Patriots 2023 Season Thread

He did his thing and didn't fight back, unless you have information I haven't seen? The results are worst Patriots mess in two decades.

For two decades the Patriots have been a developmental program for people Bill likes. No new OC or DC has ever gotten to pick a completely new staff. It's not even common in football for new OC/DC to pick a completely new staff. So why are we even talking about that like it's a thing? 

It's funny Matt Patricia and that staff did a very good job with Zappe and even got more out of Mac Jones. The offense was better and it would have been interesting to see what happened if Zappe kept starting. Then grew in year two.

Are we really still buying last year's narrative that they destroyed Mac Jones?

Anyone have handy one of those charts on which teams for patriots fans to root for, re: draft tiebreakers?

The best possible scenario is that the Patriots lose and Belichick stays on as the coach.

Unfortunately that’s also the least likely scenario.

 potential 3-way tie involving Steelers:

Buffalo. 10-7 6-6 conf record
Pittsburgh.10-7 ... 7-5

Indy. 10-7 ... 8-4
OR
HOUS. 10-7 ...  7-5


For #6 seed wildcard, Buffalo has inferior Conf record. Eliminated.   HOUS/Indy both beat Pittsburgh head to head.   Hous/Indy is #6.

Then for #7, Pittsburgh vs. BUFF.  Conf record wins tie for Pittsburgh.   Get #7, Buffalo eliminated.

I don't know, if Kraft is telling you that you need a new OC and it's not his choice in the matter, I think you let him bring in his guys to round out the offense. It's the excuse Billy O seems to be using now that this season went up in flames. I don't know the rarity of it, but it seems like it's not that odd given how the report is written. The report states how the offensive coaching never gelled.

Bill has never put a guy completely out of position either. Patricia has never coached offense on any level. That's a little different than promoting a guy from college to the pros or moving a guy from WR/QB coach to OC. He also had Brady which would make me look like a competent NFL coach.

If people around the league thought Matt Patricia did a good job as OC he'd have a job in that role. Fact is, last year other coaches around the league were laughing at the Patriots, publicly.

I will agree they would have been better this year with Patricia and Zappe. The difference though being like maybe 2 wins better. Zappe isn't an NFL starter. He was terrible in the pre-season. He was freely available for anyone in the league to claim if anyone wanted him and they didn't. I don't blame them sticking with Jones because he had upside, but it's clear that he's not very good, at least without a full team around him.

To the contrary, I think Patricia wasn't terrible for Mac. Jones wasn't a fan of the plays being called ("the quick game sucks"), but besides being inexperienced and having no ability to get creative, the simplistic play calling was partially designed to help both Mac and Zappe.

I’m pretty sure it was. Patriots played Steelers this season.

Which OC gets to bring in a whole new offensive staff? I'm sure it has happened at some point,  it's not even close to the norm though. Yeah it's nothing but an excuse.

A big part of Bills success is next man up with coaches, guys he's developed over years. People he knows and trusts. That wasn't the case this year because of our owner. Sorry but I'm a big in Bill I trust guy, just like with Danny Ainge.

Matt Patricia spent more years on offense before joining Patriots than D, then spent his first two years here on offense. That was five years straight on offense before switching to D. Played on offense as a player in College and was a HC working with OC for 3 years. Then a year as a special assistant. So it's not like you claim and the guys a literal rocket scientist. The crap went crazy because of the way Mac Jones played and like I said last year, if he was horrible how come Zappe took to the coaching? It was much more Mac Jones issues than Matt Patricia. The guy literally changed the offensive like 5 times trying to help Jones and account for the poor offensive line.

We'll never know, but Patriots have 7 one score or less losses. Nevermind were watching Zappe now down a bunch of talent, Bourne, Henry, Stevenson, Juju and two starting OL guys. Yeah I would have loved to see him with the offense built around him and a healthy roster.

Oh gosh, I’ve been misunderstanding that the whole time haha. I forgot it’s a race for how putrid you are.

Lay down the pipe, buddy.

Btw, Lombardi on his pod this week predicted Kraft & BB to meet later in the week, likely Thursday.

Shout out to Myles Bryant, the oft scorned DB who has helped keep the defense performing at a high level despite so many injuries & other removals.

He's undersized -- under-tooled -- for sure but he's also a willing tackler and a role-versatile cerebral player. Good for him. I hope he's back next year (and many more).

Like I said, I have no idea how often it happens, just the way it was written seems like Bill abstaining set the team backwards. I guess the difference would be most coaches also don't get told they have to fire their OC and hire someone specifically either. That the coach gets to typically pick his staff. After it didn't work, Kraft forced Billy O on him and if his philosophy differs from the rest of the staff then the offense is doomed from the start.


For offense, I bet hiring someone like Matt Patricia wouldn't be a problem if they had Tom Brady.

At Syracuse he was an offensive graduate assistant from 2001-2003.

In NE, he was an offensive assistant in 2004 and offensive line assistant coach in 2005.

He then did nothing on offense for the next 17 years.

A little more experience than I thought, but if he were promoted in 2006 I would think that's not nearly enough explanation, never mind 17 years after the fact.

Yes, he's a rocket scientist and is smart, but I don't think he'd be very good without a few more years under his belt. If Matt Patricia wanted to fast track himself as a head coach he'd look for another OC job, but I don't think that'll ever happen for him again.

That's fair on the number of low scoring game. Zappe played himself out of starting against the Bears last year. Zappe has shown much more poise and willingness to step up in the pocket and can run around a little. I think there's also something to the fact that there's not much film on Zappe. It's not like he's throwing 300 yard games. Though that's hard too because a lot of the offense is dysfunctional.