The Mac Jones era in New England ended unceremoniously with the team moving on from both him and head coach Bill Belichick. It was a major disappointment that running back Damien Harris believes falls on Belichick’s shoulders.
In particular, Harris blamed Belichick for how he handled the offensive staff during Jones’ three years with the Patriots and how those things contributed to his struggles.
“What happened to Mac Jones in New England was not because of Mac Jones,” Harris said. “What happened to Mac Jones in New England was because the fact you took away an offensive coordinator who coached him to be a Pro Bowler and almost coached us to winning our division with a rookie quarterback in his first year, and then you take Matt Patricia who has coached defense his entire life, Joe Judge who has been a special teams coach… then you just throw them in there, ‘Hey, coach this kid up. He’s a first-round pick, but as long as you teach him what I say, everything is gonna be fine.'”
Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels left after Mac Jones’ rookie season to be a head coach. He was replaced by former Patriots assistants, Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, both of whom were coming off poor heading coaching tenures and neither of whom had much experience coaching offense. That’s when Jones took a step backward.
“Now Mac Jones is in Jacksonville. Now, they’re onto Drake Maye. They’re onto a whole — it’s like the breath of Mac Jones in New England it came and went,” Harris said. “And it shouldn’t have the way that it went and the only reason that it did was because Bill Belichick being stuck in his ways was very much like, ‘As long as I am here, as long as I am, along with Robert Kraft, the top dog at this organization, no matter who, no matter where, what position, what they coach, we will have success.'”
For Damien Harris, the offensive coaches hired ahead of Mac Jones’ second season wasn’t the only mistake Bill Belichick made at the end. However, it was the biggest one.
“I think that kind of started with the Cam Newton situation where we brought in Cam Newton because everybody was like, ‘What the f*** is this? Why Cam Newton?’ Bill thought that he could make it work. It didn’t really work,” Harris said.
“Then, we drafted Mac. We had a hell of a year that year. My third year in the league, his first year, had a hell of a year. Went on a seven-game winning streak…at that time we were kind of looking at ourselves like we might have a Super Bowl run right here, as long as people keep playing well, so on and so forth. Then, the next year after that, you replace Josh McDaniels with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, and then look at the year we had that year. Then the following year. Now, Mac Jones is all of a sudden gone and everybody can look at it and watch it for what it was, maybe Bill Belichick did not do right by Mac Jones.”
Damien Harris certainly had a front-row seat to what went wrong in New England over the past few seasons. He was one of the team’s key running backs in the first two years of Mac Jones’s tenure and also ended up being coached by Matt Patricia and Joe Judge.
Now, Bill Belichick is out of New England, with no new job offer. He was replaced by Jerod Mayo, a former player and assistant coach under him. At quarterback, the Patriots are turning to Drake Maye while Mac Jones is set to be a backup in Jacksonville.
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