By: Eric from Patriots 300 Level Podcast
One of the biggest story lines regarding the Patriots offseason which has persisted so far throughout training camp and the preseason is: Who is going to be the New England Patriots Offensive Coordinator (OC) and play caller? This is following long-time OC Josh McDaniels vacating the position to become the Head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. On the surface, this appears to be a very important topic. Josh McDaniels is arguably one of the top offensive minds in the NFL and has one of the better track records in the league in developing quarterbacks (QB win-loss record in games started in their first year starting in the NFL of 23-13: Matt Cassel (10-5), Jimmy Garappolo (2-0), Jacoby Brissett (1-1), Mac Jones (10-7)). The Patriots going into the season with a second year QB as their starter in Mac Jones, and losing one of the greatest offensive minds in the league potentially may not only hurt the Patriots offensive production for the upcoming season, but may also impact the development of their young QB going forward, who is not only losing his OC but also his QB coach in McDaniels.
After McDaniels left this offseason for the Raiders, many fans and media personalities speculated that the Patriots may turn to several different outside options including Alabama OC and former Patriots OC Bill O’Brien due to his experience in the position and familiarity of the offense, former Jets and Dolphins Head Coach Adam Gase, or promoting from within coaches such as Tight End Coach Nick Caley or Wide Receiver Coach Mick Lombardi. As time elapsed in the offseason, speculation continued to grow as no major outside coach joined this coaching staff other than New York Giants Head Coach and former Patriots WR coach and Special Teams Coordinator Joe Judge rejoining the Patriots, and WR Coach Mick Lombardi leaving the organization to become the Offensive Coordinator under Josh McDaniels with the Raiders. After observations of mini camp, training camp, the first preseason game along with reports out of the Patriots facility the current thought is that there will be a collaborative process at Offensive Coordinator between former Patriots Defensive Coordinator and Detroit Lions Head Coach Matt Patricia and former Patriots Special Teams Coordinator and Giants Head Coach Joe Judge with Matt Patricia the likely game-day play caller. For many, this is a confusing switch in Offensive Coordinator from one of the most experienced OCs in the game to a split role between 2 coaches who have never been an OC and only 3 combined years as an offensive coach in the NFL (2 for Matt Patricia: offensive assistant in 2004, assistant offensive line coach in 2005; 1 for Joe Judge: wide receiver coach in 2019).
To delve into the current situation at Offensive Coordinator, it is important to first understand the history of the position with the Patriots during Bill Belichick’s tenure as the team’s Head Coach. After Charlie Weis, who was Patriots OC the first 5 years of Belichick’s tenure with the Patriots (2000-2004), left to become the Head Coach at Notre Dame, the Patriots did not officially name an Offensive Coordinator for the 2005 season. Then QB coach, Josh McDaniels, became the defacto OC and called plays in 2005 before officially being named OC along with QB coach from 2006-2008. McDaniels was QB coach for one season (2004) before becoming the defacto OC and prior to that was a defensive assistant in 2002 and 2003 and before that was a personnel assistant in 2001 while in the Patriots system. After the 2008 season, Josh McDaniels left the Patriots coaching staff to become the Head Coach of the Denver Broncos, vacating his positions as OC and QB coach. For the 2009 and 2010 season, the Patriots did not name an official OC, but had Bill O’Brien promoted to QB coach as well as working as the defacto OC. Prior to this, O’Brien was the Patriots WR coach in 2008, an offensive assistant for the Patriots in 2007, and coached in college mostly on the offensive side of the ball between Brown University, Georgia Tech, University of Maryland, and Duke University from 1993-2006. O’Brien was officially named the OC (in addition to being QB coach) for the 2011 season. Following the 2011 season, O’Brien left the Patriots to become the Head Coach at Penn State and his positions of OC and QB coach were taken over by Josh McDaniels following his two years as Head Coach of the Denver Broncos and one year as Offensive Coordinator for the then St Louis Rams. McDaniels stayed in these two roles for the entirety of his second chapter with the Patriots from 2012 through 2021 with the exception of 2020 where Jedd Fisch was promoted to QB coach for that season but McDaniels was still the OC.
Although Matt Patricia and Joe Judge have no experience as Offensive Coordinators or offensive play callers, both are former Head Coaches who were in charge of the overall gameplan each week for their respective team, which includes the offensive side of the ball. Using this logic, you can easily argue that both Patricia and Judge have more experience at the NFL level than Josh McDaniels and Bill O’Brien at offensive game planning had before they became the Patriots OC (Bill O’Brien was OC at Georgia Tech for 2 year and at Duke for 2 years before joining the Patriots coaching staff). While O’Brien had some offensive coaching experience at the collegiate level, both him and McDaniels only coached on the offensive side of the ball in the NFL level with the Patriots for 2 and 1 seasons respectively before becoming the offensive play caller. Even considering this, the Patriots offense did not see a major drop in offensive efficiency going from Weis in 2004 to McDaniels in 2005 (Total Yards: 5,722 to 5,632; Points per Game: 27.3 to 23.7) nor going from McDaniels in 2008 to Bill O’Brien in 2009 (Total Yards: 5,847 to 6,357; Points per Game: 25.6 to 26.7). In addition, Patricia’s experience as a Defensive Coordinator may help him in thinking through how a team may defend an offensive play and/or formation set up, and through this thought process will try and counteract a suspected defensive call to the offensive play and situation. Joe Judge on the other hand, was a quarterback in college at the Division 1 level at Mississippi State, and can plan the offense through a quarterback’s eyes and state of mind.
Some may question the reasoning of choosing Patricia and/or Judge over promoting another offensive staffer such as Nick Caley or Mick Lombardi. Another concern regarding Patricia and Judge is that even though both have head coaching experience, both had abysmal performances as a head coaches with Matt Patricia going 13-29-1 in 3 seasons with the Detroit Lions while Joe Judge went 10-23 in 2 seasons with the New York Giants. These are valid points that are brought up. While they have merit, I would caution beating home those points until we see Patricia and/or Judge in their roles for a majority of the season for several reasons other than what has been mentioned so far. First, there have been numerous coaches who were just not meant to be Head Coaches and failed in their roles there, but were excellent coordinators and that may just be the case for either of them. Secondly, the weekly game plan ultimately comes down from Bill Belichick, and while Patricia and/or Judge will have to execute the vision Belichick has, Bill will ultimately have input throughout the process as well. This is likely why we did not see much of a slip in performance after Charlie Weis and Josh McDaniels left their roles as OC because the gameplan was still coming down from Belichick. In addition, just like Bill Belichick did with Tom Brady throughout the majority of his time as Patriots QB, he meets one-on-one every week with Mac Jones to discuss their upcoming opponent and through a communicative process talk about the best approach for attacking the upcoming defensive opponent.
Ultimately, Bill Belichick will always do what he thinks is in the best interest of his football team. While we may not always understand his decisions and they do not always work out in his favor, they do work out for the best more often than not. With Bill’s ultimate oversight of the weekly gameplan, along with Patricia and Judge’s experience as Head Coaches and game planning each week for their upcoming opponent, and their unique experiences as Defensive Coordinator (Patricia) and former QB (Judge), the Patriots offense is likely in a better position than most people may actually realize. Time will tell whether that is really the case, but until we find out one way or the other, there is reason to have some optimism regarding the situation heading into the season.
