Report says Bill Belichick was "moonlighting" as offensive play-caller at times in 2022
BOSTON -- The Patriots' offense under Matt Patricia and Joe Judge did not go well. Prior to the season, Bill Belichick instructed everyone to blame him if that process did not succeed.
A new report suggests that Belichick wasn't necessarily a hands-off leader during his team's offensive struggles, as Albert Breer reported Monday that the head coach spent parts of the 2022 season stepping in to make some calls on offense.
"My understanding is Belichick was active on the headsets on game day, having the sort of oversight over the offense that he'd traditionally had over the defense, and moonlighting as play-caller at points (which is why, at times, calls were late going in, and the offense could look messy from an operational standpoint)," Breer wrote.
Breer added that Belichick didn't try to hire Bill O'Brien last year "out of fear that O'Brien might do well enough in a year to land a head coaching job elsewhere, leaving the Patriots to replace a coordinator two years in a row."
Belichick hadn't taken a role in calling offensive plays since his days as Cleveland's head coach in the '90s, but he seemingly felt the need to either overrule or help out his inexperienced offensive staff in 2022. The Patriots ranked 22nd in passing touchdowns, 27th in rushing touchdowns, 26th in yards, 27th on third down, and dead last in the red zone.
Clearly, the system was a failure through and through, which necessitated the need to make a hire like O'Brien to take over as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in hopes of quickly repairing an offense that badly needs fixing.
