We have had a million theories and analyses over this. Yet other than everyone agreeing the wheels have fallen off, there still isn’t much consensus as to why.
Vote for as many reasons as you want.
Vote for as many reasons as you want.
Why is the Patriots’ Offense So Bad?
- Thread starter Van Everyman
- Start date
I cast five votes, but honestly I could have ticked every box.
Too bad we can’t set up a poll where voters ascribe blame on a percentage basis that adds up to 100%. Then you might get a truer picture of SOSH views.
Too bad we can’t set up a poll where voters ascribe blame on a percentage basis that adds up to 100%. Then you might get a truer picture of SOSH views.
I went with:
Mac Sucks
Bad offensive coaching
Receivers suck
Bad injury luck on O-line
and Other (WR injuries, poor fit of TE pieces who don't suck, O-line has too many young inexperienced guys, Zappe also sucks)
Mac Sucks
Bad offensive coaching
Receivers suck
Bad injury luck on O-line
and Other (WR injuries, poor fit of TE pieces who don't suck, O-line has too many young inexperienced guys, Zappe also sucks)
The offensive line can't block consistently, the receivers can't get open consistently, and the QB can't deliver the ball accurately consistently. You can get away with one of those things being true, maybe even two of them if the third aspect is truly outstanding, but if all three of those things are true, your offense is totally fucked.
I'd like to know more about how the OL is doing. Onwenu had been pretty good by most accounts until the last game. Sow has gotten solid reviews at guard. Trent Brown has been good when healthy, and Andrews is a rock in the middle. It's hard for me to watch and really understand how well they're doing, so I'd love to hear from people who have a more nuanced view than they suck (or don't suck).
The poll is just me trying to get a better sense of where people assign blame.
As for your latter point, posters have been calling out Andrews of late.
Bad QB, bad WR and the OL injuries dating back to camp leading to a revolving door/lack of cohesion (which contributed to Mac losing confidence IMO).
Andrews declining doesn’t get talked about enough either.
Andrews declining doesn’t get talked about enough either.
Where does the “Kraft forced Bill to draft Mac” thing come from? Are we just spitballing or are there rumors to that effect?
I could have checked off almost every other box but went with the first five.
I could have checked off almost every other box but went with the first five.
I think the issue is that so many things aren't working well that each part is being hampered by every other part. For example, special teams deserve a category here...if you believe PFF on this (YMMV), some aspects of that have been truly horrendous,
Just eyeballing that chart it seems they have special teams worth about -35pts, a chunk worse than the 2nd worst team. Much of this is on returns - they're allowing too many yards on opponent returns and not getting enough on their own
After many, many years of special teams being a positive this is the second consecutive year where they've been a real problem. I don't know why, but I'm sure Bill has unhappy thoughts on this.
One of the implications of this is that they have bad starting positions - average drive starting positon is 25.6yd line which is tied for worst in the league. This is one area where the defense is not helping, they've been unable to generate more than a handful of turnovers which I believe is likely due to a few factors including our Judon-less pass rush being ineffective and the constant playing from behind not putting opponents under any pressure.
But they've also been a combination of bad and unfortunate on 4th downs. Last I saw they were ranked (by PFF again I believe) 2nd worst for win probability lost by kicking on 4th downs, so they're not going for it enough. Unfortunately when they are going for it, they've not been very successful, and they've particularly not been successful when it comes to turning those conversions into points. We can see this directly leading to lost games - in week 1 they went for it late on 4th down v the Eagles and failed and then promptly got a turnover which meant that simply kicking two field goals would've been enough. But later in the season a more conservative approach has also failed due to missed field goals.
(The same is true on 3rd downs, they're just not converting late downs well).
So, yeah, Mac sucks. Sure. But it's really been much more complicated than that (Sorry, SJH). It feels to me much more like lots of things not working, and very few things working well. In fact so many things have been not working in the past few games that the offense has almost entirely stopped functioning.
So the bad news is that there is a lot that needs fixing. The good news is that each fix should help not only the problem that it's directed against, but also make things easier for all the other parts of the mechanism. Putting Marcus Jones back in as the return man next year hopefully improves the kick return stats, which gives better starting positions, which means 50 yard drives result in FGs rather than punts from the 40, which means we're sometimes up a few points rather than down a few points, which means more pressure on the opponents to generate points against this defense, which means more opportunities to generate turnovers, which means the offense gets some freebies, which means the QB isn't trying to force things which aren't there, which means throwing fewer interceptions and so on.
