Inside the most dysfunctional Pats season under BB

[RIpats88]

I trust Andrew Callahan and Karen Gureigien. I don’t think they would make up anything or report stories without fact checking and corroborating the information. So yes, I accept this story.

Should I go into the Mac Jones was calling other teams thread and see if you accepted that story based on unnamed sources without questioning anything. My guess is you did.

People only question unnamed sources when they don’t want the information to be true. Personally, I look at the people reporting the information and a lot of the time that tells me all I need to know about whether the unnamed sources are legit and trustworthy.

Besides other people in the media have alluded to the fact that things were far worse with Judge and Patricia than people knew for a while.

He doesn't like the story because it goes against the "it's all Macs fault!" Narrative. If the story is true then some of the blame has to be taken off of Mac Jones.

 

[Kontradiction]

First, Mac got hit hard in the head. Announcers were speculating concussion.

It’s football.

Second, next game he doesn't dive for a first down, the way he had 3 times earlier this season. What changed?

He got hit hard. After that, he didn’t want to get hit hard anymore. Occam’s Razor.

Third, I can't believe you're saying a coach telling a QB not to risk more concussions is firing ground.

If Bill is telling Mac to not get the first down, he’s done. It’s time to keep Mac, fire Bill, and hire an offensive coach. But we both know that’s not what happened.

Mac isn't Brady, but I'd never want Brady to put himself out there for injury like that.

Brady took plenty of shots as a ball carrier on key third downs.

As it is, Tua should never play football again. He certainly won't be the Phins QB after next year.

How is this relevant?

Still haven’t seen a source.

 

[Kontradiction]

More likely a coach just said "Mac, don't get yourself killed" and Mac over-adjusted.

That I can buy. But Bill supposedly telling him to give himself up even if it means a key conversion is the stuff of myth. No coach is telling his QB that.

 

[State]

Patricia or Judge remaining on staff in any capacity at this point is just more of Belichick doing a solid for his buddies. Their collective roles, which they spectacularly butchered, have been taken by O'Brien. Send these two clowns to the failed NFL coaches scrap heap.

Detroit and the Giants fan bases endorse this.

 

[Rob0729]

FWIW, Tom Curran and Phil Perry in their podcast said they have heard these same stories as reported in this story. So there is no reason to doubt anything in the report.

 

[upstater1]

It’s football.



He got hit hard. After that, he didn’t want to get hit hard anymore. Occam’s Razor.



If Bill is telling Mac to not get the first down, he’s done. It’s time to keep Mac, fire Bill, and hire an offensive coach. But we both know that’s not what happened.



Brady took plenty of shots as a ball carrier on key third downs.



How is this relevant?

Still haven’t seen a source.

Why do you speculate that it was Mac's decision not to get hit hard? That's as much speculation. Especially since he's been hit hard throughout his career and always played that way when hit.

 

[upstater1]

That I can buy. But Bill supposedly telling him to give himself up even if it means a key conversion is the stuff of myth. No coach is telling his QB that.

Losing your QB does more harm to the team than not converting a first down. It really surprises me that you think this is an instruction Belichick wouldn't give.

 

[captain stone]

I'm sure there is more.

Like why Bill would egg on a QB controversy that didn't need to exist leading up to and after the Bears game.

You're exactly right: Zappy should've started, with another full week of prep before the game and 60 more minutes of evaluation during it.

Then let the chips fall where they may...

 

[Pats2000]

What easily verified things are wrong with this article? And not your opinion about the play action play calling. I cannot think of a single thing in this article that can be verified as wrong.

That they didn't install play action at all until the end of the season. Zappe ran a ton of play action

 

[PatsFanInVa]

I just read this. It was worse than we ever thought. They didn't install play action passes which is why they didn't use them, didn't have answers for how defenses would defend their offense. Judge acting like he's "the guy" and pissing everyone off. Confusing the offensive line with a new system.

From this though it does sound like Patricia and Judge might be out for good.

But at the end of the day this was Bill Belicheck decision. The media said what he was doing didn't make sense. But he snorted and scoffed at them. And here we are a year later with a lost season

So this has probably been said - you're right on the last point, ish.

The other way to see it is that Bill basically says, "this Rams O is made of football, the O we started from is made of football, Joe and Matt are football guys made of football, they can install this blend of kinds of football."

But it's possible that they just didn't intuitively grasp what he was installing.

So of course, we now have a real OC, but is he going to be designing the O or installing what BB says to install? I don't think it was judge confusing the O Line with a new system -- not that you said it was Judge -- it was "all them guys." So yeah, he was the proximate cause of confusing them with a new system, but the new system was from the top. Do we think they're likely to ditch the new system after getting killed all year trying to install it, particularly if the conclusion in the building is between "BB effed up by not knowing football" and "BB effed up by not knowing the coaching staff isn't on top of it enough and cant get there"?

