Content Post Zak Kuhr is doing what Belichick wanted Matt Patricia to do

[ctpatsfan77]

Belichick hoped that Matt P. could switch, after spending a career coaching the defensive side of the ball, to doing offensive playcalling. As near as I can tell, cheapness aside, Belichick apparently thought that "he can tell what an opposing DC would do, so he can call plays to defeat those plans." The key problem was that Patricia had much less experience on the offensive side of the ball (when he joined the Patriots in 2004, he worked under Scar coaching the OL, and that's it).

Kuhr, who's 37, didn't play in college, but he did work as an intern at Ohio State in 2011 and 2012 (where he made an impression on then LB/DL coach Mike Vrabel). He then spent several years coaching running backs and working as an OC at the college level. Vrabel then hired him in 2020 to work on the defensive side of the ball, where he's been since. This is likely one of the key differences between Patricia's switch and Kuhr's: Kuhr spent several years learning modern defenses before trying to coach/call plays, while Patricia didn't have that with offenses. If Patricia had spent a few years focused on learning offenses rather than being HC of the Lions, he likely would've done better here in 2022.

Players are impressed with Kuhr: Marte Mapu called him "a homie," and says he tries to "keep it casual . . . without compromising the non-negotiables." In particular, he works with the players to "tweak" the defense to plan ahead for potential problems.

The main thing is that he has gotten results, and he's improved significantly since he began calling plays. Gonzo's return has obviously helped, too.

As one example of improvement, consider the team's blitzing. In Week 2, Miami had successful plays against all of NE's blitzes, averaging 13 yards per play. Buffalo, on the other hand, had a success rate of just 25% and earned less than 1 yard per play.

And here are two examples of what he's done in terms of playcalling:

• 1. Carolina's pass game was abysmal, and running was probably their best shot. So Kuhr baited them by running Cover 2 defenses on first down and having Spillane drop back into coverage. The net result is that Carolina wasted a lot of first downs trying to "surprise" NE by passing deep, only to find their receivers blanketed. They had to settle for a lot of checkdowns that did little to help them move the chains.

2. Against BUF, he used double DTs in 3-4 on early downs to limit RB James Cook's ability to cut back, holding him to his worst YPC of the season. This then forced BUF into more of a spread passing game to counter, allowing the Pats to go man-to-man, which plays to the strength of NE's DBs.

What makes this most impressive is that when Vrabel hired him for NE, this was supposed to be his first year as a position coach. There was no plan for him to be calling plays, but Terrell Williams' health altered that. It'll be fascinating to watch what happens with Kuhr moving forward; I'm fairly sure they don't want to lose him anytime soon.

* * * *

This is based on recent articles about Kuhr (behind paywalls, although you can find archive versions):

Meet Zak Kuhr, the former offensive coach now calling the Patriots’ plays on defense

Kuhr, 37, was an offensive coach at James Madison who learned the defensive side of the ball under Mike Vrabel with the Titans.

www.nytimes.com

Inside the unusual, rapid rise of Zak Kuhr, the Patriots’ new defensive play-caller

The only Patriot improving faster than Drake Maye is their new defensive play-caller. Go inside his 4-week rise and game plan to shut down Josh Allen’s Bills last week.

www.bostonherald.com

 

[lancerman]

Kuhr is doing a great job. I'd even argue the defense is playing better now than it was before he took over.

Anyone who watched Patricia in Detroit knew making him OC was a disastrous idea. He tried his hat at going beyond DC and it was a mess.

 

[signbabybrady]

Patricia did pretty good given the injury.

 

[RobertWeathers]

Belichick hoped that Matt P. could switch, after spending a career coaching the defensive side of the ball, to doing offensive playcalling. As near as I can tell, cheapness aside, Belichick apparently thought that "he can tell what an opposing DC would do, so he can call plays to defeat those plans." The key problem was that Patricia had much less experience on the offensive side of the ball (when he joined the Patriots in 2004, he worked under Scar coaching the OL, and that's it).

Kuhr, who's 37, didn't play in college, but he did work as an intern at Ohio State in 2011 and 2012 (where he made an impression on then LB/DL coach Mike Vrabel). He then spent several years coaching running backs and working as an OC at the college level. Vrabel then hired him in 2020 to work on the defensive side of the ball, where he's been since. This is likely one of the key differences between Patricia's switch and Kuhr's: Kuhr spent several years learning modern defenses before trying to coach/call plays, while Patricia didn't have that with offenses. If Patricia had spent a few years focused on learning offenses rather than being HC of the Lions, he likely would've done better here in 2022.

