Dirty Harry said it best, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”
Confidence is great. Idealistic dreams keep us alive. Internal hope should burn eternally.
But in the end, we all also have to know what we’re capable of in this crazy, challenging real world.
And, by extension, what we’re not capable of.
That brings us to Patriots' senior football advisor/offensive line coach Matt Patricia, who we all know by now has also been New England’s primary play-caller and seemingly de facto offensive coordinator this scuffling season.
We all also know by now that the Patriots’ offense has not be good in 2022. The stats say that. Our eyes tell us the same dismal story.
And we know that New England’s supposed attack has been alarmingly pedestrian and predictably predictable under Patricia’s guidance.
Anyone who’s watched the seemingly endless first-down runs realizes it. Expert analysts like ESPN’s former NFL QB Dan Orlovsky know it. Heck, opposing players in the heat of the action like Jets’ linebacker C.J. Mosley and Colts’ linebacker Shaquille Leonard see it and say it, as Bill Belichick himself readily and strangely matter-of-factly admitted.
Under Patricia’s watchful, not-so-expert eye, Mac Jones has regressed in his second NFL season, trending away from the confident, accurate, heady QB who led the Patriots to the postseason as Pro Bowl rookie and alarmingly looking every bit a confused, flustered, uncomfortable turnover machine.
As such, Patricia is the man feeling the heat of the New England sports spotlight as the Patriots exit the bye week and kick off the second half of the season Sunday afternoon at Gillette Stadium against the Jets with hopes of a run toward the playoffs very much alive.
In many ways this oncoming holiday season has become open season on Patricia, his abilities and what he’s done with the New England offense this fall. Unfair, unwarranted cheap shot criticisms have been tossed about talk radio and Twitter.
Regardless of his present job or current lack of accomplishments, Patricia is not actually a “boob.” He’s an experienced, accomplished coach who proved that over hours and hours over years and years earning expert status moving up the ranks as a DEFENSIVE coach!
As Belichick declared when defending his non-traditional, ill-fated plan on the Patriots coaching staff to replace longtime proven offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, Patricia is indeed “a good coach.” A good defensive coach!
But somewhere along the offseason line, Belichick decided that “a good coach is a good coach.” He came to believe that roles and responsibilities can be fluid and filled on the fly even at the NFL level. He convinced himself, at the very least, that Patricia was the best man for the critical role of play-caller and offensive leader for his developing young franchise quarterback.
It would seem that no one had the common sense or cache to convince him otherwise.
We wondered and strongly questioned at the time whether it would work, Belichick sticking with one of his “dependables” as he’d done so many times in the past with both players and coaches. It made little logical sense, but some time-tested trust in Belichick remained.
Now, we know for sure that it didn’t work, that it was as doomed to fail as we projected. Regardless of any improvements that Patricia – along with the collaborative of Belichick and ill-suited quarterbacks coach Joe Judge – can cull together over the second half of the season the nine-game damage is already done to Jones, Kendrick Bourne, the tight ends and rest of the underachieving cast of offensive characters.
It was all so predictable, kinda like the offense itself. Anyone with an objective bone in his or her body knew Patricia wasn’t qualified or prepared to be the Patriots’ offensive coordinator and knew it was almost certainly not going to work.
That includes Patricia himself. If we were all smart enough to know that, the former aeronautical engineer from RPI certainly was as well. Intelligence, football IQ and admirable confidence aside, the failed Lions head coach should have known that he was not ready in any traditional or logical fashion to run the New England offense or take Jones to the next level. That it was likely to fail, even if his aged mentor Belichick tried to convince him to the contrary. And for a guy with the Detroit disaster on his resume, a still-young coach looking to rehab his reputation and career to some degree, sliding into a job which he was destined to disappoint was a terrible idea.
It may sound like hindsight or revisionist history now, but at some point in the process when his buddy boss Belichick came to him with his plan Patricia should have respectfully declined the opportunity/assignment.
A man’s got to know his limitations, after all.
If Patricia had, he and the Patriots would almost certainly be better off for it at this point.
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