 

[DaBruinz]

This is just so maddening.

It's annoying too because people kept on trying to DEFEND Bourne being in the doghouse by saying "oh it was because of missing practice" or some bs like that

Please understand that this is MY speculation based on the report. It may or may not be true. IF true, then yes, it's maddening. If not true, then there is more that we haven't heard and won't hear.

 

[Jlaff]

Name 6 SB winning quarterbacks among the last 30 who you don't think fit the definition of elite (or elite play) and I'll explain everytime why at least one of them does.

I'll play with 4 just for fun rather than argue a point. Foles, Flacco, Eli Manning, Denver Peyton Manning Husk. Won't bother adding Dilfer.

 

[Rob0729]

That they didn't install play action at all until the end of the season. Zappe ran a ton of play action

Yes, I pointed out with the actual quote from the article that you misread the article. They never actually said that the Pats didn’t install play-action at all until the end of the season in the article. They said the installed a man run blocking scheme that featured a pulling guard later in the season and then didn’t install the corresponding play-action plays for this blocking scheme until the last game of the season.

But at least now that we have established your beef with the article is something that actually isn’t in the article, you have no reason to doubt the facts of the article. Can you now admit you have no reason to doubt the unnamed sources in the article?

Again, this is part of the article you misread:

Later in the season, the Patriots executed more man-blocked runs featuring a pulling guard, but they hadn’t repped the corresponding play-action protections enough to call them in games. This limited their opportunities to exploit the most basic and consistent cheat code in offensive football. By the time they ramped up their play-action usage, Jones went 9-for-9 for 92 yards and a touchdown off play fakes in the regular-season finale at Buffalo.

The only thing I have found easily disprovable in the article is your claims of what is in the article (which you claim is easily disproven even though it doesn’t exist in the first place).

 

[50-yard-line]

Cherry picking your stats to put Bill further down the rung.

Rk	Coach	Yrs	From	To	G	W	L	T	W-L% ▼	G > .500	Yr plyf	G plyf	W plyf	L plyf	W-L%	AvRk	BstRk	Chmp	SBwl	Conf
1	Guy Chamberlin+	6	1922	1927	81	58	16	7	.784	42	0	0	0	0		3.2	1	4	0	0
2	John Madden+	10	1969	1978	142	103	32	7	.759	71	8	16	9	7	.563	1.3	1	1	1	1
3	Vince Lombardi+	10	1959	1969	136	96	34	6	.738	62	6	10	9	1	.900	1.5	1	5	2	2
4	George Allen+	12	1966	1977	168	116	47	5	.712	69	7	9	2	7	.222	1.9	1	0	0	1
5	Matt LaFleur	4	2019	2022	66	47	19	0	.712	28	3	5	2	3	.400	1.5	1	0	0	0
6	Jim Harbaugh	4	2011	2014	64	44	19	1	.695	25	3	8	5	3	.625	1.8	1			1
7	Tommy Hughitt	5	1920	1924	56	34	15	7	.694	19	0	0	0	0		6.2	2	0	0	0
8	Blanton Collier	8	1963	1970	112	76	34	2	.691	42	5	7	3	4	.429	1.4	1	1	0	0
9	Ray Flaherty+	11	1936	1949	122	80	37	5	.684	43	6	6	2	4	.333	1.9	1	2	0	0
10	George Halas+	40	1920	1967	497	318	148	31	.682	170	8	9	6	3	.667	2.7	1	6	0	0
11	Don Shula+	33	1963	1995	490	328	156	6	.677	172	19	36	19	17	.528	1.8	1	2	2	6
12	Paul Brown+	25	1946	1975	326	213	104	9	.672	109	15	17	9	8	.529	2.0	1	7	0	0
13	Tony Dungy+	13	1996	2008	208	139	69	0	.668	70	11	19	9	10	.474	1.8	1	1	1	1
14	Jim Lee Howell	7	1954	1960	84	53	27	4	.663	26	3	4	2	2	.500	2.0	1	1
15	Bill Belichick	28	1991	2022	450	298	152	0	.662	146	19	44	31	13	.705	1.8	1	6	6

Top 10 all time wins and their win %:

