One big question heading into 2024 is going to be whether or not Jerod Mayo and the new coaching staff will be able to pull off the little nuances that often were the difference with this New England Patriots team.
Despite the 4-13 finish in 2023, it was hard not to notice the fact that this was a competitive club during Belichick’s final season, even against some pretty good football teams. The Patriots were in the vast majority of their games last season, including against teams like Philadelphia, Kansas City, Miami, and the Bills. And that was despite how bad their offense was for most of the season.
Players have already admitted that the preparation was there but the execution wasn’t, which obviously provided the context behind a disappointing year. However, with the page now turned, it remains to be seen whether or not two of the men who were disciples under Belichick – Mayo and defensive coordinator Demarcus Covington – can carry the torch forward and provide similar insight that made Belichick so incredible.
Former Patriots quarterback Tom Brady provided a reminder of that on Wednesday. Brady appeared on The Herd with Colin Cowherd and addressed a key question people have likely been wondering.
Cowherd was clearly trying to stir the pot on a question where he asked Brady if, under Belichick, the club might have been ever been too tight at times ahead of a big game, asking the former quarterback if he ever felt like he needed to step in as a leader and “lighten this room up.”
Brady actually admitted it was in fact, just the opposite. He said the preparation was generally so good that it gave players confidence heading into the game.
“I think the answer would be no, and I think that’s where Bill was actually so great,” said Brady. “And no one saw him in those moments like we did. And Saturday night, we were so prepared and so focused, we were the opposite of tight. We were always relaxed because we had the answers to the test. I knew that … I went through the call sheet. Let’s say we had 150 calls on the call sheet. There was a squad meeting at 8:00. I would meet with the quarterbacks starting at 6:30 and the offensive coordinator. We’d go through every single play on the call sheet, and we’d do exactly what we do. We do exactly what we did. ‘Okay, this is the play, this is the run. What’s the one thing that could mess this run up? Oh, a safety blitz off the right side. Okay, great. What do you want to do if that happens?’”
“So, I’d walk to the line of scrimmage. That call was made. I’d break the huddle. I’d look to the line of scrimmage. I’d say, ‘Okay, the only problem I have on this play is if the safety is blitzing off the right side.’ Then I would just look for it and he only did it, let’s say, 5% of the time. So, most coaches would just say, ‘Ah, just run the play, whatever. If they get lucky and call at the same time, one for them.’ That’s not how I played because that one play could mean everything. I would say, ‘No, if it’s a 5% chance, it could happen. What should I do if it happens?’ So, we’re all on the same page.”
“I would tell the line, ‘Okay, if this guy’s blitzing, this is what I’m doing, I’m going to check to this play. We’ll call Wolf, or call Beatle, or call Python,’ whatever we wanted to call it. This is what I’m going to do. Or I’m going to check to a screen, Liz, Rip. I’m going to change to protection and go to Greta or Grape. So, there was all these different code words that we had that we can get to them so quickly because it’s hard to do when there’s 70,000 fans. It’s hard to do it to communicate to everybody in 10 seconds to go from one play to another play. But that’s what the continuity allowed us to do over a long period of time. That’s what the same coordinator, the similar core group of players could do, the same offensive line coach.
“‘Oh, yeah, we did that two years ago. Yeah, I like that solution. That worked great.’ That allowed us win the game. Great. We gained confidence in it. That continuity that we had with all of us allowed us to succeed in those little small percentage chances that they did something or made a call that could beat what we were doing. And I think so much of that is what the beautiful part about the sport is. That’s the chess game in football. It’s not checkers. It’s not soccer where everything’s reaction. It’s not hockey. It’s not basketball. They’re all set pieces. There’s a play.”
“When I looked at the real field generals when I played growing up, that was John Elway, Dan Marino. Then you got to the Peyton Mannings and Drew Brees and Philip Rivers. That’s all we tried to do. We tried to say, ‘What’s the defense doing and how can we beat the defense on every single play?’ Then we’d come out of the game. That’s how we would judge ourselves. Did I make the right call there? Not always did I make the right throw. Did I snap the ball into a defense that that play would actually work?”
Obviously, it’s a good look at how the greatest player at his position operated under the greatest coach in the game. Now it’s up to Mayo and company to try and get his future signal callers in a similar position, which is something everyone will be watching in the coming months as we head into this next era of Patriots football.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
