I really wonder if this is the right approach. Clearly last year’s offensive strategy was VERY MUCH FLAWED. Whether that’s O’Brien’s fault or Bill’s is up for debate but what is the freakin aversion towards hiring an O Coordinator? I hope Bill knows how to fix the offense for next season because on paper it looked good, but in critical situations it always came up short.

I’ve always appreciated Belichick and what he’s accomplished but he seems to be morphing into Captain Bligh. He’s got no leadership in the locker room due to shipping guys like Vrable and Seymour out, along with the retirement of Bruschi and Harrison, and refuses to restock his organization with “adults” who may have a dissenting view.

The loss of players who were leaders is huge but there’s also been a brain drain with the recent losses of Dimitroff, Pioli, and McDaniels, and Crennell and Weiss leaving a while ago (when they won their last Super Bowl). Now who are they left with? We don’t know because Bill won’t really say.

Tedy Bruschi was on ESPN last night and he said you can’t win a Super Bowl without leaders in the locker room, that it’s those players who take the coaches message and show the other players how to get it done. When they won their last Super Bowl they had the perfect blend of leaders in the locker room and a great coaching staff, headed up by Belichick. When they almost won in 1997 they had most of those leaders and McDaniels, who we found out was an excellent replacement of Weiss. What do they have now?

I’m sure it’s difficult to restock your organization when you’re continually raided of your best and brightest, but Bill’s approach with both players and coaches reeks of paranoia and of a captain going down with the ship.

Since BB has lost so many of his prior head cooridinators in recent years, maybe he’s trying to keep staff more low profile so other teams won’t know as clearly what Asst Coach is responsible for any success they have on the field! or is that over-thinking..

I like it, everytime we get a good coach and give them a title, they get signed to be a head coach elsewhere . . .

This is lame…they had a chance to get Crennel and Weis back if they really wanted, instead they do this “coaches by committee” crap…and why O’Brien is still calling plays is beyond me…his play calling was amateur at best…i thought the defense played above expectations, and the offense played below them…spend the $$$ and get the an OC and DC that know what to do, not some young hot shots…McDaniels was an exception of a young guy who got it, not the standard.

This is just another example of BB’s ego getting in the way of the teams success. He obviously blew it when it came down to play calling last year in critical situations with him having the final word we never succeeded on short yardage downs. BB is known for his defensive mind so I can understand him taking a bigger part on that side of the ball but he does not have what it takes to run the offense we need and experienced OC that can work with Brady and cut out all the middlemen and confusion that was painfully obvious so many times this past season with Brady being uncomfortable and burning timeouts and causing delay of games because of mixed signals coming from the sidelines. BB is getting more and more arrogant thinking he can play GM,OC,DC and HC all at once and Bob Kraft should put a stop to it or maybe this is his doing as he tightens the wallet like all the rest of the local teams do after a little bit of success.

I agree with “Chris says”. This past years Patriots edition was terrible on the offensive side of the ball. Coach O’Brien for what ever reason was unable to make any visible adjustments to what the defense was doing. Calling plays that were not only lacking in execution and designed coupled with a total lack of imagination. Simple offensive play calling can be very successful if the players execute it properly. I am old enough to remember the famous Green Bay sweep. Even when the defense knew it was coming they were for the most part unable to stop it. This was an excellent example of player commitment to execute with precision by doing their job as BB would say. However I’ve seen more effective creative play calling in high school football. What’s up? I hear that coach Belichick has a lot of faith in Coach O’Brian I remain perplexed and unconvinced by his choice of play calling that he is the guy! WOW!!

Sorry I forgot to mention their shut down defense. Their lack of ability was stunning compared to the great coaching and performance of excellence that we’ve come to expect from our Patriots team. Maybe I’m being too critical, oh well maybe next year.

Ray, it was not playcalling – it was execution. The players needed to execute. Injuries we now know were far more serious than understood at the time played a role, no question. It still comes down to execution.

What Belichick is doing is taking the bullets for his coordinators-in-training. Gerry, it wasn’t lack of ability, it was first-year growing pains. This is nothing out of the ordinary after what happened in 2002 and 2005.

We could have had Bill Walsh and Vince Lombardi as coordinators last year and it wouldn’t have mattered, unless they suited up as a legitimate third receiver and a pass rusher. Even then it wouldn’t have gotten us a title (all that matters) with Brady being extremely average at best.

The only people that complain about Belicek’s alleged ego problems are a media members that don’t like him because he could care less about answering their usually dumb questions, and sheep like fans that can’t think on their own.