The New England Patriots offense isn’t broken. It never worked. | Opinion

The New England Patriots‘ offense is not broken. That would assume the offense ever worked, which it did not.

The offense still doesn’t work, as evidenced by the Patriots’ anemic output in a 24-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills on “Thursday Night Football.” New England, which dropped to 6-6 on the season, managed just 242 yards, punted six times and went 3-for-12 on third down.

It would be more appropriate to call the Patriots offense defective. It was manufactured incorrectly. It contains faulty parts. It is fundamentally unsound.

And the only way to remedy the situation is to rebuild it.

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Who is calling Patriots’ offensive plays?

The failed product likely started with a flawed blueprint. The decision to replace longtime offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who departed in the offseason to become the Las Vegas Raiders‘ head coach, with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge was immediately met with skepticism.

Patricia and Judge, two former assistants under Bill Belichick, returned to New England after both failed in respective head coaching stints. Patricia’s background was on the defensive side of the ball while Judge previously coached special teams.

The experiment to trust them with keys to the offense looks like an abject failure.

Belichick, predictably, deflected when asked Thursday about the team’s season-long struggles on offense.

“I’ll just say tonight we didn’t do enough,” Belichick told reporters after the game. “Just got through with the game here.”

Entering Week 13, the Patriots ranked 18th in the league in scoring and were tied for the seventh-fewest offensive touchdowns in the NFL with 23. They added just one more to that total Thursday, a 48-yard touchdown via screen pass courtesy of rookie Marcus Jones, who scored on the first offensive snap of his career.

Yes, the Patriots offense is so inept it needs to bring players over from the defensive side of the ball to ignite a spark.

The biggest reason for a lack of scoring is the Patriots’ inability to cap drives in the red zone. Scoring touchdowns during just 38.7% of their red-zone trips, the Patriots entered Thursday second-worst in the NFL to only Russell Wilson’s Denver Broncos.

cameras captured what looked like Jones imploring (with expletives) the team to throw the ball.Mac Jones appeared to yell ‘throw the (expletive) ball’ on sideline during TNF

How big a problem is Mac Jones at QB?

Jones has regressed in his second NFL season, but just how much blame he shares in the Patriots’ offensive woes is up for debate.

In comparing Jones’ stats to his rookie season in 2021, he’s roughly on pace to finish with a similar completion percentage and yards per game despite some alarming year-over-year trends.

In addition to Jones’ interception numbers inflating this season, the quarterback entered Thursday taking a sack on 9.3% of passing attempts, up from 5.1% as a rookie. Jones took a 14-yard sack during a fourth-quarter possession in the red zone Thursday.

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