The Patriots’ 2022 season wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, it was filled with chaos and dysfunction, especially on the offensive side of the football.
Taking the brunt of the criticism from the national media was offensive coordinator Matt Patricia, who previously spent his entire career coaching the defensive side of the ball prior to this season. Pairing Patricia with a second-year quarterback in Mac Jones went anything but smoothly.
Jones saw a decline in all major statistical categories as the team also missed the postseason after it was a wildcard team in 2021.
But Jones’ other offensive partner Joe Judge, who was the team’s quarterbacks coach after primarily being a special teams coordinator, is now at the center of attention when it comes to the unit’s criticism.
In a recent report by the Boston Herald, it shared that Jones was not a fan of Judge as his quarterback’s coach and made it clear he didn’t like the team’s play-calling.
“Mac didn’t like him,” a source told the Boston Herald. “At all.”
Another source highlighted the odd nature of Judge’s offensive meetings which did not sit well with players.
“[Judge] would speak extra loudly in meetings, trying to project like he was the guy,” a second source said. “And I think that kind of rubbed people the wrong way.”
A third source added, “A lot of people were frustrated with Judge.”
The pairing of Judge and Patricia proved to be disastrous from a planning and implementation standpoint as players on the roster would be consistently confused as to what the plan was for the offense.
“A lot of guys would ask, ‘Well, what’s going to happen if [the defense] does this?’ And you would see they hadn’t really accounted for that yet,” the report said. “And they’d say, ‘We’ll get to that when we get to that.’ That type of attitude got us in trouble.”
Thankfully for the franchise, the Patriots are seeing the return of former offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien to bring some much-needed stability.
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Patrick Dowd is a Reporter for Touchdown Alabama Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter, via Pat_Dowd77