1	Don Shula+	33	1963	1995	490	328	156	6	.677	172	19	36	19	17	.528	1.8	1	2	2	6
2	George Halas+	40	1920	1967	497	318	148	31	.682	170	8	9	6	3	.667	2.7	1	6	0	0
3	Bill Belichick	28	1991	2022	450	298	152	0	.662	146	19	44	31	13	.705	1.8	1	6	6	9
4	Tom Landry+	29	1960	1988	418	250	162	6	.607	88	18	36	20	16	.556	2.4	1	2	2	5
5	Andy Reid	24	1999	2022	386	247	138	1	.641	109	18	36	20	16	.556	1.8	1	1	1	3
6	Curly Lambeau+	33	1921	1953	380	226	132	22	.631	94	5	5	3	2	.600	3.2	1	6	0	0
7	Paul Brown+	25	1946	1975	326	213	104	9	.672	109	15	17	9	8	.529	2.0	1	7	0	0
8	Marty Schottenheimer	21	1984	2006	327	200	126	1	.613	74	13	18	5	13	.278	2.0	1	0	0	0
9	Chuck Noll+	23	1969	1991	342	193	148	1	.566	45	12	24	16	8	.667	2.1	1	4	4	4
10	Dan Reeves	23	1981	2003	357	190	165	2	.535	25	9	20	11	9	.550	2.7	1	0	0

His win % is right in line with his peers at the top of the chart.

Comparing things from the 70's and 80's to now has a huge caveat, in my opinion. Back then, owners ($$$$s) and GMs were more important - they'd assemble teams that would stay together for years. They'd keep their great players and keep adding more talent. Teams that got on top didn't get poached, and therefore, stayed on top.

In the hard salary cap era, maintaining excellence is much harder. Look at how many rosters the Pats assembled in the run - thanks to great coaching, smart GMing, and the steadiest, smartest QB of all.

I give Andy Reid a lot of credit here. As an in-game coach, he's not the best, but with regard to game-planning and getting the right mix of players, I don't know that I've seen better.

 

[Tunescribe]

I wonder if Bill still meets with team captains to get the vibe of the locker room. He used to. I would say he probably doesn’t.

According to this article it's routine for him:

Step inside Bill Belichick’s office: Stories of Patriots coach’s open door | FOX Sports

In contrast to his public image, Bill Belichick is always open and accessible to his players and coaches. Here's a look inside those meetings.

www.foxsports.com

 

[Ollie]

Achord is there though.

I don't see how Achord is still in a job given how bad special teams have been lately

 

[Ollie]

Belichick said not that long ago that ultimately everything is his responsibility. I don't see Belichick ceding total control of anything to anyone as long as he's chasing the wins records.

I'm more interested in what offense O'Brien will be running next season??

Didn't McDaniels have total control of the offense? I thought he did. And Ultimately everything is Bills responsibility even if an assistant chooses his own staff the ultimate responsibility lies with Bill

 

[PatsFanInVa]

From the article

One source described a typical training camp practice under McDaniels involving the installation of 25 pages worth of fresh run plays, another 25 of passing plays and upwards of 40 pages for the offensive line learning protection schemes.

Under Patricia and Judge? Those numbers were cut by roughly half."

So the question is, was there

(1) a good playbook that Judge and Patricia didn't understand and couldn't install
(2) a crappy playbook that nobody could understand/install, but it was Judge and Patricia's turn in the barrell, or
(3) "This team hates its coach(es)," because there was early adversity, and they just turned on the team with no "locker room mafia" as in the early 2000s

IBWT believers can say what BB wanted to install was just fine, but Judge and Patricia weren't up to it.

More "lots of blame to go around" folks can say "hey what you wanted to do there was not a one-offseason, zero-coordinators job"... in other words, Judge and Patricia were pretty much screwed just as much as the players.

I also don't think you can ignore how much Mac and company did NOT trust that "the system" would get it worked out. Mac was chirping really early on.

 

[RIpats88]

From the article



So the question is, was there

(1) a good playbook that Judge and Patricia didn't understand and couldn't install
(2) a crappy playbook that nobody could understand/install, but it was Judge and Patricia's turn in the barrell, or
(3) "This team hates its coach(es)," because there was early adversity, and they just turned on the team with no "locker room mafia" as in the early 2000s

IBWT believers can say what BB wanted to install was just fine, but Judge and Patricia weren't up to it.

More "lots of blame to go around" folks can say "hey what you wanted to do there was not a one-offseason, zero-coordinators job"... in other words, Judge and Patricia were pretty much screwed just as much as the players.

I also don't think you can ignore how much Mac and company did NOT trust that "the system" would get it worked out. Mac was chirping really early on.

Ultimately the fault lies on Bill for putting Judge/Patricia and the offense in this position rather than hiring a real OC.

If any other coach did this, sabotaging their promising rookie QBs second year they would probably be fired.

The dysfunction in this article is Jets type stuff we laugh it. It's embarrassing that this happens with a Bill Belichick team. And totally avoidable.

 

[Sect140]

According to this article it's routine for him:

Step inside Bill Belichick’s office: Stories of Patriots coach’s open door | FOX Sports

In contrast to his public image, Bill Belichick is always open and accessible to his players and coaches. Here's a look inside those meetings.

www.foxsports.com

Thanks. I hadn’t read this article yet. I wonder what was discussed in those meetings with the captains this season. Maybe they did discuss Joe Judge and that was part of the reason Bill demoted him.