For the latest on the Patriots, check out WEEI and Audacy's "1st and Foxborough."
As much as the Patriots’ players needed to play better on the field last year, it’s no secret where most of the NFL thinks the blame lay for the team’s ineptitude, especially on offense, last season: the coaching/Matt Patricia specifically.
If New England had a consistently competent offense last year, it probably would’ve gotten to the nine-win threshold needed to sneak into the back end of the playoffs. But a couple of anemic performances on that side of the ball, coupled with two straight crippling losses at the end of games, killed those dreams.
Life’s different now in Foxborough, though: Bill O’Brien has returned as the team’s offensive coordinator, bringing with him a sense of overarching competence we didn’t feel for much of last season.
That’s why The Athletic’s post-Super Bowl power rankings offer a glimpse of hidden optimism for the Patriots even as it puts them 17th in the league — just outside of the playoff picture.
“The last time the Patriots followed up a season in which Matt Patricia was a de facto coordinator with one in which he wasn’t, they won the Super Bowl,” writes Bo Wulf. “Bill Belichick sees all the angles. This time, New England has a healthy amount of cap space to spend and the hope of a rebound season for Mac Jones under Bill O’Brien’s chin-dimpled tutelage.”
Wouldn’t it be great if that’s all it took: losing Patricia and gaining a ring?
That might’ve been a bit more likely if Tom Brady was still the quarterback of this team with Bill O’Brien returning to town (though the overall roster might not have been as strong in that case). Alas, he is not.
Still, even with a gauntlet of a division that will get tougher if the Jets find a real quarterback, adding O’Brien might well be enough to get the Patriots back to the playoffs on its own.
The question now is if the Patriots can do better, and that scenario depends on how well they restock the cupboard in 2023 and what Jones does in an important third year. Belichick’s free-agent and trade market moves might have an even bigger short-term impact on those areas than what he does in the draft, which is already going to be massively important.
But at the least, we can be thankful that coaching probably won’t hold the Patriots back in 2023. Maybe that’s worth an extra win or two by itself.
