The New England Patriots have been branded ‘out of touch’ by broadcaster Colin Cowherd after they signed Juju Smith-Schuster in free agency.

The New England Patriots are not necessarily in a ‘crisis’ right now, but compared to the standard that we were used to seeing from them between 2000 and 2020, what is going on right now is certainly a lot different in terms of success and how they are run as an organisation.

They have missed the playoffs in two of the three seasons that Tom Brady hasn’t been there, and this past season the team went into it with major questions on offence as Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, men who are more accustomed to defence and special teams respectively, were put in charge of calling the plays for second-year quarterback Mac Jones.

The offence is going to look different this year as they have re-appointed former coordinator Bill O’Brien to take over and much like any side they have been doing some wheeling and dealing when it comes to personnel, but the recent signing of JuJu Smith-Schuster has left Colin Cowherd scratching his head.

New England Patriots not so smart after signing Smith-Schuster?

Despite being a very talented player when he arrived in the NFL, putting up 2,895 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns in his first three years, Smith-Schuster has arguably become more famous as a result of his activity on social media before games, something that rubbed Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin up the wrong way and ultimately led to the receiver dropping the activities from his pre-game routine.

After a big injury in 2021, 2022 saw him move to the Kansas City Chiefs where he helped them to win a Super Bowl and re-establish himself a bit more, but speaking on The Herd, Cowherd felt that the move for someone with his past still wasn’t quite in tune with the great Patriots sides of the past.

Video: Colin Cowherd rips the New England Patriots for picking up JuJu Smith-Schuster:

JuJu just needs to do enough to help the New England Patriots

It’s true that his personality doesn’t exactly match the so-called ‘Patriot Way’, but perhaps the hope is that working under Bill Belichick will help give him the attitude boost that he has been needing, and if he can use that to focus on his play to give the Patriots some plays, then this could turn in to a pretty good signing on their end.

And if that can happen, then it might just give more people reason to keep faith in Belichick that he can still get another Super Bowl trophy out of this side before he decided to hang up his clipboard.