Bill O’Brien is heading into his first season as head football coach at Boston College, but he’s obviously no stranger to the New England football scene.
As a refresher - O’Brien was born in Dorchester, grew up in Andover, played high school ball at St. John’s Prep, and eventually played college football at Brown University. After graduating, he spent two years on the Brown football staff as a position coach, then left New England for the next 11 years for various position coaching jobs within the ACC.
He made his return to New England in 2007 to join the Patriots offensive coaching staff as an assistant, and quickly rose through the ranks to become the offensive coordinator for the 2011 season. That season, the Patriots led the AFC in both total yards and scoring, and eventually lost to the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI.
After a well-documented decade away from New England starting in 2012, he made a return to Foxborough for the 2023 NFL season as offensive coordinator for Bill Belichick’s final season with the Patriots.
All of that is to say, the man understands football in this region of the country.
So when O’Brien made an appearance on The Greg Hill Show on Wednesday morning as a part of the 2024 WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, it was only natural that Greg would ask about O’Brien’s former NFL team, now coached by his former coaching colleague Jerod Mayo.
“At the start of training camp, Jerod Mayo had the fellas doing some virtual sprints,” Greg said ingest to O’Brien, poking fun at Mayo’s consistent emphasis on mental reps throughout training camp. “Have you been doing [any of BC’s practices] virtually, Bill?”
“I did not see that,” O’Brien said with a laugh. “I’ve been busy myself. I don’t even know what we’re talking about with virtual - I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
This all leads to the obvious questions around the development of Patriots rookie quarterback Drake Maye, and how Mayo and his staff have handled the situation thus far.
“We’ve been talking a lot about Drake Maye,” said Greg. “Does it surprise you when you look at that first preseason game, and he’s in there for one series, when you look at reps at practice with the ones and how many he is or isn’t getting - does it surprise you the way they’re kind of bringing him along?”
“You know, I think that’s an interesting question,” started O’Brien. “First of all, preseason games, I’ll just be honest with you, they don’t really mean a whole lot. And the reason why I say that is, you know, both sides of the ball in preseason aren’t really doing a whole lot. Like, the defense may play cover-three the whole game, the offense may just be in 11-personnel the whole game, simple formation.
“So for that reason alone, you should probably try to get, in my opinion, a rookie quarterback a bunch of reps, because you’re playing pretty vanilla offense and defense. At the same time, how is the offensive line playing? Like, you want him to go in there and get the guy crushed, because we can’t block anybody, you know what I mean? So I think there’s probably a fine line that they’re talking about.
“In the end, I always believed in reps. I know they’re scrimmaging the Eagles right now, so I’m sure Drake’s getting a bunch of reps. I don’t think there’s any other way to learn than by actually doing it. I don’t think you learn by standing next to the coach on the sideline. I think you actually learn by going out there and experiencing it, and dealing with pressures, and dealing with the different things that go into getting ready for a game.”
We’ll see if Mayo and his staff implore more of O’Brien’s development style on Thursday night, as Maye will have the opportunity to play in his second preseason game of his rookie season. In his first go at preseason football, Maye only threw the ball three times on six snaps of total action.
The Patriots will host the Philadelphia Eagles at Gillette Stadium, with kickoff set for 7:00 p.m. on NFL Network.