Patriots appear to have built some growing pains into Mac Jones’s 2nd season
The Patriots’ priority should be maximizing Jones’s ability and making sure he continues on an upward trend.
Bill Belichick’s approach to operating the Patriots offense in preseason was so puzzling and seemingly counterproductive that I started wondering whether there was a piece of information that we were missing.
Maybe the plan, once the season begins, would reveal that Belichick, and not longtime defensive coach Matt Patricia or Joe Judge, is the chief play-caller. As much as Belichick’s legend is built on his defensive bona fides, he’s a far more appealing option as Mac Jones’s in-game adviser than Patricia or Judge.
Maybe backup quarterback Brian Hoyer, whose first stint in Foxborough began so long ago (in 2009) that he was a teammate that year of Joey Galloway and Fred Taylor, has more of a say in this than we realize. After Tom Brady, Josh McDaniels, and Belichick, Hoyer is as well-versed in the Patriots offensive playbook as anyone.
Or maybe that piece of information is something we haven’t been able to recognize or fathom yet. No coach in NFL history has earned a greater benefit of the doubt than Belichick. There must be a method to the madness, even if his method on the surface — ratcheting up the degree of difficulty in multiple ways for his talented but limited second-year quarterback — kind of seems like actual madness.
If there is no yet-to-be-revealed piece to Belichick’s plan, then the best explanation I can come up with for some of his puzzling decisions is that he believes short-term pain will lead to long-term gain for Jones, who happens to be far and away the Patriots’ most valuable asset as a capable quarterback on a rookie contract.
I’m as skeptical as, oh, a Lions or Giants fan who had to suffer these two as head coaches, that choosing Patricia and/or Judge as the de facto offensive coordinator is the right decision. Maybe it will work. Patricia, for all of his flaws, is a brilliant guy. But in terms of institutional knowledge and a connection with Jones, any successor is going to be lacking in comparison with longtime offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, now the Las Vegas coach.
Patricia also has the additional duty of coaching the offensive line, will Billy Yates as his assistant, and that’s a unit that needs all the coaching it can get given the struggles in camp to acclimate to new-to-the-Patriots zone-blocking schemes. It seems an odd choice to spread Patricia so thin, particularly on the side of the line that has not been his area of expertise. Again, it’s why I wonder whether there is a piece missing regarding the importance of someone else’s role.
The Patriots’ priority should be maximizing Jones’s ability and making sure he continues on an upward trend. The ending to his rookie year was not ideal, with the Bills thoroughly outclassing the Patriots in a suspense-free playoff matchup, but much of Jones’s rookie season felt like a best-case scenario.
He won the starting job from Cam Newton in training camp. He led the Patriots to seven straight wins heading into their bye week. He won over the locker room quickly. He proved poised, accurate, and hyper-competitive in the same sort of way Tom Brady was. He finished the season with 3,801 yards, 22 touchdown passes, and a 67.6 completion percentage.
If not for Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase’s dazzling first season, Jones would have been Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Which is why it was so frustrating during training camp that it felt like he was almost being set up to fail at times, particularly when the Patriots would run their new, Kyle Shanahan-style zone-block running plays against a defense fully prepared for what was coming.
Of course, it would be preposterous to suggest that Belichick, who is 26 wins away from tying Don Shula for the most in NFL history, playoffs included, is setting up his young quarterback to fail.
This, I believe, is where Belichick stands: He wholly believes in Patricia as a coach, and we’re all going to find out if that faith is justified.
And he believes that some growing pains now will ultimately prove a significant benefit to Jones.
The Patriots will spend these first few weeks of the season figuring out what works and what doesn’t with their offensive philosophy. It wouldn’t shock me if they ultimately junked the zone-blocking scheme altogether, though Jones has indicated that the Patriots have worked out some of the kinks in practice.
Streamlining the offense in general, after nearly 20 years of Brady and McDaniels turning the playbook into their own private advanced calculus class, is wise, particularly if it helps young players and veteran free agents acclimate quickly. Simplifying matters offers hope that Jonnu Smith and Nelson Agholor will contribute more in their second seasons as Patriots, and that Tyquan Thornton can fit in immediately when he returns from his collarbone injury.
The offense did look its best in preseason when the Patriots’ tactics were familiar — hard runs up the middle and spread formations with the receivers that played to Jones’s ability to make quick decisions. I can’t imagine that once the regular season begins in Miami Sunday, Belichick will put Jones in situations to flounder like he did in the preseason.
I don’t know, maybe there is a piece missing, something we don’t know, in regard to Belichick’s approach to this offense.
Or maybe, now that the real games are about to begin, he’ll return to doing something he’s done better than any coach in NFL history: coaching to his players’ strengths, rather than trying to shoehorn his players into a particular philosophy or style.
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