When a team rebuilds, there are no shortcuts. Teams have tried and failed to cut corners on a roster rebuild, and a team like the New England Patriots certainly cannot do this. Trying to re-tool a roster all while remaining competitive is not a good formula in the NFL. To me, NFL teams fall into one of three tiers.
The first tier are the true contenders who have finished their own rebuild or whose roster is good enough to win a Super Bowl. The second tier is what I call the "irrelevant middle" where the roster might be good, but there are some serious questions about other parts of it. I'd put a team like the New Orleans Saints into this tier.
The defense is really good, but a massive question at quarterback will keep this team in that irrelevant middle tier. The final tier is the "true rebuild" tier. Teams like the Arizona Cardinals and Carolina Panthers fall into this tier. Clearly, the teams are multiple years away from finishing their own rebuild, and it's pretty well-known that the team isn't really trying to win a ton of games.
For the New England Patriots, they've been in that irrelevant middle tier for a few years now, and at this point, they need to embrace the full rebuild tier.
Patriots Roster: A multi-year rebuild is the only way to fix the team
I get that fans of the Patriots aren't yet prepared to acknowledge that this team has a long way to go, but the roster is truly dreadful. In the modern-day NFL, there are a few positions on offense that need to be rock-solid if a team wants to have a chance at winning. The first one is obviously the quarterback. An elite NFL team also needs stability at left tackle and a difference maker with their pass catchers.
The Miami Dolphins have Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. The Buffalo Bills have Stefon Diggs. The Kansas City Chiefs have Travis Kelce. The Philadelphia Eagles have AJ Brown and DeVonta Smith. The San Francisco 49ers have Bradon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel. You get the point. And guess what? All of those teams have stability with their blindside protectors, too.
The Patriots have none of that. Trent Brown is too up and down to be viewed as a stable option, and the Patriots best receiver is... who? Furthermore, with the possibility that Mike Onwenu leaves in free agency and the possibility that he eventually moves back to RG, the Patriots may have a need for two starting tackles.
It might sound easy in theory to find stability at the tackle spots, wide receiver, and QB, but these types of players don't usually hit the free agent market, so the Pats are going to have to rebuild a young core through the NFL Drafts. And to make matters a bit worse, drafting is quite hard-- teams swing and miss on their players all the time, so even though the Patriots issues on offense are clear, it might take them a few years to find difference makers at those positions.
Defensively, things are a bit brighter. The Pats have a young cornerback in Christian Gonzalez who looks like a stud. Having a shutdown CB is a must. The team also has a young pass rusher in Keion White, and perhaps the team re-signs Josh Uche. The defensive line also has two solid players in Christian Barmore and Davon Godchaux, so right now, if the Patriots play their cards right, the core of the defense could be there already.
However, what is likely is that the team endures a couple of pretty lean years while they work through filling their major roster holes and likely work through developing a QB.