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Editor’s Note: This article contains an update regarding the Patriots’ scoring totals in 2022 and 2023, which have been corrected.
Former New England Patriots defensive coordinator Matt Patricia certainly wore a fair number of hats during his time in Foxboro under Bill Belichick, but it sounds like his duties even went a little further than people might have thought.
Many likely remember the debacle in 2022 after Josh McDaniels left for Las Vegas after being hired as the head coach of the Raiders. That saw Belichick put Patricia in charge of the offense, with the former coach being the one to step into McDaniels’ role that offseason.
But as the Patriots saw coaches depart, they had also experienced a loss in the personnel department two seasons prior, when Nick Caserio left to become the general manager in Houston after seemingly being denied that title here in New England following the 2020 season.
Oddly enough, the person who apparently ended up filling in for him wasn’t quite who you’d expect.
According to former staffer Joe Kim, Patricia ultimately assisted Belichick in the selection of two pretty important players.
The Boston Herald’s Doug Kyed spoke to Kim recently, with the former Patriots Director of Skill Development having joined Patricia at Ohio State following a stint in Illinois last season. He revealed that Patricia spent the 2021 offseason picking up a lot of the slack that Caserio left behind, also saying that Patricia was the person behind the selections of both running back Rhamondre Stevenson and defensive tackle Christian Barmore.
“Here’s the thing that people don’t realize is there’s nobody in the history of football that’s done what that man has done,” Kim told Kyed. “And let me tell you, he has been a Super Bowl-winning defensive coordinator, he’s been an NFL head coach. Oh, by the way, he’s been an NFL offensive coordinator, and he’s been an NFL GM. Nobody’s done that. Obviously, people will say he didn’t have success in Detroit, OK, wasn’t a great offensive coordinator, he filled in for (Nick) Caserio when Caserio left, but he did all four things. I mean, who could do that?”
Patricia certainly took a lot of heat here following the 2022 season, given the Patriots’ offensive struggles that year. They followed that up with an anemic output under Bill O’Brien in 2023, scoring just 236 points all season, the lowest of Belichick’s tenure going back to 2000.
Former quarterback Mac Jones, who had a strong rookie campaign, took a giant step backward and was never the same player he was during his impressive 2021 season. Those back-to-back seasons where things fell apart ultimately led to owner Robert Kraft parting ways with Belichick, with Patricia having departed after that 2022 season and spending the 2023 campaign as a senior defensive assistant in Philadelphia.
For a coach who had been a terrific coordinator during his tenure in New England, that 2022 campaign is definitely one that takes away from his other accomplishments on the other side of the football.
The biggest black mark against Patricia after that 2022 campaign sounds like it was less about his football knowledge when it came to the offense, but more about the execution in the implementation.
One giant thing that stood out was the fact that when players questioned things, Patricia was apparently dismissive, which went against how prepared McDaniels was when it came to dealing with various situations that came up during games. It came out later that one of the biggest issues was that players were said to have asked “What if…?” style questions, and were reportedly rebuffed.
That led to situations where they would later have to adjust, which was one of the big reasons behind their issues for much of that 2022 campaign.
“By the end, they were just making 1,000 adjustments instead of building them in at the beginning,” one player told the Herald’s Andrew Callahan and Karen Guregian after that season.
To add to that was the fact that other players behind the scenes quietly voiced frustration with being taught concepts from someone who lacked the experience to properly teach them.
NBC Sports Boston’s Brian Hoyer, who was Jones’ back-up at the time all of that went down, explained later during a podcast appearance with Tom Curran and Phil Perry that the entire process was difficult, largely because of Patricia wanting to implement a system that he had no experience with.
“I think there was a lot of shifts trying to take place, and there were shifts trying to take place with kind of no clear path, I guess that’s the best way I would put it,” explained Hoyer. “You know, you were trying to get away from the system that had been run here for so long, but there also wasn’t anyone who had been in another system that was trying to implement it.”
“Look, I’ve played in a lot of different offenses, and what we were trying to do that year was kind of a hodge-podge of a bunch of different things without a clear-cut person who had ever run those things before, and I think that frustrated a lot of people, especially guys who had played in that offense for a long time.”
Meanwhile, as frustrating as that period was, it doesn’t take away from some of the biggest moments fans experienced and Patricia was certainly a part of that. His interview with Julian Edelman from February of last year was terrific, with Patricia providing some terrific insight into that Super Bowl winning play by Malcolm Butler.
At the time, Patricia’s biggest concern was Seattle running a rub play and the defense being out of position.
“We’re good on the rub. They’re going to go to the Snag 7 flat. The ‘got to have it’ play to the other side,” said Patricia. They’re going to pick the linebacker. So I’m on with High. I go, ‘Hey, make sure you don’t get picked here.’ I’m like, ‘Lynch is going – this is going to be to be Snag 7 Flat to your side.’ So I’m watching the left side of the offense, the right side of the defense, and the ball is snapped and I look and it’s Snag 7 Flat, and we get picked. Chandler’s peeling late because he had the peel call. From the High [call], I’m like, ‘Give Chan [Chandler Jones] the call.’ So Chan’s [Chandler Jones] peeling late. But if it was good throw, I was like, this is going to be a touchdown. And I look and I’m like, and then they picked the linebacker. So I’m on the headset and I’m like, ‘All right, here we go.’ I’m like, all right, it’s not the run. I’m like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to get the Snag 7 Flat. I’m like, ‘Oh, my God, they picked him.’ And then everyone starts screaming like, ‘No, he picked it!’ And I’m like, ‘Who picked what?’ I didn’t even see the play.”
“I didn’t even see the play on the other side. I was so worried because the guy’s open in the flat. So everyone’s going crazy. And I’m like, ‘What?’ I don’t even know. I’m like, ‘What happened?’ Obviously, the best part of the story is [Brandon] Browner, who I love. Browner is the one when we were going into the half, Browner knew that personnel so good. He’s like, ‘Put me here, put them there, put them there.’ So, to be a good coach, the best thing you can do is just listen to your best players, listen to your smart players. So that was the matchups that we did.”
As a result, the Patriots raised their first Lombardi Trophy in more than a decade, and won another two seasons later.
He credits his players for that success, telling Edelman he was just glad to be part of it.
“Look, I’m just lucky to be there and help and do whatever I can to give you guys a chance to go play and execute,” he said. “But to watch you guys do that up close, man, that is a treat that I’ll have with me forever, thankfully.”
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