PFT: Matt Patricia to call plays on offense?

[203Pat]

What ranking did Fat Matt's Detroit offense have? Did he have the Superbowl Champion QB starting? So no fecking excuses.

The season prior to him taking over the Lions had the 7th best offense. They dropped to 25th best in Patricia's first year, 18th his second, and 20th his final season. Even the defense steadily got worse in his time there.

But no he can call offensive plays because he knows how defenses work!

 

[Ring 6]

I didn’t call him mediocre, I was just responding to a singular post. The defenses were successful under him, I didn’t take that credit away from him…all I said is that the defenses are successful no matter who’s coaching the defense. Which is factual

The post you chose to respond to was in response to him being called mediocre.
They are successful no matter who is coaching them because good coaches have been coaching them.

 

[Ring 6]

One word, "Frustration". The Patriots record vs. the Dolphins and Bills in the last few seasons is abysmal. They've seemed to slip into mediocrity but yeah yeah "in Bill we trust". Isn't it possible the game has passed him by? We'll see this upcoming season in which I'm hoping for the best but prepared for the worst.

We went to the playoffs with a rookie QB. The turnaround from rebuild to playoffs was instant. Hell in week 13 or 14 they were the 1 seed. Losing trust in a coach who led a rookie QBd team that turned over 50% of its roster to a 1 seed position before running out of gas is ignorant, even if that coach hadn’t proven to be the best ever and delivered you 6 championships.

If Belichick retired after 2019, the new coach who gutted out the transition season and led them to the playoffs with a rookie Qb and massive rebuild would be being called a genius right now.

 

[Patsgofor4]

In the other thread I am being told how easy it is for a defensive coach who has never called a single play on offense to be the offensive play caller. This board will never cease to amaze me.

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.

 

[All3Phases]

The post you chose to respond to was in response to him being called mediocre.
They are successful no matter who is coaching them because good coaches have been coaching them.

That’s fine, and may be true. I think the common denominator in all the defenses was Bill being heavily involved, would you agree?

 

[venecol]

I'm not down on Fat Matt's performance as a DC, but boy his last 2017 game was just brutal.

PHI offense:
528 total yards
63% 3rd downs
100% 4th downs
0 sacks
164 rushing yds (6.1 per)
34:04 TOP

Pats D allowed scores on 8 of 10 drives.

FG
TD
PUNT
TD
INT
TD
------
TD
FG
TD
FG

He's also the one that decided to sit Butler.

 

[203Pat]

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.

Yes at some point every play caller had to call plays for the first time. McDaniels was the quarterbacks coach for two years before officially becoming the OC. McDaniels was also working with a veteran QB who already had won 3 Super Bowls at that point. Did McDaniels have a ton of experience? No, but he had a year working with Brady as his position coach to build a rapport. He also had veteran offensive coaches to lean on like Dante Scarneccia, Brian Daboll, and Ivan Fears.

You seem to be making blind assumptions at this point. Because Patrica knows defenses he knows offensive play calling? He "probably had extensive involvement with weekly offensive positional meetings"? Even if that is the case him and his staff produced significantly worse offenses (and overall teams) than his predecessor. He also couldn't even get to .500 with a QB who was capable of winning a super bowl.

 

[Rob0729]

What ranking did Fat Matt's Detroit offense have? Did he have the Superbowl Champion QB starting? So no fecking excuses.

The season prior to him taking over the Lions had the 7th best offense. They dropped to 25th best in Patricia's first year, 18th his second, and 20th his final season. Even the defense steadily got worse in his time there.

But no he can call offensive plays because he knows how defenses work!

Stafford missed half the season Patricia's final year. That played a role in the decline.

 

[Rob0729]

Yes at some point every play caller had to call plays for the first time. McDaniels was the quarterbacks coach for two years before officially becoming the OC. McDaniels was also working with a veteran QB who already had won 3 Super Bowls at that point. Did McDaniels have a ton of experience? No, but he had a year working with Brady as his position coach to build a rapport. He also had veteran offensive coaches to lean on like Dante Scarneccia, Brian Daboll, and Ivan Fears.

You seem to be making blind assumptions at this point. Because Patrica knows defenses he knows offensive play calling? He "probably had extensive involvement with weekly offensive positional meetings"? Even if that is the case him and his staff produced significantly worse offenses (and overall teams) than his predecessor. He also couldn't even get to .500 with a QB who was capable of winning a super bowl.

There are no guarantees that Patricia can call offensive plays, but the DC's job is trying to predict what plays the opposing offense is going to call and call a play to counter it. So he actually probably has a lot more knowledge about offensive play calling than you give him credit for. We won't know until he calls the plays himself that his experience studying offensive play calling will translate into him being a great play calling. But his experience with offensive play calling is more extensive than you give him credit for.

Again, the job of a defensive coordinator is to predict what the offense is going to do and counter it. I would argue a defensive coordinator would have an easier job calling offensive plays than an offensive coordinator would be able to call defensive plays for this reason. Ideally you would want someone with offensive play calling experience calling the plays, but in theory, a good defensive coordinator with experience should be at least competent as a signal caller on offense.

 

[203Pat]

Stafford missed half the season Patricia's final year. That played a role in the decline.

Stafford missed half the year in 2019. 2020 was Patrica's last year in Detroit. Either way the team pretty much got worse in every aspect when Patrica took over for Caldwell.

