Latest Patriots cut highlights failures of team's recent draft classes

That class featured six picks in the first four rounds of the draft, including three picks within the top 85 of the class. To only have two major contributors (Strange and Marcus Jones when he is healthy) out of that group is a pretty stunning failure on the part of the Patriots scouting department and coaching staff.

That would be damaging enough to the team's chances on its own.

It gets even worse when you go back one more year and see how little production they are also getting out of the 2021 class.

Only three of the eight players taken in that class remain on the team, and one of them, quarterback Mac Jones, seems to have lost his starting job and does not look to be the team's long-term answer. Defensive tackle Christian Barmore and running back Rhamondre Stevenson are the other two players still on the active roster.

That is a terrible success rate and means only five of the 18 players taken in the 2021 and 2022 NFL Draft classes are currently starters or key contributors on the team. There is also not a single star among them. That has played a big role in a team that is now 2-8 and on the way to the franchise's worst season in decades.

The Patriots have gone through some dry spells with the draft during the Belichick era, but having an all-time great quarterback helped mask some of those flaws -- if not all of them. No longer having that Hall of Fame quarterback safety net has now started to expose all of the flaws that currently exist with the team.

The quarterback is a big problem. He is not the only problem.