'No Fear!' Coach Rips Patriots Offense Under Bill Belichick
Maybe it's about the countenance of Bill Belichick, his sideline presence over the decades creating the impression that the New England Patriots is an outfit to be feared.
But one NFL defensive coordinator is whispering that when it comes to the Patriots offense in 2022 ...
No fear.
“He told me there ‘wasn’t a matchup we feared,'” NFL Network's Mike Giardi tweeted in relaying his conversation with one league defensive coordinator. “(I) asked him, 'What that allowed his defense to do?''
The coordinator's answer?
"Everything.''
Maybe, to Patriots observers, this is something less than shocking. Head coach Belichick's decision to allow both Matt Patricia and Joe Judge to share control of the offense - with neither of them really having proper control at all - proved to be a fatefully poor decision. There was dysfunction and there was conflict and there was a lack of production ...
And in the end? The Patriots ranked just 26th in the league in total yards last season and were also last in red-zone efficiency at 42.2 percent.
New England’s effort to fix the issues of the Mac Jones-led offense starts with the hiring of coordinator Bill O'Brien, and surely continues with Belichick working to overhaul all the stuff that was broken.
And according to this anonymous coach, there was a lot of "stuff.''
"There was nothing we had to take off the table,'' the coach said of the strategic choices at his disposal. "And while there are plenty of good players there … we felt like we could solve any problems they presented quickly.'”
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