The last few years were rather painful for the New England Patriots. Former New England running back Damien Harris is putting much of the blame on legendary ex-coach Bill Belichick, especially regarding the foibles of former first-round bust Mac Jones.
During a recent episode of The Athletic Football Show, Harris discussed what went wrong during the late stages of the Patriots’ Belichick era. He didn’t mince his words, blaming Belichick, who amassed a questionable offensive staff after Jones’ rookie success in 2021. Hoo boy, that’s not necessarily a novel insight, but it remains wild to hear from someone like Harris who was actually there.
More from The Athletic Football Show:
“What happened in New England to Mac Jones was because of the fact you took away an offensive coordinator who coached him to be a Pro Bowler [Josh McDaniels] and almost coached us to winning our division with a rookie quarterback in his first year,” Harris started to explain.
“And then you take — whenever Josh McDaniels left [after the 2021 season] — Matt Patricia, who has coached defenses his entire life, and Joe Judge, who has been a special teams coach, coached receivers at some point. And then you just throw them in there and be like, ‘Hey, coach this kid up. He’s a first=round pick, but as long as you teach him what I say, everything will be fine,’ and [expletive] wasn’t fine.”
Well, that’s certainly a pointed criticism of Belichick’s mismanagement, and it’s hard to argue with. A young quarterback like Jones not only needs consistency with his coaches, but his coaches have to know what they’re talking about, too. That didn’t appear to be the case in New England.
With that said, some of this analysis probably absolves Jones too much. Considering how atrocious he looked in both 2022 and 2023, I’m not entirely convinced things would’ve turned out markedly better with a more experienced offensive staff. Sometimes, a bad quarterback is just a bad quarterback, no matter how you slice it.
Harris also seemed to partly echo these sentiments, particularly given Belichick’s successful precedent with the Patriots over two decades.
Via The Athletic Football Show:
“He [Belichick] needs full-on control. That’s just the kind of guy Bill Belichick is,” Harris said. “But at the same time, can you blame him? Because in the 20 years where he had full control, he had a lot of success. So you can’t blame him.”
The good thing for the Patriots is that all of this madness is over now.
Jerod Mayo is the head coach, Drake Maye is the quarterback, and none of what happened at the end of Belichick’s run in New England diminishes the tremendous success he enjoyed for years beforehand.