That's potentially quite a large gain from a simple, obvious change that requires nothing more than a guy on the roster already getting healthy. When you add in possible difference makers from the draft and free-agency, it's easy to imagine the offense being dramatically better next year (I mean, they'll be better than this for sure almost regardless). That doesn't mean they'll be good, but since they're doing almost everything badly right now they can pretty much only go in one direction across the board.
Just eyeballing that chart it seems they have special teams worth about -35pts, a chunk worse than the 2nd worst team. Much of this is on returns - they're allowing too many yards on opponent returns and not getting enough on their own
After many, many years of special teams being a positive this is the second consecutive year where they've been a real problem. I don't know why, but I'm sure Bill has unhappy thoughts on this.
One of the implications of this is that they have bad starting positions - average drive starting positon is 25.6yd line which is tied for worst in the league. This is one area where the defense is not helping, they've been unable to generate more than a handful of turnovers which I believe is likely due to a few factors including our Judon-less pass rush being ineffective and the constant playing from behind not putting opponents under any pressure.
But they've also been a combination of bad and unfortunate on 4th downs. Last I saw they were ranked (by PFF again I believe) 2nd worst for win probability lost by kicking on 4th downs, so they're not going for it enough. Unfortunately when they are going for it, they've not been very successful, and they've particularly not been successful when it comes to turning those conversions into points. We can see this directly leading to lost games - in week 1 they went for it late on 4th down v the Eagles and failed and then promptly got a turnover which meant that simply kicking two field goals would've been enough. But later in the season a more conservative approach has also failed due to missed field goals.
(The same is true on 3rd downs, they're just not converting late downs well).
So, yeah, Mac sucks. Sure. But it's really been much more complicated than that (Sorry, SJH). It feels to me much more like lots of things not working, and very few things working well. In fact so many things have been not working in the past few games that the offense has almost entirely stopped functioning.
So the bad news is that there is a lot that needs fixing. The good news is that each fix should help not only the problem that it's directed against, but also make things easier for all the other parts of the mechanism. Putting Marcus Jones back in as the return man next year hopefully improves the kick return stats, which gives better starting positions, which means 50 yard drives result in FGs rather than punts from the 40, which means we're sometimes up a few points rather than down a few points, which means more pressure on the opponents to generate points against this defense, which means more opportunities to generate turnovers, which means the offense gets some freebies, which means the QB isn't trying to force things which aren't there, which means throwing fewer interceptions and so on.
That's potentially quite a large gain from a simple, obvious change that requires nothing more than a guy on the roster already getting healthy. When you add in possible difference makers from the draft and free-agency, it's easy to imagine the offense being dramatically better next year (I mean, they'll be better than this for sure almost regardless). That doesn't mean they'll be good, but since they're doing almost everything badly right now they can pretty much only go in one direction across the board.
Great post.I think the issue is that so many things aren't working well that each part is being hampered by every other part. For example, special teams deserve a category here...if you believe PFF on this (YMMV), some aspects of that have been truly horrendous,
Just eyeballing that chart it seems they have special teams worth about -35pts, a chunk worse than the 2nd worst team. Much of this is on returns - they're allowing too many yards on opponent returns and not getting enough on their own
After many, many years of special teams being a positive this is the second consecutive year where they've been a real problem. I don't know why, but I'm sure Bill has unhappy thoughts on this.
One of the implications of this is that they have bad starting positions - average drive starting positon is 25.6yd line which is tied for worst in the league. This is one area where the defense is not helping, they've been unable to generate more than a handful of turnovers which I believe is likely due to a few factors including our Judon-less pass rush being ineffective and the constant playing from behind not putting opponents under any pressure.
But they've also been a combination of bad and unfortunate on 4th downs. Last I saw they were ranked (by PFF again I believe) 2nd worst for win probability lost by kicking on 4th downs, so they're not going for it enough. Unfortunately when they are going for it, they've not been very successful, and they've particularly not been successful when it comes to turning those conversions into points. We can see this directly leading to lost games - in week 1 they went for it late on 4th down v the Eagles and failed and then promptly got a turnover which meant that simply kicking two field goals would've been enough. But later in the season a more conservative approach has also failed due to missed field goals.
(The same is true on 3rd downs, they're just not converting late downs well).
