Bill Belichick reportedly denied this request from Bill O’Brien before 2023 season
Bill O'Brien's return to New England this season didn't reverse the fortunes of the Patriots' offense.
There was plenty of optimism surrounding the Patriots last offseason, especially after New England hired Bill O’Brien as the team’s offensive coordinator.
After a disastrous 2022 campaign where an offense led by Matt Patricia and Joe Judge led to a severe regression from Mac Jones and the personnel around him, there was hope that a veteran OC like O’Brien could implement the right system to get New England’s QB1 back on track.
It didn’t take very long for those high expectations to dissipate, especially once the calendar flipped to September.
In a miserable 2023 season where little has gone right in Foxborough, New England’s woes on offense have played the greatest role in the Patriots’ plummet in the AFC standings.
Entering the final week of the 2023 campaign, the Patriots rank dead-last in the NFL in scoring at 14.6 points per game. After getting benched four times in 11 starts, Jones has rode the pine for New England as a backup since the end of November.
And while O’Brien has been unable to stem the tide of the Patriots’ sustained slide of offensive mediocrity, a new report paints a scenario where New England’s OC wasn’t given much of an opportunity to establish a clean slate.
Ian an extensive article from The Boston Herald’s Andrew Callahan and Doug Kyed that details the dysfunction that seeped into the 2023 Patriots season, O’Brien reportedly wanted to completely overhaul New England’s coaching staff after his hiring in January 2023.
But Bill Belichick was reportedly not willing to orchestrate such a sizable retool of his personnel, especially if it meant uprooting several tenured staff members.
“According to league sources, some assistants came to believe O’Brien wanted to clean house and build his own offensive staff upon arriving in January, but Belichick denied him,” Callahan and Kyed wrote. “Belichick allowed one hire, [Will] Lawing, who replaced ex-tight ends coach Nick Caley. To onlookers, a clear hierarchy developed with O’Brien and his assistants: there was Lawing and assistant quarterbacks coach Evan Rothstein, then everyone else.”
With O’Brien given the reins to an offense with a largely entrenched staff in place, both Callahan and Kyed reported that New England’s hopes of a resurgent offense struggled to get off the ground.
“O’Brien also pulled the offense closer to him, running more unit meetings –which involve all offensive players — than Belichick and Patricia had the year before,” Callahan and Kyed wrote. “Consequently, positional meetings became scarce, sources said, which limited individual time shared between players and their position coaches. Most everything flowed through O’Brien.”
While most of the questions concerning the Patriots these days revolve around Belichick’s future in New England, it remains to be seen what O’Brien’s next move might be as well.
In an ESPN column published Wednesday, NFL writer Jeremy Fowler reported that the writing is on the wall that several Patriots staffers will likely be coaching elsewhere in 2024.
“The roster is a mess, the Robert Kraft-Belichick relationship has seemingly run its course, and a fresh start might do everyone some good,” Fowler wrote. “Assuming that’s the case, this will probably be handled with nuance and could take some time to sort out. But some staff members are bracing for change and have begun examining outside opportunities out of necessity.”
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com