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It has been a tough year for New England Patriots wide receiver Kendrick Bourne.
He had some issues with the coaching staff during training camp. He was even asked to leave the field after a scrap broke out between the Patriots and the Carolina Panthers during a scrimmage.
Bourne’s playing time has been significantly down compared to the 2021 season, his first in New England, and a banner year overall for the 27-year-old veteran receiver. On Thursday, after the Patriots were easily handled by the Buffalo Bills 24-10, a seemingly frustrated Bourne seemed to take some shots at the coaching staff with his candid comments.
Kendrick Bourne Calls Out Patriots’ Offensive Scheme
Bourne sounds like a man who is tired of losing.
“Yeah, man, we need to scheme up better,” Bourne told reporters following the embarrassing loss. “We need to know what they’re doing. We need to know what they wanna do on third down. We’re kind of sporadic. They call this, and we call that, and it falls right into what they want. We need to have it where they’re falling into what we want and things like that.”
It sounds as if Bourne is suggesting the Patriots’ scheme is overly simplistic. It seemingly falls right in line with things we heard ahead of the bye week when Bill Belichick and others admitted that opposing defenses seemed to know New England’s plays.
Bourne went on to criticize his team’s inability to take advantage of a Bills defense playing without two of their best players.
“No Von Miller, we gotta take advantage of that,” Bourne said. “No Micah Hyde, things like that. We have to take advantage of those things. They’re playing a different scheme. They’re more soft in what they’re doing, so they’re more conservative. We’ve gotta take advantage and not just have 5-yard throws and moving slow. We need to be able to attack and put pressure on the defense.”
Mac Jones and Kendrick Bourne Appear to Be on the Same Page
This sounds a lot like what we saw Mac Jones complaining about on the sidelines. If you missed it, Jones appeared to lay into defacto offensive coordinator Matt Patricia for his insistence on throwing short passes rather than taking shots downfield. Here is a look at Jones’ profane tirade from The OxCord Pod’s Wyatt Fulton:
Bourne is seemingly in agreement with Jones.
“We’ve got to get the ball downfield,” Bourne said. “Mac needs more time. He’s obviously running around. It’s hard to get the ball downfield when you can’t really have time to throw. No knock to the line, it’s just what we need to work on. The receivers can’t do nothing if the ball can’t get downfield, if we can’t throw it past 5 yards, it’s going to be a long game. We have to be able to get the ball downfield. We have plays, we can’t get to them. We’re calling them. They’re just not working, so we’re throwing 5-yard routes and that’s what we catch so it looks one way. Hopefully we can get Mac more time so he can make the plays.”
It appears as though no one on the team is happy with the Patriots’ current offensive scheme. New England is 6-6 and currently on the outside of the AFC Playoff picture with just five games remaining.
It would appear they need to finish the season on a 4-1 run if they want to have a realistic chance of making the playoffs. Based on how the offense has played this season and most notably on Thursday night, it is tough to imagine this team scoring enough points to finish the year winning four of their final five contests.
The Patriots will finish the season at the Arizona Cardinals, at the Las Vegas Raiders, at home against the Cincinnati Bengals and Miami Dolphins, and then finally back on the road to finish the regular season in a rematch with the Bills.
Belichick and Co. have their work cut out for them.
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