So, yeah, Mac sucks. Sure. But it's really been much more complicated than that (Sorry, SJH). It feels to me much more like lots of things not working, and very few things working well. In fact so many things have been not working in the past few games that the offense has almost entirely stopped functioning.
So the bad news is that there is a lot that needs fixing. The good news is that each fix should help not only the problem that it's directed against, but also make things easier for all the other parts of the mechanism. Putting Marcus Jones back in as the return man next year hopefully improves the kick return stats, which gives better starting positions, which means 50 yard drives result in FGs rather than punts from the 40, which means we're sometimes up a few points rather than down a few points, which means more pressure on the opponents to generate points against this defense, which means more opportunities to generate turnovers, which means the offense gets some freebies, which means the QB isn't trying to force things which aren't there, which means throwing fewer interceptions and so on.
That's potentially quite a large gain from a simple, obvious change that requires nothing more than a guy on the roster already getting healthy. When you add in possible difference makers from the draft and free-agency, it's easy to imagine the offense being dramatically better next year (I mean, they'll be better than this for sure almost regardless). That doesn't mean they'll be good, but since they're doing almost everything badly right now they can pretty much only go in one direction across the board.
This would explain a lot more were it not for the fact that the 2022 Patriots had the second best average starting field position in football, got 7 special teams/defensive TDs and the overall offensive production was still garbage. There are fundamental issues with the scheme and what they ask of players in this offense which are exacerbated by the lack of talent.I think the issue is that so many things aren't working well that each part is being hampered by every other part. For example, special teams deserve a category here...if you believe PFF on this (YMMV), some aspects of that have been truly horrendous,
Just eyeballing that chart it seems they have special teams worth about -35pts, a chunk worse than the 2nd worst team. Much of this is on returns - they're allowing too many yards on opponent returns and not getting enough on their own
After many, many years of special teams being a positive this is the second consecutive year where they've been a real problem. I don't know why, but I'm sure Bill has unhappy thoughts on this.
One of the implications of this is that they have bad starting positions - average drive starting positon is 25.6yd line which is tied for worst in the league. This is one area where the defense is not helping, they've been unable to generate more than a handful of turnovers which I believe is likely due to a few factors including our Judon-less pass rush being ineffective and the constant playing from behind not putting opponents under any pressure.
But they've also been a combination of bad and unfortunate on 4th downs. Last I saw they were ranked (by PFF again I believe) 2nd worst for win probability lost by kicking on 4th downs, so they're not going for it enough. Unfortunately when they are going for it, they've not been very successful, and they've particularly not been successful when it comes to turning those conversions into points. We can see this directly leading to lost games - in week 1 they went for it late on 4th down v the Eagles and failed and then promptly got a turnover which meant that simply kicking two field goals would've been enough. But later in the season a more conservative approach has also failed due to missed field goals.
(The same is true on 3rd downs, they're just not converting late downs well).
So, yeah, Mac sucks. Sure. But it's really been much more complicated than that (Sorry, SJH). It feels to me much more like lots of things not working, and very few things working well. In fact so many things have been not working in the past few games that the offense has almost entirely stopped functioning.
So the bad news is that there is a lot that needs fixing. The good news is that each fix should help not only the problem that it's directed against, but also make things easier for all the other parts of the mechanism. Putting Marcus Jones back in as the return man next year hopefully improves the kick return stats, which gives better starting positions, which means 50 yard drives result in FGs rather than punts from the 40, which means we're sometimes up a few points rather than down a few points, which means more pressure on the opponents to generate points against this defense, which means more opportunities to generate turnovers, which means the offense gets some freebies, which means the QB isn't trying to force things which aren't there, which means throwing fewer interceptions and so on.
That's potentially quite a large gain from a simple, obvious change that requires nothing more than a guy on the roster already getting healthy. When you add in possible difference makers from the draft and free-agency, it's easy to imagine the offense being dramatically better next year (I mean, they'll be better than this for sure almost regardless). That doesn't mean they'll be good, but since they're doing almost everything badly right now they can pretty much only go in one direction across the board.
I don't disagree with you. When I say lots of things aren't working and very few things are, I think the scheme is an obvious one that isn't. Whether that means the scheme needs to change, the coaching needs to change, the players need to change or just the whole thing needs a bit more time I don't know. But the combination is clearly not working right now.
