Part of the relentless appeal of spectator sports is that even a layman can correctly observe when a genius does something stupid, and now it’s Bill Belichick whose mistakes are exposed. Belichick is the greatest football manager of all time, and yet his team just made perhaps the dumbest late game in history, and now we can watch him sort through the rubble.
Of course, Belichick didn’t want Jakobi Meyers toss the ball back to Chandler Jones of Las Vegas without more time in a draw, but Meyers probably assumed that random throwing backs into a crowd was the next step in Las Vegas’ offensive plan. MattPatricia. Patricia, of course, calls plays for Belichick’s offense (the team doesn’t have a coach with the title of offensive coordinator). He’s been a defensive coach for the past decade and a half, with the exception of his years as Lions head coach, which he spent alienating people and showing no real understanding of how which a modern offense should work.
Hardly anyone else in the world thought Patricia was the best choice to lead the Patriots offense. Belichick chose it anyway, and Patricia was a disaster.
Belichick did not replace former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, opting instead to install Patricia to oversee the offense and call plays.
Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports
As hard as it was to watch Belichick’s players completely ignore him in a critical moment – running back Rhamondre Stevenson told reporters he was supposed to go down and he started a side contest instead – it was always a game. Weird things happen sometimes in football. Hiring Patricia against all available logic was a choice, and it likely killed the Pats’ season.
Belichick’s 2022 squad isn’t just a disappointment. It is a disappointment that is entirely his doing. He built a great defense and wasted it by missing the attack. (Special teams haven’t helped either lately.) Quarterback Mac Jones, who had such a promising rookie season in 21, looks lost and miserable. This was not supposed to happen.
It sets the Patriots up for the NFL’s most compelling offseason. Belichick is 70 years old. He did not indicate that he would retire. It’s hard to imagine owner Robert Kraft firing him. But when Kraft asks Belichick what he plans to do with the offense – a question Kraft needs to ask – what will Belichick say? Does he realize the depth of the problem he has created? Is he ready to move away from his own coaching tree to find the solution? Or is he more interested in proving a point than winning games?
The only argument in favor of replacing Patricia with Josh McDaniels was that Patricia is a New England guy, brought up the Belichick way. It seemed, from the outside, that Belichick was so tired that people attributed his success to Tom Brady and (to a lesser extent) McDaniels that he was determined to go the other way: hire a coordinator who wouldn’t get never the credit, and winning with defense, his specialty.
Nothing else made sense, but it’s still hard to believe it did. He’s not the Bill Belichick we’ve seen over the years. He was ruthless, brilliant, calculating – some would say ruthless – and notoriously indifferent to feelings or insecurities. He swapped or cut stars; he made unconventional in-game decisions for valid reasons and cared what no one else thought.
It’s time for Belichick to be that guy again. You don’t have to be a football expert to see it. The Patriots are still strong in the playoffs, but their next three games will face teams that are likely to make them look weak by comparison: Joe Burrow’s Bengals, Josh Allen’s Bills and Tua-Tyreek-Waddle’s Dolphins. This season is probably going to end with a big dose of embarrassment.
Assuming Belichick wants to continue coaching, the Patriots’ offseason hinges on this question: Is he desperate to validate all of his successes, or will he make the same lucid, ruthless decisions he’s always made before?
You hope he realizes his career doesn’t need validation. People will say what they want about Spygate and other suspicions – rightly or wrongly, there’s nothing Belichick can do about it. At this point, there are a lot more people saying Belichick won because of Tom Brady than Belichick won because he cheated.
In the simplest account of Brady vs. Belichick, Brady was more important because he won a Super Bowl after he left, and the Patriots were the definition of mediocre. (The Patriots are now 24-23 behind Brady.) I see the past three years as different evidence: Brady, the greatest quarterback ever, needed an elite roster to win the Super Bowl, and Belichick, the greatest coach of all time, needs an elite quarterback to win one. Brady had that elite roster when he arrived in Tampa Bay. Belichick hasn’t had an elite quarterback game since Brady’s departure.
Everything the Patriots do on offense from here must be guided by that quest. We can debate the quality of Jones, but he can clearly be better than he was under Patricia. The Patriots need new and creative thinking from a true offensive coordinator. If you and I can see that, then surely the greatest coach in history can see that too.
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