Mac Jones was benched once again as the New England Patriots were beaten by the New York Giants in humiliating fashion on Sunday to fall to 2-9 on the year - is Bill Belichick's reign as head coach coming to an end in Foxboro?
Monday 27 November 2023 16:50, UK
Bill Belichick's Patriots are a distant memory, for the NFL knows nothing of the hobbling New England team devoid of guile and engulfed in wild-fire mediocrity.
His sides of the past would have feasted on a young quarterback like Tommy DeVito, tailoring an evil genius masterplan to the exposure of debilitating flaws as the ultimate gateway acid test for a baby-faced play-caller seeking to make their way in this league.
Belichick could craft ruthless mirages pre-snap before ambushing an ill-guided decision once the ball was out and a quarterback had slammed on the panic button. He matched it with the nous to dictate offensive tendencies and tempo: if you could be beaten on the ground, he would beat you on the ground; if you could be beaten through the air, he would beat you through the air. He cared little for what was in-fashion across the league. Belichick was his own fashion.
The omniscience has fizzled, the power to raise the level of non-superstars has faded, his recruitment as general manager has coughed up flop investments, coaching hires have backfired, the situation at quarterback has become the face of turmoil and Belichick's Patriots as the league knew them are gone.
On Sunday he plummeted to a career-worst 2-9 record as New England were beaten 10-7 in their battle of the bad with the New York Giants, undrafted rookie DeVito boosting his cult hero status with another win and Mac Jones heading for the bench once again after two more ugly interceptions in the latest instalment of his decline.
"Every week's a challenge and I'm excited about the challenge, the opportunity, and what we have to do to win each week. I'll keep working as hard as I can to help our team," said Belichick on Monday.
Belichick was once the king of slaying the NFL's desired parity, which by purpose seeks to eradicate one-team dominance and preserve competitive balance through its worst-to-first Draft order, its salary cap regulations and an equal split of television revenue. Since his appointment as head coach in 2000 he has guided the Patriots to six wins from nine Super Bowl appearances - winning three in the space of four seasons - while clinching 17 AFC East titles and reaching four more AFC Championship Games to form the greatest dynasty in league history as part of the greatest coach-quarterback tandem in history alongside Tom Brady.
He, Brady and 'The Patriots Way' became the perfect villain, teasing protagonists into false hope with slow starts or marquee departures before inflicting brutal knockouts built on seasoned situational poise. At Super Bowl LI Belichick's side overcame a 28-3 deficit to stun the Atlanta Falcons into perennial ridicule, and at Super Bowl LIII completely altered their defensive plan to limit the Los Angeles Rams and Sean McVay's second-ranked offense to three points.
Now he is on the opposite end of said defiance as his team sinks into a directionless pit, with even his defensive wizardry no longer able to compensate.
Whether or not the Bill Belichick reign is over, whether or not you feel inclined to root against him in light of historic sovereignty, to watch a Belichick team stoop to new lows week after week is a sad state of affairs.
His and New England's first stab at adjusting to life post-Brady has failed. Cam Newton was little more than a make-shift solution when Brady headed for Tampa Bay in 2020, sparking momentary intrigue upon his arrival as a free agent as Josh McDaniels sought to marry an option-friendly offense to a quarterback possessing a completely different skillset to his predecessor. The following year they turned to what felt their true reply to Brady's exit by drafting Jones in the first round, bringing onboard the timing and rhythm passer who had fed a star-studded cast of receivers at Alabama.
Belichick turned the page on his cut-price prowess of the past and spent $163m in free agency, over $80m of which went on Jonnu Smith and Hunter Henry as he looked to revitalize the multiple tight end sets synonymous with his winning teams of years gone by through Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez. McDaniels reverted to quick game traits while cushioning Jones with a play-action offense and a solid running game as the rookie compiled a 10-7 record while completing 67.6 per cent of his passes for 3,801 yards, 22 touchdowns and 13 interceptions as the most efficient quarterback in his class.
McDaniels departed to become Las Vegas Raiders head coach at the end of the season, Belichick handed the keys to defensive-minded Matt Patricia and newly-fired New York Giants head coach Joe Judge, and fallout ensued. Patricia and Judge between them elected to shift the approach on offense away from the comfort zone of Jones - the results being sideline tension, a losing season and more change. Back came Bill O'Brien this offseason with the task of patching up a sinking ship, but Jones has only continued to regress. Perhaps to the point of no repair and perhaps without having received the help he needed.
He has now been benched four times this season, and in back-to-back games after being pulled for Bailey Zappe in the final two minutes of New England's loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Frankfurt. The Patriots offense sits 25th in total yards, 23rd in passing, 23rd in rushing, 31st in scoring and 30th in EPA/play, while their quarterbacks have thrown a second-most 14 interceptions. They are a broken mess, with another refurbish in the offing. A refurbish that might be better served becoming an outright strip down.