Players are impressed with Kuhr: Marte Mapu called him "a homie," and says he tries to "keep it casual . . . without compromising the non-negotiables." In particular, he works with the players to "tweak" the defense to plan ahead for potential problems.

The main thing is that he has gotten results, and he's improved significantly since he began calling plays. Gonzo's return has obviously helped, too.

As one example of improvement, consider the team's blitzing. In Week 2, Miami had successful plays against all of NE's blitzes, averaging 13 yards per play. Buffalo, on the other hand, had a success rate of just 25% and earned less than 1 yard per play.

And here are two examples of what he's done in terms of playcalling:

• 1. Carolina's pass game was abysmal, and running was probably their best shot. So Kuhr baited them by running Cover 2 defenses on first down and having Spillane drop back into coverage. The net result is that Carolina wasted a lot of first downs trying to "surprise" NE by passing deep, only to find their receivers blanketed. They had to settle for a lot of checkdowns that did little to help them move the chains.

2. Against BUF, he used double DTs in 3-4 on early downs to limit RB James Cook's ability to cut back, holding him to his worst YPC of the season. This then forced BUF into more of a spread passing game to counter, allowing the Pats to go man-to-man, which plays to the strength of NE's DBs.

What makes this most impressive is that when Vrabel hired him for NE, this was supposed to be his first year as a position coach. There was no plan for him to be calling plays, but Terrell Williams' health altered that. It'll be fascinating to watch what happens with Kuhr moving forward; I'm fairly sure they don't want to lose him anytime soon.

* * * *

This is based on recent articles about Kuhr (behind paywalls, although you can find archive versions):

Meet Zak Kuhr, the former offensive coach now calling the Patriots’ plays on defense

Kuhr, 37, was an offensive coach at James Madison who learned the defensive side of the ball under Mike Vrabel with the Titans.

www.nytimes.com

Inside the unusual, rapid rise of Zak Kuhr, the Patriots’ new defensive play-caller

The only Patriot improving faster than Drake Maye is their new defensive play-caller. Go inside his 4-week rise and game plan to shut down Josh Allen’s Bills last week.

www.bostonherald.com

FYI Fat Matt started out coaching the oline under Scar and switched to D.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

FYI Fat Matt started out coaching the oline under Scar and switched to D.

As I said at the end of the first paragraph.

 

[imahobgoblin]

Its not uncommon for coaches to switch sides and positions. Its actually a healthy and good thing for a coach to learn and grow. Good coaches typically welcome it and and learn how to adapt, but these are usually position coaches, and not a DC to an AC. Matty P was an offensive assistant in 2004 when we won the SB. In 2005, he went coached the o-line. So he had an offensive base. In 2006, he was reassigned to linebackers. He was safeties in 2011 and promoted to DC in 2012. I don't think this an odd story, but I would have expected him to move back to offense for a bit before being promoted to OC.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Its not uncommon for coaches to switch sides and positions. Its actually a healthy and good thing for a coach to learn and grow. Good coaches typically welcome it and and learn how to adapt, but these are usually position coaches, and not a DC to an AC. Matty P was an offensive assistant in 2004 when we won the SB. In 2005, he went coached the o-line. So he had an offensive base. In 2006, he was reassigned to linebackers. He was safeties in 2011 and promoted to DC in 2012. I don't think this an odd story, but I would have expected him to move back to offense for a bit before being promoted to OC.

Yeah. My main point is not that Patricia wasn't capable of making the switch, merely that, because of how it was done, he didn't have the experience to make it work.

 

[Hugepatsfan]

Like OP mentioned, Patricia started out on O. Just like McDaniels was a defensive assistant. Kuhr spent more time on the other side of ball than either did though. And like OP also mentioned, had more time on defense before getting elevated to essentially coordinator level.

It’s tough to compare anything to what BB tried to do with Patricia because smoothing over the nuances loses sight of how mind numbingly stupid it was. I’m sure someone will defend it as we had some better metrics under him than BoB but that doesn’t mean it still wasn’t idiotic to have him go right to offensive coordinator like that. Between that and what’s happened since it’s very obvious BB has some level of paranoia about hiring new people he hasn’t worked with before and it’s probably the biggest reason for his downfall. None of “his guys” were around to coach offense anymore so he threw Patricia/Judge there. He never went outside “his guys” and as they all retired or moved on the cupboard got too bare.

