Mac Jones has hinted on several occasions that having Bill Belichick and Matt Patricia -- both of whom are known for their defensive minds -- running the Patriots' offense could benefit him and the unit as a whole in this post-Josh McDaniels era.
Of course, those comments have done little to stop the eye-rolling about Patricia -- a coach with no prominent offensive coaching experience since about 2005 -- serving as the de facto offensive coordinator this season. Those benefits certainly weren't present during an ugly Week 1 loss to Miami in which the offense mustered just seven points.
But Sunday's win over the Steelers might have offered some evidence to that concept, according to Evan Lazar of Patriots.com.
"Look, we've given the coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball a lot of heat…they have not coached well necessarily to start the season. This was a good game plan by Matt Patricia and that staff," he told the "1st and Foxborough" podcast on Tuesday.
In particular, Lazar pointed to Nelson Agholor's breakout game -- six catches for 110 yards and a touchdown -- and Jakobi Meyers' 95-yard outing as an example of Patricia using his experience as a defensive coach to break Mike Tomlin, Brian Flores and the Steelers' man-heavy coverage plan.
"Brian Flores is over there and is like, 'These guys can't beat man. Trust me, they didn't do it in two games last year against us with Miami. This is the way to beat the Patriots,'" Lazard explained. "And I think Matt Patricia and Bill Belichick said to themselves, 'Over the years, when teams have beaten us [in man coverage], it's with crossers, it's coming across the formation…these quick little hitters that are attacking the leverage and really stressing that middle-of-the-field help.
"They ran Nelson Agholor on crossing routes and vertical routes against man coverage. He ran 11 routes out of the slot. So they are moving him around, and they were trying to give him opportunities to just use that speed against man. And it worked. It really did work."
Lazar added the Patriots' game plan for beating Pittsburgh was eerily reminiscent of how the Buffalo Bills walloped New England in their final two meetings of the 2021 season, using the speedy Isaiah McKenzie to destroy the interior of the defense and open things up for other pass-catchers elsewhere.
Then, once the Patriots forced the Steelers to play more zone coverage and use two safeties to limit the passing game, Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson feasted on the ground to close out the victory.
That's a formula the Patriots can build off of offensively even as Patricia, Belichick and the staff work through their learning curve on that side of the ball.
"There's a lot of 'reverse-engineering' going on, like Matt Patricia said to himself, 'For ten years, I played a lot of man. This is what teams did against me. If they play a lot of man, we're just going to do the same exact thing that teams used to do.' And I like that.
"Now…the lack of play action, the lack of just creativity on that side of the ball -- they're dead last in motion at the snap. They're dead last in play action. And I think this is where it comes in where they're not offensive coaches. They don't necessarily have that offensive mastermind, that creative gene going yet. But they have that ability to know what the coverage is, what gives that coverage problems because it's what gave us problems when we were in this coverage and here's how we're going to beat it."
In another key adjustment, the Patriots passed the ball on almost 55 percent of their first- and second-down plays Sunday even while playing much of the game ahead on the scoreboard, which is a good sign for the offense's ability to keep opposing defenses guessing. By comparison, New England had an early-down pass rate of just 45.9 percent in 2021, which ranked 27th in the league.
The Patriots do still have some work to do on offense before they can be considered anywhere near "good." Some of the miscommunications on the offensive line and losing timeouts and yards to bad pre-snap clock management can't happen against better teams.
But the initial returns haven't quite been the unmitigated disaster some feared they would be.
In fact, it's possible Jones might have been somewhat right: when it comes to game-planning to attack an opposing defense, maybe having a few former defensive play-callers leading the way on offense doesn't have to be a disaster. Then again, the season is still young...