What I would be very wary of is knee-jerk reactions - x isn't working therefore the person responsible for x sucks therefore get rid of him. Especially when getting rid of that person could be a grave mistake, perhaps because he's actually really good at his job (Bill?), or perhaps because clearing house and starting afresh doesn't fix many of the issues and leaves you sitting here in a year looking at a 4-13 record and saying the new coach sucks, the new QB sucks, the new OC sucks, the roster sucks and my god how the hell does Jonathan Vilma still have a job he's sucks most of all.
When lots of interconnected things aren't working you need to be really careful about assigning blame. It's often not where you think it is, especially if you're looking in from the outside.
The struggles with special teams seem to be reflective of the overall roster depth. There are only a couple of non-kicking specialists on any NFL roster to begin with, so most of the rest of the coverage and return units are at least rotational players on offense and defense. And we know the starting offense is among the league worst.
My votes:
- Mac sucks
- Bad offensive coaching post Josh
- The TE suck
- Other -- on the whole, this team is completely undisciplined; a shockingly dumb brand of football we've been subjected to
They are below average at most positions relative to the rest of the league. You do not have the worst scoring offense in the past 15 years because of just one thing.
This part I really don't understand. When there is one person with the responsibility for putting all these interconnected things that aren't working together, shouldn't you be able to assess blame?
This post just got you membership here.I think the issue is that so many things aren't working well that each part is being hampered by every other part. For example, special teams deserve a category here...if you believe PFF on this (YMMV), some aspects of that have been truly horrendous,
Just eyeballing that chart it seems they have special teams worth about -35pts, a chunk worse than the 2nd worst team. Much of this is on returns - they're allowing too many yards on opponent returns and not getting enough on their own
After many, many years of special teams being a positive this is the second consecutive year where they've been a real problem. I don't know why, but I'm sure Bill has unhappy thoughts on this.
One of the implications of this is that they have bad starting positions - average drive starting positon is 25.6yd line which is tied for worst in the league. This is one area where the defense is not helping, they've been unable to generate more than a handful of turnovers which I believe is likely due to a few factors including our Judon-less pass rush being ineffective and the constant playing from behind not putting opponents under any pressure.
But they've also been a combination of bad and unfortunate on 4th downs. Last I saw they were ranked (by PFF again I believe) 2nd worst for win probability lost by kicking on 4th downs, so they're not going for it enough. Unfortunately when they are going for it, they've not been very successful, and they've particularly not been successful when it comes to turning those conversions into points. We can see this directly leading to lost games - in week 1 they went for it late on 4th down v the Eagles and failed and then promptly got a turnover which meant that simply kicking two field goals would've been enough. But later in the season a more conservative approach has also failed due to missed field goals.
(The same is true on 3rd downs, they're just not converting late downs well).
So, yeah, Mac sucks. Sure. But it's really been much more complicated than that (Sorry, SJH). It feels to me much more like lots of things not working, and very few things working well. In fact so many things have been not working in the past few games that the offense has almost entirely stopped functioning.
So the bad news is that there is a lot that needs fixing. The good news is that each fix should help not only the problem that it's directed against, but also make things easier for all the other parts of the mechanism. Putting Marcus Jones back in as the return man next year hopefully improves the kick return stats, which gives better starting positions, which means 50 yard drives result in FGs rather than punts from the 40, which means we're sometimes up a few points rather than down a few points, which means more pressure on the opponents to generate points against this defense, which means more opportunities to generate turnovers, which means the offense gets some freebies, which means the QB isn't trying to force things which aren't there, which means throwing fewer interceptions and so on.
That's potentially quite a large gain from a simple, obvious change that requires nothing more than a guy on the roster already getting healthy. When you add in possible difference makers from the draft and free-agency, it's easy to imagine the offense being dramatically better next year (I mean, they'll be better than this for sure almost regardless). That doesn't mean they'll be good, but since they're doing almost everything badly right now they can pretty much only go in one direction across the board.
Great work.
God awful drafting and signings on offense over the last few years. Tyquan, Strange,Mac, N'KealJonnu, Keene, Asiasi, Aglahor, Ju Ju just awful. Bill's need to be smarter than the room all the time has led to an almost historically poor offence. If any of us just got the expoerts mock drafts and chose best available player we would be better than Bill the GM
Thats not even mentioning the poor defensive players drafted, by missing on them he also has to keep trying to replace that side of the ball leaving less for the offense
No way I want Bill the GM anywhere near the draft this year. Best coach in history but his methods have stopped working, time to cut the cord here
Thats not even mentioning the poor defensive players drafted, by missing on them he also has to keep trying to replace that side of the ball leaving less for the offense
No way I want Bill the GM anywhere near the draft this year. Best coach in history but his methods have stopped working, time to cut the cord here
Well you can definitely say at least some of the blame falls on Bill. The question is more complicated for everyone everyone else who is being forced to work within a misfiring system.
