The Patriots won't have an offensive or defensive coordinator this season
The New England Patriots are officially set to have the NFL's weirdest coaching staff.
The team finally announced the job titles for this season's coaching staff under head coach Bill Belichick on Thursday, per Sports Illustrated's Albert Breer, though it concerned coaches who had already been on the staff for months.
Those job titles are:
Joe Judge as offensive assistant/quarterbacks coach.
Matt Patricia as senior football advisor/offensive line coach.
Steve Belichick and Jerod Mayo as joint linebackers coaches.
That group is part of a staff that also includes running backs coach Vinnie Sunseri, wide receivers/kickoff returners coach Troy Brown, tight ends/fullbacks coach Nick Caley, defensive line coach DeMarcus Covington, safeties coach Brian Belichick and cornerbacks coach Mike Pellegrino.
Notice a title missing in there?
Yup, Belichick has apparently decided to go forward with a coaching staff without an official offensive or defensive coordinator, as he indicated a few months ago.
The team had already been without a defensive coordinator since 2017, opting to instead use Brian Flores, then Steve Belichick as the team's defensive play-caller without the job title that usually comes with it.
As for who will call players on offense, that's still pretty unclear. The Patriots were left without an offensive coordinator after Josh McDaniels left to take the Las Vegas Raiders job. Patricia was reportedly the favorite to do so as of last month, with Judge also a possibility. This team has never been eager to clear things like that up.
Why would Belichick do this? He might be trying to centralize power and avoid further staff poaching in the future, though the no-defensive coordinator set-up didn't stop the Miami Dolphins from hiring Flores as their head coach after one year of play-calling. In the end, the only reason the Patriots need to do something these days is if Belichick feels like doing it.
