Patriots' Play-Calling Plan Is a Disservice to Mac Jones

In a quarterback-driven league, with the increased focus on the passing game (see the wide receiver market), the New England Patriots need to put Mac Jones in the best position to grow significantly in his second year. Unfortunately for the young signal-caller, the team hasn’t made a smooth transition from former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.

This offseason, McDaniels accepted the Las Vegas Raiders head coaching job and plucked Mick Lombardi (former wide receivers coach) and Bo Hardegree (former offensive assistant) directly from the Patriots staff. To this day, New England hasn’t officially named an offensive coordinator, but that’s not the problem.

Jones may have too many voices and not enough experienced offensive play-callers in his headset throughout the regular season.

According to The Athletic’s Jeff Howe, senior adviser Matt Patricia will assume offensive play-calling duties.

When asked about his role by reporters, Patricia presented the idea of a collaborative responsibility on offense.

“It’s great this time of year because fortunately, all the plays are just scripted in a row and you just kind of read down through them from that standpoint. But what’s good is that we’re all sharing the responsibilities based on what periods we’re at in practice. So from that aspect of it, it’s structured, I would say.

"We all kind of handle—all of the coaches, all the way across the board—we all kind of work together. Coach Belichick obviously helps us a lot, too. … It’s a big divide and conquer at some points where we have to just—we have a lot of work to get done through the course of the night, and everybody really understands what we have to do.”

Based on the flow of New England's offseason program and Patricia’s comments, the Patriots will create offensive game plans and make game-day calls by committee, though he’ll have a prominent voice in that area.

Of the 17 teams that have made a coaching change since 2020, 10 now have offensive-minded head coaches with pro experience.

Even teams that don't have a lead skipper with an offensive background paired the quarterback with a coordinator who has recent or significant coaching experience on that side of the ball. That's where the Patriots differ from the rest of the league.

As a six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach, Belichick will get the benefit of the doubt even though he rose through the NFL ranks as a position coach for linebackers and special teams and as a defensive coordinator for the New York Giants. But as essentially the CEO of his coaching staff, he’s not making the best decision for the development of his quarterback.

Joe Judge, the quarterbacks coach and one of three people involved in the play-calling process during the spring, served as a special teams assistant at Alabama (2009-11) and a special teams coordinator for the Patriots (2015-19) with one year as a wide receivers coach in 2019. As the head coach of the Giants between 2020 and 2021, his offenses finished with the second-fewest points and yards in both campaigns.

Quarterback Daniel Jones and former Giants’ play-callers Jason Garrett and Freddie Kitchens deserve some blame for Big Blue's below-average offensive production in recent years, but Judge didn’t do anything to fix the issues on that side of the ball, which likely led to his exit.

To replace Judge, the Giants hired Brian Daboll, who served as the Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator between 2018 and 2021. He may delegate play-calling duties to Mike Kafka, who, as a quarterbacks coach and passing game coordinator, worked with Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes over the past four years.

Do you see what the Giants did? They went all in on offensive coaches to give Jones a chance to prove he’s a serviceable starting quarterback in a contract year. We should question how much Judge can help Mac Jones under center in New England.

As for Patricia, he broke into the league as an offensive assistant in New England for the 2004 season and then became an assistant offensive line coach in the following the campaign. From there, he transitioned to the other side of the ball, leading the linebackers, safeties and most notably taking on a defensive coordinator role between 2012 and 2017.

Patricia deserves credit for his hand in designing top-10 scoring defenses that played a part in the Patriots' two successful Super Bowl runs during his six-year tenure as a coordinator. However, just like Judge’s offensively flawed head coaching stint with the Giants, as the lead skipper for the Detroit Lions, he didn’t have any answers for an offense that ranked 18th or worse in points and 17th or worse in yards for three consecutive terms (2018 to 2020).

How can Patriots fans feel confident about the involvement of Judge and Patricia in the offense with their coaching resumes?

In May, during organized team activities, Greg A. Bedard of the Boston Sports Journal reported that Patriots players had concerns about the direction of the offense.

Mark Daniels of the Providence Journal provided some insight into the end of a rough spring for Jones and the offense.

“During the spring OTAs and minicamp, Jones completed 87% (59 of 68) of his passes against the defense in competitive drills. In the final two days of camp last week, the second-year quarterback completed just 52% of his passes (12 of 23) in 11-in-11s to go with two interceptions. That involved large chunks of offensive inefficiency and a peeved Jones, who quickly left Saturday’s session instead of sticking around on the practice field like he usually does.”

Daniels rang the alarm bells because he stated that the offense has the advantage during spring practices because of the no-contact rule with cornerbacks unable to jam wideouts at the line of scrimmage or hold at all during their routes.

Perhaps the offense just went through early growing pains with changes in the staff, but the unit hasn’t looked sharp early at training camp either. Daniels shared his observations from the first padded practice.

“On Monday, the first day the players were in pads, Jones’ offense started full-team drills with a false start from Isaiah Wynn. Jones followed that by throwing his third interception in the last three practices. The easiest path for the Patriots to become a Super Bowl contender is for Jones to develop into one of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL. After a strong rookie season and a great spring from Jones, offensive woes have plagued the Patriots.”

On Tuesday, Jones shared with reporters his thoughts about the team’s offensive issues.

“I care a lot about football and … when we lose the day, to me that’s like a shot in the heart, it’s like we lost a game. The goal is to have more good plays than the other team and that’s the defense right now. I feel like we can compete even more and even better, but a lot of it is just execution and the X's and O's and figuring out how to communicate with each other.

"A lot of it is just talking through it and finding ways to attack better. We have great coaches that will get us [to being successful], and right now it’s more about the communication of getting there.”

Heading into his second year, Jones isn’t going to throw his coaching staff under the bus—especially not a Belichick-led group. But he’s clearly frustrated with a slow start and acknowledges that his unit has a lot of work to do.

On Thursday, Bedard noted that the Patriots' offensive group finished the week of padded practices with a “whimper” and provided harsh criticism of the unit.

“You'd be generous in giving them a D. There's been slight improvement each day, but it's been minimal,” Bedard wrote. “Had the first-team offense for six successful [plays] (that's also being generous, giving credit for checkdowns and quick passes) and 10 fails.”

No one knows how the Patriots offense would look under a group of offensive-minded coaches, but we cannot overlook the lack of expertise and trust in one coach to mold Jones.

The Patriots have three offensive cooks in the kitchen, but the meal doesn’t look appetizing, and the lead server (Jones) isn’t on a promising path right now. New England has plenty of time to iron out the wrinkles, though the learning curve could take some time as Patricia and Judge adjust to new positions.

In the event that New England’s offense looks sluggish at the beginning of the 2022 season, Belichick may have to tweak the chain of command, which could further complicate things for Jones.

If the Patriots offense regresses from last year's sixth-ranked scoring unit, Jones will take the blame after a solid rookie Pro Bowl campaign with 3,801 passing yards, 22 touchdowns, 13 interceptions and a 67.6 percent completion rate.

But the blame should fall on Belichick. Thus far, his post-McDaniels play-calling plan has fallen flat.

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Maurice Moton covers the NFL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @MoeMoton.