Bill Belichick ‘not sure’ if Matt Patricia will join Patriots coaching staff in 2023

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By Webdesk


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Bill Belichick opted to take an unorthodox approach in 2022 by giving Matt Patricia the offensive play-caller duties. While New England has historically refrained from handing out coordinator titles, the person pulling the strings typically had the expertise for whichever side of the ball they coached. For Patricia, he was mostly moving up the coaching ranks on defense, so this maneuver was a head-scratcher at the moment and it didn’t get any better as the year progressed.

New England has since settled things by hiring Bill O’Brien as the offensive coordinator in the team’s title. Meanwhile, Belichick Joe Judge, who will be the quarterbacks coach in 2022, has also moved to an assistant head coaching role where he will work more with special teams, an area of ​​the game he is also more familiar with. But what about Patricia? With O’Brien in the fold, his role with the Patriots is a bit unclear and it seems that even Belichick doesn’t know what’s in store for him.

“I’m not sure,” said the head coach on Monday when asked if Patricia will be with the team next season.

The Patriots do not have a title defensive coordinator, but the job is led by both inside linebackers coach Jerod Mayo and outside linebackers coach Steve Belichick. So that would seemingly rule out the possibility of Patricia just switching back to defense and getting back the job he had from 2012 to 2017 before leaving for Detroit to take on the Lions coaching job.

However, Patricia seems to be leaning back towards coaching defense. The 48-year-old came earlier this offseason interviewed for the then-open job as defense coordinator at Broncos under Sean Payton. The job has since gone to Vance Joseph, but Payton still left the door open for Patricia to join his staff at the NFL Combine in some capacity.

So since Patricia may be looking for a higher profile job that isn’t available to him in New England, that could be why Belichick isn’t sure if he’ll be with the team next season. If no job is attractive enough for Patricia to accept, it will be curious to see if Belichick keeps him on board in a more advisory role, similar to what he had in 2021 when he first returned after leaving the Lions.

Under Patricia last season, the New England offense was in the red zone for the last time and ranked 27th in the league at third.





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