Huh? Unless they called plays at the college level or as an assistant HC, none of the most successful OCs had called a single play before they were put in charge of calling plays, perhaps other than a few opportunities during joint practices or preseason games. That should be self-evident.
How many plays had McDaniels called before 2005? Do you think Bill asked Weiss to step aside from time to time during the regular season, to allow the boy wonder to shoot his shot? Very unlikely. When Weiss moved on and McDaniels was made the play-caller (without the official title as OC), he had one year of coaching experience on the offensive side of ball, at any level (QBs coach the prior year). How extensive was McDaniels knowledge of their rushing attack, prior to 2005, relative to his experience with and involvement in the passing offense, as the QBs coach?
What amazes me is that some here are trying to argue that a single year as a quarterbacks coach prepared JMD to be the primary play-caller more than Patricia’s
1. Two years as a Patriots assistant OL coach (had to have extensive knowledge of all of the rushing AND passing formations/plays).
2. His years as a DC/de-facto DC (studying hours and hours of film of every offensive system in the league).
3. Two and a half years as head coach (like his mentor Bill, Matty P probably had extensive involvement in the weekly offensive positional meetings, including the meetings run by his OC Darrell Bevell, who utilized the blocking schemes that the 2022 Pats are supposedly implementing).
It MP is chosen as a play-caller, it is certainly possible that he will suck at it (just like every coach who is put in charge of calling plays for the first time), but he has more than enough knowledge of offensive playbooks and schemes. No matter how friendly Bill and Matt are outside of the Pats facilities, BB would never ask Patricia to do a job of which is not capable. That would run contrary to his number one rule…make every decision with best interest of the team in mind.
