Getty New England Patriots
T
he New England Patriots as a unit have struggled this season but one part of the team has struggled the most.
The Pats offense has been one of the worst in the NFL. New England’s offense has only tallied 2,781 passing yards (21st in the NFL), and 1,259 rushing yards (24th in the NFL) per Pro Football Reference.
While Mac Jones has had a down season throwing for under 2,000 yards, along with seven touchdowns and seven interceptions, the coaching staff also deserves blame.
Who Should the Patriots Blame?
Long time defensive coach Matt Patricia switched over to offense and has been calling plays for New England. Maurice Moton of Bleacher Report believes that the Patriots need to move on from Patricia in the offseason.
“Next offseason, the Patriots must hire an offensive coordinator rather than pretend Matt Patricia—a former defensive coordinator—can aid Jones’ development,” he said. “Though the Patriots don’t have a game-breaking playmaker in the backfield or on the perimeter, an innovative offensive play-caller can potentially elevate talent on that side of the ball.
“Patricia and the Patriots assistant offensive coaches may draw up something clever such as a play for cornerback Marcus Jones from time to time,” Moton continued, “but New England’s conservative approach doesn’t fit with the evolution of the league. Offensively, the Patriots have regressed without former offensive play-caller Josh McDaniels.”
Are Patriots Players Complaining?
Players in New England seem fed up with the poor offensive schemes, the most vocal being wide receiver Kendrick Bourne.
“It’s hard,” Bourne said. It goes into the aspect of it, you go to the sideline you’re just like, ‘man.’ You can’t not believe in your abilities, you know we’re all here for a reason. It’s just frustrating as a man, you know what I mean? We’re all men in here and we all want to contribute, but it’s just hard because it’s 11 men. One person can’t mess up, it’ll mess up the whole thing. It’s just about being mentally strong every single play, every single second of the game. It gets frustrating, it’s just a part of the NFL.
“We just need to scheme up better,” Bourne added. “We need to know what they’re doing. We need to know what they want to do on third down, you know what I mean? We’re kind of sporadic. They call this and we call that and it falls into what they want. We need to have it where they’re falling into what we want. That’s not my job. It’s my job to just run the call.”
Even coaches are criticizing Patricia. Wide receivers coach Troy Brown recently agreed with Bourne’s concerns.
“We need to do it all better. We need to scheme up better. We need to practice better. We need to play better. We need to do a whole lot of things better,” Brown said. “Just not one thing you can throw out there and say we need to do better. We just have to execute better and that comes in every department in the building right now. That’s playing, coaching – whatever it is, quarterbacking, receiving, running back, blocking. Whatever it is, we have to have some accountability for it and be better at it. And just keep plugging along at it.”