With Pats season over, are changes on the way?

Clearly, Jones and the offense took a major step back in Year 2 and it’s impossible not to attribute at least some of that to the changes on the coaching staff. Josh McDaniels left to take over the Raiders and Bill Belichick opted to use Matt Patricia and Joe Judge in a collaborative process to replace him. Judge served as the quarterbacks coach while Patricia led the offensive line and was the de facto offensive coordinator while calling the plays.

It was a strange decision to use a coach who never called plays before and spent very little time on the offensive side of the ball in such an important role with a young and developing quarterback. And it wasn’t just strange in the eyes of the media, who spent the entire offseason questioning the move.

It was clear that Mac Jones had his reservations as well, as he never appeared to mesh with the collaborative approach while often showing his frustration during games. Whether it was waving off instructions, imploring for changes in game plan or storming off the field, Jones had no problem letting his emotions show – especially during the latter portion of the season.

Now comes the interesting part: How does Belichick go about fixing it? When addressing the media a day after the season-ending loss in Buffalo, the coach said the process of evaluating the team would be underway immediately.

“As we do every year, evaluate everything, and try to make the best decisions we can to move forward, to be more competitive, to have a stronger team in the future,” Belichick said. “So, Robert [Kraft] and I will talk about that, talk about that as a staff and certainly individual conversations with many of the players, all the players. It’ll be a comprehensive course of action as it always is. I don’t see the process being really any different, but we need to have better results. That’s really the bottom line.”

Belichick fielded several questions about the direction of the offense and specifically the coaching staff and each time…