Damien Harris offered blunt criticism of Bill Belichick’s handling of Mac Jones, Patriots offense
Harris was not a fan of the Matt Patricia-Joe Judge New England offense in 2022.
While it was obvious that Bill Belichick’s 2022 decision to put Matt Patricia and Joe Judge in charge of the Patriots’ offense backfired, former New England running back Damien Harris recently offered an inside perspective.
Following a successful 2021 season in which Belichick’s Patriots started rookie quarterback Mac Jones and made a return to the playoffs for the first time in the post-Tom Brady era, the longtime New England head coach infamously chose to replace outgoing offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels with Patricia and Judge.
Both were coaches who had no experience running an offense and actually calling plays.
Harris, drafted by the Patriots in the 3rd round of the 2019 NFL Draft, was in New England from his rookie year through the end of the ’22 campaign (leaving as a free agent to sign with the Bills in 2023). He retired earlier in 2024.
Reflecting on the end of his time with the Patriots, and the many problems that ultimately sank the team in 2022 (eventually costing both Belichick and Jones their jobs one year later), Harris offered some unsparing commentary.
“I will die on this hill, and people might be upset with me, people might be happy with me, people might be somewhere in-between. What happened to Mac Jones in New England was not because of Mac Jones,” Harris argued during an apperance on “The Athletic Football Show” podcast. “What happened in New England to Mac Jones was because of the fact you took away an offensive coordinator who coached him to be a Pro Bowler and almost coached us to winning our division with a rookie quarterback in his first year.”
“And then you take — whenever Josh McDaniels left — Matt Patricia, who has coached defenses his entire life, and Joe Judge, who has been a special teams coach, coached receivers at some point. And then you just throw them in there and be like, ‘Hey, coach this kid up. He’s a first round pick, but as long as you teach him what I say, everything will be fine,’ and s*** wasn’t fine.”
The Patriots quarterback took several steps backward in 2022, as did New England’s offense as a whole. An offense that ranked sixth in 2021 in total points scored fell to 17th. Even after Bill O’Brien — a coach with ample offensive coordinator experience — was installed in 2023, results continued to deteriorate. New England fell to 31st in points scored, and Belichick and Jones were out.
“Now Mac Jones is in Jacksonville, now they’re on to Drake Maye,” said Harris. “It’s like the breath of Mac Jones in New England, it came and went and it shouldn’t have [gone] the way that it went. And the only reason that it did is because Bill Belichick, being stuck in his ways, was very much so like, ‘As long as I am here, as long as I am — along with Robert Kraft — the top dog at this organization, no matter who, no matter where, what position, where they coach, whatever, we will have success.'”
“It was a debacle,” he concluded of Belichick’s staffing decisions, adding that players quickly lost confidence in the play-calling and basic structure of the offense.
Still, Harris acknowledged that he also “understood why [Belichick] did what he did.”
“He needs full-on control. That’s just the kind of guy Bill Belichick is,” said Harris. “But at the same time, can you blame him? Because in the 20 years where he had full control, he had a lot of success. So you can’t blame him.”
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