Belichick operated behind a 'we've told everybody to be ready' mantra in the build-up to Sunday's game, a ploy to test focus also amplifying the uncertainty that has clouded the franchise all season long. Why continue to start Jones having already benched him on multiple occasions earlier in the campaign? You begin to wonder whether the Patriots have a serious eye on Caleb Williams or Drake Maye at the top of the Draft next April.
For all that might be said of Belichick losing ground on the rest of the league, few could succeed while equipped with an offense this unmanageable. The caveat to that being that it is an offense he has helped construct as General Manager. Rhamondre Stevenson remains one of the NFL's finest runners out of the backfield, but through the air the Patriots find themselves leaning on a sixth-round rookie in Demario Douglas while feeling the loss of injured Kendrick Bourne - who has never posted more than 800 yards in a season - and seeing limited returns from Henry, fellow tight end Mike Gesicki and JuJu Smith-Schuster. And at the tip of scrutiny over his recruitment on offense sits N'Keal Harry, who the Patriots famously drafted in the first round ahead of now-Super-Bowl-chasing Deebo Samuel and AJ Brown in 2019.
While the Patriots offense capitulates, Belichick has still demonstrated the ability to turn out a competitive defense as a dictator of trends for the best part of the two decades. From 2012-2022 Belichick's defense ranked third in the league in EPA/play as well as second in dropback EPA, some perhaps easily forgetting about a unit that finished third in EPA/play just last season. This year they are down in 17th in EPA/play, which for half-efficient offenses might have still been enough to keep them in the fight.
If other teams zigged with Belichick, he zagged back, and so on and so forth. Behind the silverware and the accolades accumulated over the years is the role of string-puller to multiple chapters of scheme and personnel philosophies across the NFL.
When the league began to rave about the ability to rush the passer with only four men, Belichick was already among the best at it as he controlled protection slides with lop-sided fronts to create one-on-one matchups on the outside. As the league leaned towards two-high safety coverages to reduce chunk plays downfield, Belichick remained true to single-high looks as one of the leading advocates for middle-of-the-field coverage, daring quarterbacks to throw riskier passes outside the numbers, and to good effect.
He has been the beacon of position-less football on defense, as much arguably still reflected today with his tendency to rotate a Kyle Dugger, Jabrill Peppers or an Adrian Phillips down into box-tackler linebacker roles, or shift off-ball linebacker Jahlani Tavai over to the slot. It is another reason inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo is so highly thought of in Foxboro as a man who encounters the blurred lines between Patriots safety and linebacker as closely as anybody.
Belichick - and Nick Saban - were revelling in the value of defensive flexibility in Big Nickel packages before football bought into the use of an extra safety as a run-savvy hybrid linebacker/corner who could man the slot; Belichick, helped by his own staple use of tight ends, recognised quickly that colleges were churning out big-bodied tight ends armed with the skillsets of a wide receiver, not only inspiring the use of extra safeties but changing the way defensive backs are evaluated.
And while he may not have been the first on this occasion, Belichick - similarly to beefing up defensive lineman to combat the run in past years - decided to fight back against the modern mobile quarterbacks who could escape the pocket and throw on the run by adding lighter, more athletic sideline-to-sideline linebackers with the range and speed to attack a chapter of horizontal offense.
It is when reminding of the revolutionary impact Belichick has had on the league for 20 years that further underlines the unnatural position in which he finds himself. When it seemed like there were question marks, they always had something: a cut-price Patrick Chung deal to answer a necessity, a James White role as Brady's perfect utility man, a 1,000-yard LeGarrette Blount season, a star Danny Amendola appearance in the playoffs, a first-round running back in Sony Michel with whom to ignore running back draft narrative and use to control the ground game on the way to a Super Bowl.
The Patriots are identity-less, a shadow of their former ruthless self, enduring repeated doses of embarrassment in a league they once ruled with little in the form of a solution.
Robert Kraft could fire him as GM while keeping him in his head coach post in view of drafting him a talented rookie quarterback with which to springboard a new Patriots era. He could continue the Patriots trend of removing all sentiment and sending the NFL's most successful head coach packing. Belichick could equally decide he wants no part of a taxing reload.
It was reported before the team's trip to Germany that Belichick had quietly agreed a lucrative multi-year deal with the Patriots in the offseason, seemingly reducing the chances of him being fired this season.
Belichick sits third on the all-time list of head coach wins with 300, with Don Shula leading the way on 328. To have any chance of hunting that down, you feel it would have to take place elsewhere.