 

[One-If-By-Sea]

Patricia's offense was statistically better than the following year with BOB and the year after that with AVP. Why are there so many threads about Patricia's failure as OC and so few threads about BOB and AVP 's failures as OCs?

 

[lancerman]

Patricia's offense was statistically better than the following year with BOB and the year after that with AVP. Why are there so many threads about Patricia's failure as OC and so few threads about BOB and AVP 's failures as OCs?

Let's just compare what BOB was working with to Patricia (AVP also had to deal with Mayo being the HC and a new rookie QB)

-Mac Jones was regressing every single year and pretty much lost all confidence by year 3. He showed weakness at the end of 2021, but basically was in tailspin downward since Patricia got him and BOB inherited that.
-Damian Harris was gone at RB.
-Stevenson missed 1/3rd of the games in 2023 compared to the year Patricia had him
-Meyers who was the receiver with the most yards and touchdowns in 2022 wasn't there when BOB got there.
-Kendrick Bourne missed half the games in 2023 compared to 2022
-Devante Parker was in decline and it ended up being his last season playing in the league (that's not on BOB for one of the receivers becoming washed)
-Hunter Henry had roughly the same stats when you adjust for the fact that he missed more games in 2023 while playing the whole season in 2022.

Right there I listed the top 2 RB's and the top 4 producing WR's in 2022. They either left or missed more time compared to the year Patricia had them. On top of that the QB was basically broken going from McDaniels to Patricia.

It's a lot more accurate to compare Patricia to McDaniels the year before. If he was any good, he would have been able to keep the offense more in continuity with 2021. BOB dealt with the ****show Patricia left the offense in as well as the top 6 skill players on offense either leaving or missing more time than the prior year (aside from Parker who just ended up being washed in 2023 anyways).

That's why we shouldn't use stats in a vacuum. The decline in rushing yards and passing yards alone can be attributed to Harris and Meyers being gone. Much less everyone else missing more time.

AVP is an even worse comparison because he started the season stuck with Brissett and then had a rookie Maye who they were easing into the game. They actually had a better rushing season with AVP than either Patricia or BOB.

Also guess which of the three had more fumbles between the receivers and running backs?

Patricia: 22 fumbles.
BOB: 9 fumbles
AVP: 21 fumbles

To answer your question, nobody would have expected BOB to have a better season if you told them what he would be dealing with going into the year. Likewise nobody with Brissett taking significant snaps and Maye as the HC was ever going to be expected to do well.

Patricia was worse. The numbers might be a bit better with better players on the team and better players actually healthy. But he really got to continue what McDaniels had in 2021 and totally derailed everything

Not to mention... we NOW KNOW that BOB wasn't even allowed to bring his own guys in because the coach was pissed that his dumb idea with Patricia was jettisoned because he embarrassed the team.

 

[ctpatsfan77]

Patricia's offense was statistically better than the following year with BOB and the year after that with AVP. Why are there so many threads about Patricia's failure as OC and so few threads about BOB and AVP 's failures as OCs?

I believe that institutional inertia is a thing. For example, when Scar retired the first time, the OL was fine the first year after he left, and fell apart the second.

 

[DoubleDeluxe]

Patricia's offense was statistically better than the following year with BOB and the year after that with AVP. Why are there so many threads about Patricia's failure as OC and so few threads about BOB and AVP 's failures as OCs?

For staters, Patrica at least had something that resembles an Oline.
Trent Brown--Strange--Andrews--Owenu--Wynn
might not be world beaters, but a whole hell of a lot better than...
Lowe--Jordan--Brown--Owenu--Jacobs

Do you remember watching our line last year, it was the worst line play I've seen in 40+ years of watching Pats ball.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Thank you for the excellent post, @ctpatsfan77.

I'd noticed the formation change for Buffalo, which surprised me because in the first games of the season the defensive personnel and formation had been pretty fixed with much less variation and rotation in of backups than we had seen in the past.

It's really impressive, as you say, given that Kuhr has just come in, and credit to Vrabel, who must have been closely involved.

(An unsurprising shame that the thread has become yet another one about recriminations for past failure.)

