How many failed NFL coaches does it take to screw up Mac Jones?

Estimated read time 5 min read

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Joe Judge (l.) and Matt Patricia (r.)

Joe Judge (l.) and Matt Patricia (r.)
Illustration: AP

I’m not sure Joe Judge and Matt Patricia could fit a loveseat through a double door if they were the two men who arrived with your moving truck in the greater Boston area. The two colossal failures as NFL head coaches were a combined 23-52-1 in nearly five seasons with their respective teams. If you ask a Giants fan about Judge, or a Lions fan about Patricia, their response is going to be largely negative — and that’s if they utter actual words and not just give a thumbs down and make a fart noise.

So, it’s a wonder why Bill Belichick has entrusted the development of Mac Jones to tweedle dee and tweedle idiot. The reports out of Patriots camp are of a frustrated, overwhelmed, soul-searching offense, one requiring motivational speeches and a designated play caller.

Here are a couple of distressing tweets that I’m sharing to drive home my point and also boost the days of the many people who hate New England.

The reason why the Pats were relentlessly dominant with Tom Brady was it didn’t matter who called the plays. Belichick would concoct a brilliant defensive scheme, and No. 12 would get them however many points they needed.

There were outliers, sure, but sometimes even the best get beat by Nick Foles and Doug Pederson. Oh, wait, that’s right. Patricia orchestrated (loosely directed) the defense that surrendered 538 yards and 41 points in the Super Bowl LII loss. But, yeah, perhaps his true calling — after trying out D coordinator and head coach — will be on the offensive side of the ball.

I mean, he can’t be any worse than the Judge, right? … Right?!

During his reign in New York, Judge’s offenses finished second to last in consecutive seasons. Daniel Jones isn’t a starting NFL quarterback, so he could have something to do with the paltry output. Having said that, this is the same coach who gave Jason Garrett the keys to the hooptie and let him call plays so mundane they made Ben McAdoo look like Sean Payton. (Translation: No wonder the Giants have 22 total wins since 2017.)

Having an assistant coach up in the booth with a PS5 to ask Madden for suggestions on third and long is a better idea than any one of the thousands of screen passes or draws Judge would inevitably select.

I’m not sure how Bostonians felt about Patricia and Judge returning to the staff, because that’s sort of the MO for Belichick assistant coaches who wither once off the coaching tree. I know how Lions and Giants’ supporters felt though, and I’d describe it as thigh-slapping laugher.

As much faith as I have in Belichick to micro-manage the shit out of Thing 1 and Thing 2, he can only stand so many deflated soufflés before he has to put on the apron himself and start whisking or baking or whatever goes into getting soufflés to rise.

Remember when the Mac-churian Candidate got a standing ovation simply for running out onto the practice field at the start of camp? That was less than three weeks ago, and now the New York Post is running clickbait about how a visit from his girlfriend is the only thing he has to smile about.

The Patriots uncharacteristically spent big on free agent skill position players two offseasons ago. They brought in Jonuu Smith, Hunter Henry, and Nelson Agholor in 2021, and also traded for DeVante Parker this April. That should tell you how confident Belichick is in his second-year QB. He made a habit of seeing how little Brady needed to still win, but there are only a handful of quarterbacks who can pull off that feat.

Most players at the quarterback position need sound infrastructure to succeed, and even then Kirk Cousins still exists. There’s a good chance that Jones needs the NFL equivalent of Alabama talent to thrive — or marginally succeed by Belichick’s standards.

Say what you will about Josh McDaniels and his constant sniveling; at least he has a proven record of running an offense. With him in Las Vegas, and New England trying the rarely seen coordinator by committee, the continuity that I’m told is invaluable to a young signal-caller is gone.

There are miles of room for error when you have the best coach-QB tandem of all time. While the defense should provide Jones with an ample safety net, it’ll be interesting — or at the very least entertaining — to see how much the offense can overcome with a couple of bumbling halfwits trading the playsheet back and forth.

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