No one on the New England Patriots coaching staff wants to say, exactly, what they do. It has become a recent tradition for Bill Belichick to avoid naming coordinators (particularly on defense) — but now, he seems to be going so far as to delay naming positional coaches.
Take Jerod Mayo, for example.
“I’m coaching the defense. I’m coaching defensive players,” he told the media during a videoconference on Monday.
Mayo was the team’s inside linebacker coach in 2021 and appeared to have a major role in organizing the weekly game plan, with outside linebackers coach Steve Belichick calling the plays. When asked if he would be the defensive coordinator in 2022, Steve admitted he didn’t know.
“Fair question that I don’t have the answer to. If I am, great. I’m not, great too,” he said.
So at this point in the offseason, the team has only one coordinator: Cameron Achord, who works with special teams. The rest of the staff is in flux, particularly on offense where former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels took three assistants to the Las Vegas Raiders. And, no surprise, neither Joe Judge nor Matt Patricia — both set to join the offense — had much to say on who would call plays, though it is likely to be one of the two. Judge confirmed only that Bill Belichick had not decided on the offensive play-caller.
Judge confirmed he was working mostly with quarterbacks. Patricia confirmed he was working mostly with the offensive line. But they wouldn’t go so far as to say they held those titles.
“All of us are working collectively to work with the entire offense,” Judge said on a videoconference call on Monday.
For Judge and Patricia, who are likely to co-coordinate the offense in 2022, the situation is complicated. For Mayo and Steve Belichick, the situation has been complicated for quite some time — at least from the outside looking in. But for a coach like Brian Belichick, who coached safeties in 2021 and seems likely to do the same in 2022, it shouldn’t be complicated.
But it’s the Patriots. They make things difficult. Even Brian Belichick was unwilling to confirm his job title — or much in the way of his job responsibilities.
Is the plan to coach safeties again?
Brian Belichick: We’re all just doing whatever is asked. I’ve worked with safeties this offseason. I’ve worked with other DBs pic.twitter.com/rqaBL19NMo
— Mark Daniels (@MarkDanielsPJ) May 16, 2022
Another shocker: last year’s tight end coach Nick Caley said it was “up to coach” Bill Belichick about where he’d land in 2022.
This is how the Patriots operate in the offseason. They’re never transparent. And perhaps Belichick is intentionally obscuring his offensive staffing decisions in hopes of distracting the media’s attention away from a roster (that so far looks lackluster) to direct the criticism toward Belichick.
