the year that we’ve taken to, I would say, adjust our cap from the spending that we’ve had in accumulation of prior years. We just haven’t been able to have the kind of depth on our roster that we’ve had in some other years. That’s provided more opportunity for younger players. So it’s a combination of all the reasons.”

All of this sounds good but the reality is, Belichick overspent on “core” guys and didn’t follow his blueprint for success. Instead of overpaying players like Jonathan Jones, Shaq Mason, Rex Burkhead and Devin McCourty, he should have moved on from these players this past off-season and put that money towards younger talent. Talent acquired through the draft and free agency.

Never mind the fact that he ignored the wide receiver position this off-season and drafted two tight ends that have contributed nothing thus far.

Belichick admitted that the team has regressed since a 2-1 start.

“We had a good training camp. We played pretty well the first three weeks of the season. And then I’d say we regressed over the next two and a half weeks for a combination of reasons. We’re trying to make that ground back up and more. We need to keep going forward. So that’s what we’re doing.”

Losing Cam Newton, Stephon Gilmore along with several days of practice due to COVID-19 was also a contributing factor according to Belichick.

“We’re in that kind of space — we’re getting better, but we need to get better faster and, like I said, make up for some lost ground where we didn’t practice and had multiple players playing different spots on the offensive line. Things like that, where even the experience we got — it was beneficial, but it wasn’t as beneficial as it could have been.”

Belichick is not wrong per say but every other team in the NFL has been dealing with these circumstances and while the Patriots situation has been more challenging, it does not change the fact that this team is poorly built.

That falls on Belichick and he needs to fix it. As I said earlier this week, I don’t think it can be fixed now. However, it should be fixed this off-season with an abundance of cap space and roster flexibility.

Bottom line. Belichick the GM better help Belichick the coach otherwise the Patriots could be in for a long rebuild. No one around here wants to see that.