Changes are coming for the Patriots after another post-Tom Brady letdown.
Longtime head coach Bill Belichick met with Patriots owner Robert Kraft this week after the team was eliminated from the playoffs in Week 18 following a loss to the Bills. According to a report from NBC Sports Boston, Belichick, 70, came out of the meeting safe, but perhaps other members of the coaching staff did not — particularly on offense.
“Don’t expect a dog-and-pony show announcing firings or who’s coming in for an interview. Belichick isn’t going to put anyone’s head on a spike for the pleasure of the masses,” the report read. “But my understanding is offensive coaching reassignments are going to happen and several offensive coaches are under consideration for the Patriots’ 2023 staff.”
The Patriots finished 8-9 in their third season without Brady at quarterback, the second of those three seasons they missed the playoffs. 2022 was also the first season in a decade where Josh McDaniels was not the offensive coordinator after he was hired by the Raiders as head coach.
Instead of McDaniels, the Patriots went without an official offensive coordinator. However, former defensive coordinator and ex-Lions head coach Matt Patricia was the play-caller — and the results in Year 1 were not particularly pretty.
New England finished in the bottom 10 of the NFL in yards and Football Outsiders’ offensive Defense-adjusted Value Over Average (DVOA) statistic. Second-year quarterback Mac Jones regressed, following up his 3,801 passing yards and 22 touchdowns as a rookie with 2,997 yards and 14 touchdowns in Year 2.
Patricia, 48, had no prior NFL experience calling plays and the move was viewed with skepticism from the outset, with beat reporters noting the offense looked disjointed in training camp. It didn’t get get much better once the season started, with Jones seen yelling at Patricia on multiple occasions during regular-season games.
One year appears to have been enough for Kraft, and now the Patriots seem set to hire an actual offensive coordinator with NFL experience. A widely speculated candidate would be former Texans head coach Bill O’Brien, who was the Patriots’ QB coach from 2009-10 and the offensive coordinator in 2011. O’Brien has been the offensive coordinator at Alabama since 2021, but could be looking to jump back to the NFL.
Kliff Kingsbury, who was just fired as head coach of the Cardinals, spent time as a backup quarterback in New England, and could be a potential candidate as well.