 

[Rob0729]

Stafford missed half the year in 2019. 2020 was Patrica's last year in Detroit. Either way the team pretty much got worse in every aspect when Patrica took over for Caldwell.

Either way, that is a factor. And Stafford had one of his best years as a Lions QB in 2020 even if the team sucked.

 

[203Pat]

There are no guarantees that Patricia can call offensive plays, but the DC's job is trying to predict what plays the opposing offense is going to call and call a play to counter it. So he actually probably has a lot more knowledge about offensive play calling than you give him credit for. We won't know until he calls the plays himself that his experience studying offensive play calling will translate into him being a great play calling. But his experience with offensive play calling is more extensive than you give him credit for.

Again, the job of a defensive coordinator is to predict what the offense is going to do and counter it. I would argue a defensive coordinator would have an easier job calling offensive plays than an offensive coordinator would be able to call defensive plays for this reason. Ideally you would want someone with offensive play calling experience calling the plays, but in theory, a good defensive coordinator with experience should be at least competent as a signal caller on offense.

I keep seeing this logic thrown around on here. If it was so easy for DC's to call plays as OC's then why have we literally never seen if happen before? If this is such a logical transition you don't think at least one team out there would have given it a shot by now? At this point people here will defend anything Bill does apparently. I think he hasn't adequately built out the coaching staff the way it needs to be constructed the same way he hasn't adequately built out the roster over the last few years. I know I am going to get blown up for this but more and more I wonder if the game is starting to pass Bill by to some extent.

 

[203Pat]

Either way, that is a factor. And Stafford had one of his best years as a Lions QB in 2020 even if the team sucked.

Which to me makes it even worse that Patrica couldn't win with a very good QB who had a good year.

 

[Rob0729]

I keep seeing this logic thrown around on here. If it was so easy for DC's to call plays as OC's then why have we literally never seen if happen before? If this is such a logical transition you don't think at least one team out there would have given it a shot by now? At this point people n here will defend anything Bill does apparently. I think he hasn't adequately built out the coaching staff the way it needs to be constructed the same way he hasn't adequately built out the roster over the last few years. I know I am going to get blown up for this but more and more I wonder if the game is starting to pass Bill by to some extent.

What head coach has the security to even try something like this? Half the head coaches in the league if they tried this would either have a top 5-10 offense or get fired. Who do you think has the job security to do something like this? And some of the guys who do, wouldn't do it because they are offensive head coaches and have a lot of input on the play calling anyway.

Again, I am not saying it will work or it is the best solution. I am not thrilled about it, but I don't think it is going to be the disaster you think it is. But then again, I don't hate Bill Belichick and I am going to remain cautiously optimistic until if and when the experiment fails.

 

[Rob0729]

Which to me makes it even worse that Patrica couldn't win with a very good QB who had a good year.

Who cares? Patricia isn't the Patriots' head coach. Until Kraft names Patricia the Patriots' head coach, I don't care what his record with the Lions. Even some of the greatest coordinators in NFL history were awful head coaches. Go look at Buddy Ryan's record was as a head coach or his son, Rex. Patricia is the the defacto OC, not the head coach.

 

[Ring 6]

That’s fine, and may be true. I think the common denominator in all the defenses was Bill being heavily involved, would you agree?

You only exist in the situation you are in. Success is success, failure is failure. Coulda, woulda, shoulda is not going to change that.
Patricia worked for Belichick and the results are the results. I could not care less to guess what they would have been if he worked for someone else, and that guess would be meaningless.

 

[Zuma]

Who cares? Patricia isn't the Patriots' head coach. Until Kraft names Patricia the Patriots' head coach, I don't care what his record with the Lions. Even some of the greatest coordinators in NFL history were awful head coaches. Go look at Buddy Ryan's record was as a head coach or his son, Rex. Patricia is the the defacto OC, not the head coach.

It's an argument I will never understand...if a HC was not successful then he won't be as a coordinator. It's even a more odd argument when the HC had previous success as a coordinator. Maybe people are hoping for failure...IDK.

 

[Ring 6]

I keep seeing this logic thrown around on here. If it was so easy for DC's to call plays as OC's then why have we literally never seen if happen before? If this is such a logical transition you don't think at least one team out there would have given it a shot by now? At this point people here will defend anything Bill does apparently. I think he hasn't adequately built out the coaching staff the way it needs to be constructed the same way he hasn't adequately built out the roster over the last few years. I know I am going to get blown up for this but more and more I wonder if the game is starting to pass Bill by to some extent.

My response would be what are your qualifications to evaluate the fit of the coaches? It’s not madden, they are each diverse humans who have worked with belichick for many years. You seem to be telling me you are a better judge of their capabilities than he is, and therefore make the jump to since he didn’t do what you would he is losing it. Do you not see the logical fallacy there?

 

[Nehalem]

Patricia is clearly the most interesting choice for defacto-OC.

He isn't highly intelligent, and had enough previous success as a DC to get hired as a HC.

Since the Patriots weren't exactly a good-OC away from being SB favorites I approve of this choice

 

[SHOWTIME15]

Who cares? Patricia isn't the Patriots' head coach. Until Kraft names Patricia the Patriots' head coach, I don't care what his record with the Lions. Even some of the greatest coordinators in NFL history were awful head coaches. Go look at Buddy Ryan's record was as a head coach or his son, Rex. Patricia is the the defacto OC, not the head coach.

Except he doesn’t have experience coaching the offense, and if he had any in Detroit, it obviously wasn’t very good experience