Patriots coach Bill Belichick has a lot of work to do in the off-season to reverse the course set by the team's disappointing 7-9 record this season. (AP photo)

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – Now the fun begins.

The New England Patriots are about to go into the abyss of an uncertain off-season, filled with questions that right now have no answers.

Part of that has to do with the pandemic and its impact on every aspect of life, including what teams will and won’t be able to do in preparing for next season.

And part of that has to do with the business of the NFL; the salary cap, free agency, etc. One thing we do know is the Patriots, unless they make a trade, will have the 15th pick in the first round of the NFL draft.

“There are really a lot of unknowns, a lot of question marks at this time,” Patriots coach Bill Belichick said on Monday, “where normally I would say I’ve been able to plan out a schedule that’s pretty accurate that we can stick to through the course of the spring. At this point, a lot of those questions have yet to be answered.”

The word has been that Belichick will be “aggressive” in trying to remake and remold the Patriots. When asked about that on Monday, Belichick again reverted back to his record.

“Honestly I don’t know how we could be any more aggressive than we wer for the last five years (2014-18), we’ll I’ll throg last year in their too. … But I would say we’re always trying to be aggressive.”

Of course, the feeling is it starts with the question at quarterback and whether veteran Cam Newton, who was here under a one-year deal, will be asked back. Newton will be an unrestricted free agent, Belichick has enjoyed working with him, etc. But the bottom line is Newton simply wasn’t good enough and the Patriots can’t trust him to improve.

“I have a lot of ammunition in the barrel to get better this off-season, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Newton said on his final WEEI radio appearance of the season, noting he’s the healthiest he’s been in the last five or six years. “I’ve got to obviously work on my mechanics, throw the ball sooner. …”

The trap would be that Newton can say another year in the system would make him better. However, the Patriots likely won’t go along with that theory and look elsewhere – or at least they should.

“Out of 32 guys, I’m not the 32nd at that position,” he said. “I have to be realistic about the opportunity that’s presented as well. So who knows. …”

He did say he hasn’t discussed things with Belichick as of early Monday, but on a day when there are exit meetings, etc., you can likely bet he has an idea of his future.

The Patriots have a whopping 22 unrestricted free agents heading into the off-season. That will make it harder to rebuild or replenish the talent pool, which makes ths year’s draft even more critical than those of the past.

The key free agents on offense are linemen Joe Thuney and David Andrews, plus running back James White. We say Andrews stays, Thuney – whom the team should have traded but would now have to wait for that compensatory pick – likely goes. White, after his tough personal year, we can see signing with Tampa or another Florida team to be closer to his family.

Defensively, the Patriots should likely try to retain Lawrence Guy and Deatrich Wise up front; Adam Butler is a maybe, along with John Simon. The McCourty twins act may be done as Devin stays (he signed a two-year deal last year) and Jason goes, perhaps retiring.

The bottom line is defensively, the Patriots need to get better up front. They had immense trouble at times stopping the run, and if one looks back to the early Belichick years, his top draft picks were all on defense to bolster the line – Richard Seymour, Vince Wilfork, and Ty Warren. Expect that to be a possibility this year.

The Patriots strength has been in the secondary and offensive line. The team needs to overhaul its linebacking corps as well as up front.

We already know the problems New England has offensively at receiver and tight end. They run the football well, and it certainly looks like Damien Harris and Sony Michel are a perfect one-two combo.

Remember, Harris was in mothballs most of the 2019 season, and we really didn’t know that he could be this good. Do we know that about Devin Asiasi and Dalton Keene at tight end?

At receiver, well, Jakobi Meyers was the best of a bad bunch, lowlighted by the 2019 first round bust that is N’Keal Harry. The Patriots clearly missed Julian Edelman, but you have to think that his Patriots future is in doubt due to age and ailment (knee).

But again, in the past, Tom Brady was able to cover up a lot of the shortcomings the Patriots have had. He was barely able to do it last season, as seen by the team’s early playoff exit – and eventually Brady’s own exit. Newton was not nearly good enough to make up for those shortcomings, as seen in losing streaks of four and three games that killed the season.

Two things are readily apparent: One, the bad drafts finally caught up with this team, and two, when Brady left there was no solid plan in place to replace him.

There had better be one now.

“We don’t have a next game right now, so this gives us a better opportunity to try to make the decisions that are best for the football team,” Belichick said, “both based on past experiences and future impending decisions.”

Belichick also said, in an unusual season blanketed by COVID protocols as well as team-discussed social justice issues, that it was an education experience.

“I certainly learned a lot as a coach,” Belichick said. “I had to coach and do things that I’ve never done before, do things differently, and I learned a lot about our players.”

The one thing Belichick should have learned about his players is that a good number of them aren’t good enough to make the Patriots a playoff team.

And we’ll see if that changes. It will take more work, and change, than you think.

THIS WEEK’S RANKINGS:

AFC: 1.Kansas City (14-2). 2. Buffalo (13-3) 3. Pittsburgh (12-4). 4.Baltimore (11-5). 5.Tennessee (11-5).

NFC: 1. Green Bay (13-3). 2. New Orleans (12-4). 3. Seattle (12-4). 4. Tampa Bay (11-5). 5. L.A. Rams (10-6).

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