FOXBOROUGH - The Patriots' offense is broken.
In the past two games — both wins thanks to the defense and special teams — the offense has put up 12 points, including their lone six points were scored with the ball spotted at the Colts' 3-yard line. Nick Folk, with nine field goals and two extra points in the last two games, has 29 points.
In the 26-3 victory over the Colts, the Patriots averaged 3.3 yards per play. Against the Jets, it was 3.8. Last year, with Mac Jones as a rookie and several new players to the offense, the Patriots were never below 4.3 yards per play (Week 3, Saints). The Patriots averaged 5.7 yards per play for the 2021 season.
You can blame Jones all you want — but you'd be a fool.
If you think what Bailey Zappe did against the Lions (32nd in FootballOutsiders.com's DVOA) and Browns (27th - and didn't have Jadeveon Clowney or Denzel Ward vs. Pats) is somehow comparable to Jones against the Jets (8th DVOA - just upset Bills and Josh Allen) and Colts (14th), go nuts. I can't stop you.
But either you're being willingly ignorant, or are incapable of admitting that Bill Belichick may have made a big mistake with his grand experiment of Matt Patricia as offensive coordinator/offensive line coach and Joe Judge as QBs coach.
Ask yourself this, before you even get to Jones: has the run game been blocked well the last two weeks? Has the protection been good for Jones?
The answer is decidedly no on both points. So if your instinct is to blame the quarterback, you're whistling past the graveyard on what makes a good NFL offense.
Hint: it's the blocking, stupid.
Tom Brady has struggled this year. Matthew Stafford, defending a Super Bowl title, has struggled. Joe Burrow had a tough start to the season. Aaron Rodgers is 3-6.
Were those guys the problem? No. For most of them, they have had little running game and not enough time in the passing game.
You can't be a good offense in the NFL without an adequate offensive line, and the Patriots' line has not been good enough this year.
But hope is not lost. The bye week is a good time to hit the reset button and figure out what you do and don't well before charting the course for the crucial final eight games of the season.
"The bye week ... is always a good time to physically get yourself back and then obviously mentally," said Jones, who was 20 of 30 for 147 yards, one touchdown and was sacked four times. "And then X’s and O’s-wise, see what you're doing well and what you're not doing as well. I know our coaches will do a great job grinding it out, and we'll be on the same page."
Our suggestions for the Patriots to improve start with the offensive line, which is in shambles at this point:
1. Figure out the best five and go - and maybe bring in another coach.
You can talk all you want about the quarterback, but this team isn't going anywhere if the offensive line doesn't start to play better. The Patriots' per-rush average the past four games: 3.4, 3.7, 3.7 and 2.0. The easiest thing to do as an offensive lineman is to run block – before we even get into pass protection — and the Patriots are getting worse by the week.
Injuries, specifically to center David Andrews, have been an issue, for sure. But let's not fool ourselves. The Patriots were a slightly above-average line with Andrews in the lineup and have been terrible without him. The Patriots are on their third right tackle of the season — only one was due to injury (Marcus Cannon) — and are now on their second left guard because first-round pick Cole Strange was benched for the second-straight game in favor of Isaiah Wynn, and this time Strange didn't get his job back.
As far as pass protection, the Patriots allowed nine sacks in the first five games. They've allowed 13 in the last four games.
So they can't run or pass block at the moment.
This has to get fixed.
Job No. 1 during the bye is to figure out which five give them their best chance at victory. Hopefully Andrews will be back. Is Cajuste really a starter? Would Mike Onwenu, who has been the star at right guard, be better off at right tackle with Strange back at LG and Wynn at RG? Would James Ferentz, in a Teddy Karras-like role, be a better option at one of the guard spots? Maybe going back to last year's lineup with Wynn at LT and Brown at RT makes the most sense? Because, like a lot of things with this offense, the grand plans hatched by Patricia and Judge in the offseason — like moving Brown to LT to get more power running going, let alone the failed outside zone scheme — have blown up in their faces.
Once the personnel gets figured out, the Patriots then have to address the coaching. It hasn't been good enough, obviously. Do they need to find a veteran line coach to add to the group? Does Patricia need to give up coordinating and playcalling and just focus on one of his official jobs? It should all be on the table. Speaking of which...
(Adam Richins for BSJ)
2. Maybe it's time for Belichick to call the plays.
He's been heavily involved in the offense, which Jones indicated after the game.
"Coach Belichick in our meetings and stuff, anything he sees, he's always providing that information for us as quarterbacks from a defensive perspective, which is great," Jones said. "That's continued, and that's helped me a lot."
Perhaps Belichick should just take over coordination and playcalling so that Patricia can focus on getting the line fixed — because if that doesn't happen quickly, I don't care what plays are called, it's not going to work. I think Patricia could be a damn good offensive line coach if that was his only job. Belichick has allowed the line to basically short-shifted in coaching, and you now see the results over halfway through the season. Invest in the offensive line, both in personnel (they've done fine there) and with coaching (not good enough), and see how well the rest of the unit performs.
3. Focus on improving Jones.
One of the things talked about when Patricia was put in charge of the offense was how, as a former defensive coordinator, he has unique insight on what gives defenses trouble.
But no one thought of the bigger job of an offensive coordinator: how to make the offensive players better through planning and playcalling.
Every quarterback, at one point or another, struggles and gets out of rhythm — usually as the result of too much pressure. It's happened to Brady in the past, absolutely. That's when a skilled and experienced offensive coordinator becomes paramount. It's their job to literally lay the breadcrumbs to get the QB back into a rhythm. The jury is out on whether or not Patricia can do that.
4. Sign a fullback, get smashmouth.
Remember in 2018 when Brady and the passing offense were out of sync after a 17-10 loss at Pittsburgh? Josh McDaniels and Belichick decided — much to the chagrin of Brady — to make the Patriots more ground-based, and they had more rushing attempts than dropbacks through the Super Bowl and beating the Rams. It started the line, fullback James Develin and Sony Michel, and that allowed Brady to get more into a rhythm and to make the playaction game more effective.
One of the more foolish decisions, it turns out, this offseason was to jettison the fullback from the offense. It's not a cure-all, but it would be another tool in the box to use to help a struggling offense — a fullback makes the defense have to defend another gap — that could really use it.
5. Talk with Mac, find out what he wants to run — and throw in more tempo with him calling plays.
The coaches and quarterbacks definitely got off on the wrong foot this season but at 5-4 and a bye, there is time for them to get on the same page. Start with making this offense more Mac friendly with the types of routes and concepts that he's most comfortable with.
And develop one package every game where the Patriots go no-huddle, and leave it up to Mac what plays to call at the line. That will make him buy in more, and could provide the kind of change of pace and spark to open things up a bit more for this offense, which feels like it's locked in a phone booth.
The defense has done its part the last two games to get this team to 5-4 and one game out of the playoff hunt. It's now on the offense to get things figured out so the Patriots can be a real threat. It starts with the coaches, and it starts with the offensive line. If they can block the run and pass better, this offense still has hope. But time is running out.