It's interesting to see Caserio getting attention, considering that would seem to be at odds with the idea of Belichick having been terrible from a personnel perspective, as that's firmly in Nick's wheelhouse. So that tells me one of the following scenarios is true:
1) Despite what the media thinks about the Patriot's roster, other NFL teams disagree with their assessments of how putrid it is.
2) The perception or belief is that Nick gave Belichick much better options than that which was executed on, or otherwise good information was disregarded by someone with decision making power at some point above his head.
3) They agree the Patriots roster is terrible, and believe Nick had significant influence on it, but their bar is incredibly low so they want to take a look and roll the dice anyway due to lack of better options.
I'm not sure how to feel about the possibility of Nick leaving, just like I'm not sure if Monti leaving will ultimately prove to be a net positive or negative. I kinda agree the Patriots have been struggling from a Scouting and Personnel perspective, bleeding talent in comparison to their competition (for various reasons) and making up for it on the coaching side. With that in mind, is Nick a must-retain talent?
Personally, the only two people where if they were to be lost, I would have significantly increased concerns for next year would be Belichick and Gilmore. There's a lot of folks I like at every level of the organization, and continuity is a strength, for sure. But at the same time, going into a significant rebuild, I don't think anything is off the table, and if anyone wants to bail, I wouldn't consider it a major loss.