By the time the Patriots' offense came off the field for its first season in last Thursday's preseason game, the intrigue around the team's offensive play-caller felt like it finally dissipated.
Matt Patricia called plays for the "first-team" offense (sans just about everyone that matters) just as he had done all training camp. Nothing to see here…until Bailey Zappe took the field and Joe Judge started talking into the rookie quarterback's head set.
Coach Bill Belichick adamantly refused to explain the process of his decision-making regarding the play-calling situation, hellbent on making a strange situation even stranger.
Fox Sports AFC East Reporter Henry McKenna, who has attended almost every Patriots practice during camp, says that's just par for the course with the longtime coach.
"There is nothing intuitive about this process. It's more weirdness from Bill Belichick," he said.
"Belichick loves weird. Weird usually works for Belichick. I think this is one of the riskiest experiments he's ever tried: taking two failed head coaches -- one's on defense, one's a special teams guru -- put them together, and have them rebuild and run an offense in what seems to be a co-coordinator situation."
By all accounts, the results of said experiment haven't exactly gone swimmingly for the duration of camp, though Tuesday and Wednesday's joint practices against the Carolina Panthers offered some glimpses of progress for the offense.
All eyes will be drawn to the sideline once again Friday night as the No. 1 offense, including Mac Jones, appears set to take the field for a few series to (hopefully) make hay against the Panthers' backups.
Will it look like the chaotic mess it did last week with Patricia and Judge running around with multiple unit groups, David Andrews coaching the offensive line, and assistant offensive line coach Billy Yates invisible for a half -- "a carnival show of an operation," as McKenna called it?
Whatever occurs, though, McKenna says one thing is most likely in the bag: the man who will call the offensive plays when they start mattering.
"Matt Patricia is pretty clearly the play-caller," he said. "I would be willing to bet a pretty solid sum of money that he is going to call plays in Week 1."
Judge calling plays, McKenna explained, might have been more about getting the de facto quarterbacks coach some experience calling plays -- albeit likely scripted ones -- in a game setting that wasn't terribly high-stakes.
Additionally, though having Judge call plays at all while Patricia could use reps at it is odd, the division of labor last week was notable and perhaps showed a greater comfort level in Patricia's abilities early on.
"Focus on who Patricia is calling plays for. He called for the starters [last week] while Judge called for Zappe the rest of the game," McKenna added. "So if Patricia's calling for Mac Jones and Hoyer, then you can see who's getting the 'quality' reps of play-calling. It merely affirms more of what we've seen, which is that Patricia is 'No. 1 play-caller' in what I reported earlier this off-season was a competition. I really don't think it is one anymore."
For his part, Patricia has also suggested as much this week, telling reporters he didn't feel he was competing with Judge to call plays.
Though it's perhaps never too late for another elaborate ruse -- what else would be new? -- the Patriots probably know exactly what they plan to do when the football begins for real in September. They've arguably been showing us at practice for months now.
They just don't want to have to say it. After all, why be straightforward when you can keep things weird?