 

[signbabybrady]

Let's just compare what BOB was working with to Patricia (AVP also had to deal with Mayo being the HC and a new rookie QB)

-Mac Jones was regressing every single year and pretty much lost all confidence by year 3. He showed weakness at the end of 2021, but basically was in tailspin downward since Patricia got him and BOB inherited that.
-Damian Harris was gone at RB.
-Stevenson missed 1/3rd of the games in 2023 compared to the year Patricia had him
-Meyers who was the receiver with the most yards and touchdowns in 2022 wasn't there when BOB got there.
-Kendrick Bourne missed half the games in 2023 compared to 2022
-Devante Parker was in decline and it ended up being his last season playing in the league (that's not on BOB for one of the receivers becoming washed)
-Hunter Henry had roughly the same stats when you adjust for the fact that he missed more games in 2023 while playing the whole season in 2022.

Right there I listed the top 2 RB's and the top 4 producing WR's in 2022. They either left or missed more time compared to the year Patricia had them. On top of that the QB was basically broken going from McDaniels to Patricia.

It's a lot more accurate to compare Patricia to McDaniels the year before. If he was any good, he would have been able to keep the offense more in continuity with 2021. BOB dealt with the ****show Patricia left the offense in as well as the top 6 skill players on offense either leaving or missing more time than the prior year (aside from Parker who just ended up being washed in 2023 anyways).

That's why we shouldn't use stats in a vacuum. The decline in rushing yards and passing yards alone can be attributed to Harris and Meyers being gone. Much less everyone else missing more time.

AVP is an even worse comparison because he started the season stuck with Brissett and then had a rookie Maye who they were easing into the game. They actually had a better rushing season with AVP than either Patricia or BOB.

Also guess which of the three had more fumbles between the receivers and running backs?

Patricia: 22 fumbles.
BOB: 9 fumbles
AVP: 21 fumbles

To answer your question, nobody would have expected BOB to have a better season if you told them what he would be dealing with going into the year. Likewise nobody with Brissett taking significant snaps and Maye as the HC was ever going to be expected to do well.

Patricia was worse. The numbers might be a bit better with better players on the team and better players actually healthy. But he really got to continue what McDaniels had in 2021 and totally derailed everything

Not to mention... we NOW KNOW that BOB wasn't even allowed to bring his own guys in because the coach was pissed that his dumb idea with Patricia was jettisoned because he embarrassed the team.

Your ignoring that Patricia's starting QB got an ankle injury in week 3.

 

[Real fan 02]

Patricia did pretty good given the injury.

I never cared to much for the zone based bend but don't break defense under MP.. I give him his credit though. But the defense didn't become unleashed until Flores took over. That's how we won our last SB.

 

[Real fan 02]

Patricia's offense was statistically better than the following year with BOB and the year after that with AVP. Why are there so many threads about Patricia's failure as OC and so few threads about BOB and AVP 's failures as OCs?

We had Bailey Jones at QB then Jacoby Brissett... what's funny in all of the Patricia was probably the most successful at OC between BOB and AVP and he's a defensive coordinator..

 

[Real fan 02]

Thank you for the excellent post, @ctpatsfan77.

I'd noticed the formation change for Buffalo, which surprised me because in the first games of the season the defensive personnel and formation had been pretty fixed with much less variation and rotation in of backups than we had seen in the past.

It's really impressive, as you say, given that Kuhr has just come in, and credit to Vrabel, who must have been closely involved.

(An unsurprising shame that the thread has become yet another one about recriminations for past failure.)

Agreed. As kurh has been with Vrabel prior and knows what Vrabel expects from the defense. Speaking to just how much better the coaching has been all around. The defense is ranked 9th currently and continues to get better. It's still going to always be a game plan Defense within the scheme.

 

[sb1]

If Patricia was statistically the most successful OC out of BOB and AVP that says a lot more about the coaching and talent on the roster the last couple of seasons (none of it positive) than it does about MP.

 

[Thelonious]

He has certainly earned a chance to show what he can do for the remainder of the season. I'm afraid we have to assume, sadly, that the job is available going forward.

Patricia was an adequate DC and an insufferable blowhard. That he was given the OC job is a matter between Bill and his therapist. The Krafts should have treated that decision as a fireable offense the day it happened.

 

[sb1]

He has certainly earned a chance to show what he can do for the remainder of the season. I'm afraid we have to assume, sadly, that the job is available going forward.

Patricia was an adequate DC and an insufferable blowhard. That he was given the OC job is a matter between Bill and his therapist. The Krafts should have treated that decision as a fireable offense the day it happened.

It would have been if his name wasn’t Belichick.