What is crucial though is not making the mistake of saying Bill is to blame therefore Bill must be fired. Bill has clearly made mistakes - it's implausible that you get everything right and it still doesn't work to the extent that it is not working. BUT someone making mistakes isn't necessarily a reason to jettison them. Bill has been around for a long time, and things have gone extraordinarily well in that time. During that time he's made good decisions that have gone well (eg taking Brady), poor decisions that have gone well (no timeout v the Seahawks perhaps? We know that it went well, I don't know that we have any way to know if it was a good decision), good decisions that have gone badly (taking Mac? I don't know what else he was supposed to do there) and poor decisions that have gone badly (the coaching staff of 2022, presumably).
This year the results have gone badly. Some of those were decisions that he was second-guessed on at the time (eg Thornton), others that there was near unanimous consensus that they were good decisions (BoB). I think it's likely that they've gone more badly than in a neutral-luck world they could/should have.
When you see a lot of decisions that look bad at the time and end up badly you've got good reasons to question the guy. When you see a lot of decisions that look good but go badly, you've got some reasons to question, but maybe give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I think Bill has quite a few in both categories in recent years. He also had built up more benefit of the doubt than basically anyone else in the world.
But he's always had head-scratching decisions, and for a long time they've worked out pretty well. The confidence that some members of this board have that he's toast, finished, can't hack it in today's NFL is WAY too certain given the evidence we have, IMO. Maybe this time its more that the decisions haven't worked than that they were bad. I don't know. I don't know how you know either.
Also from a personal perspective, Tom Brady playing and winning for someone else at the end of his career was one of the few things that tainted my memories of the last couple of decades. Firing Bill and watching him go somewhere else and win while the Pats turn themselves into the Panthers (or the Red Sox maybe?) in the search for instant gratification would be so unpleasant for me I'd almost prefer to watch him lose here than see that.
And people said there was nothing to play for. Tsh. (Also, ta v much, glad you appreciated it).
Damn didn't realize special teams was so bad! Thanks.
It's hard to separate the TE to their OL contributions and receiving contributions .. wish there was a way to simply split them into WR and OL and not have their own category.
That said, outside of Pharoah's moments they have been bad in both areas, although not Mac and OL bad.
It's hard to separate the TE to their OL contributions and receiving contributions .. wish there was a way to simply split them into WR and OL and not have their own category.
That said, outside of Pharoah's moments they have been bad in both areas, although not Mac and OL bad.
I don't buy into all of the advanced stats and metrics.
ESPN analytics, through week 13, among 128 pass catchers, here are the Patriots ranks:
Bourne #15
Douglas: #106
Henry: Tied #116
Parker: Tied #116
Gesicki: Tied #121
JuJu: #124th
https://espnanalytics.com/rtm/
Here are Next Gen stats, they won't make anyone feel much better:
https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/receiving#avgYACAboveExpectation
ESPN analytics, through week 13, among 128 pass catchers, here are the Patriots ranks:
Bourne #15
Douglas: #106
Henry: Tied #116
Parker: Tied #116
Gesicki: Tied #121
JuJu: #124th
https://espnanalytics.com/rtm/
Here are Next Gen stats, they won't make anyone feel much better:
https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/receiving#avgYACAboveExpectation
From the insightful stats in the past excellent posts, it appears that they are playing complimentary football. Just bad complimentary football.
I've been to two Pats games this year and you really have to be there to see the entire field to truly appreciate how little separation our receivers get. That's issue #1. Issue #2 isn't that "Mac Sucks" it is that Mac was born a couple decades too late and is not mobile enough to escape edge rushers so he cannot make plays with his feet. The OL is a distant third for me as most OL's around the league struggle against todays DL specialization.
Our defense though....and we are doing this without Judon and Gonzalez. We are 3 players away from being a really good football team. WR, QB and TE. Throw in an elite left tackle to bump it up a notch.
Our defense though....and we are doing this without Judon and Gonzalez. We are 3 players away from being a really good football team. WR, QB and TE. Throw in an elite left tackle to bump it up a notch.