Cam Newton needs to be more aggressive. Does the blame fall on Josh McDaniels?

Every game for Cam Newton has been a surf lesson with Kunu.

Remember Paul Rudd’s character from the movie “Forgetting Sarah Mashall”? That’s Kunu. His best attempt at coaching was: “Do less.” And at the end of the session, he said: “Well, you’ve got to do more than that.”

There are some unfortunate similarities between Kunu and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who has restricted Newton with the playbook so much that he’s forcing Newton to stage regular fourth-quarter comebacks. Of course, it doesn’t help that the defense is the biggest problem — New England ranks as the NFL’s worst in DVOA. But even with the defense struggling, McDaniels has been steady in playing it safe. And, of course, the result has been that the Patriots are coming up short this season with a 4-6 record.

New England has finished games within a seven-point scoring differential over the last four weeks. New England has split those games, 2-2, and in three of the games, the Patriots have had to stage fourth-quarter comebacks to nab a win at the Bills, at the Jets and at the Texans. Cam Newton and New England were able only to beat New York. And though the Patriots have fallen behind, we haven’t seen much in the way of aggressive play-calling from McDaniels — nor have we seen much in the way of aggressive decision-making from Newton. We didn’t even see aggressive running from Newton in Week 11, even though the Texans entered the game allowing an NFL-worst 159 rushing yards per game.

Finally, in the third quarter, Newton threw a 44-yard bomb of a touchdown to Damiere Byrd, the first score by a receiver from Newton this season. But much of Newton’s work came in the screen game and within just a few yards of the line of scrimmage.

I can understand why the Patriots might want to shy away from pushing the ball downfield with Newton, if he was proving unable to do so. But he was not struggling whatsoever with passes beyond 10 yards downfield. And he only took three shots beyond the 20-yard line, where he was 2 of 3 for 92 yards and a touchdown. That’s encouraging.

It’s hard to trust Newton to sling the ball when he’s turfing the ball on easy throws. I get that. It’s hard to trust Newton when he turned over the ball in previous games when he felt like he was “pressing.” And there’s an argument to be made that he’s been efficient because of his conservative usage. That efficiency is nice for advanced statistics. But the Patriots are losing with this conservative approach where they run the ball on third down or have Newton throw the ball behind the sticks and hope their receivers make a play.

Newton also needs to do more. Not all of the blame falls on McDaniels. Newton could have thrown downfield to Byrd on the tricky double passing play against the Texans, but instead checked down to Jakobi Meyers for an easier gain. There are moments when the quarterback is playing it safe.

It’s OK for the Patriots to start safe and see if they can build a lead, largely by running the ball. But if that lead begins to fade — or evaporates quickly, like it did against the Texans — the Patriots need to go bolder than screen passes. New England doesn’t seem to be doing enough to let Newton get them back into games.