Ex-Patriot Damien Harris Criticizes Bill Belichick Over Mac Jones’ Struggles
Damien Harris has shared his thoughts on why Mac Jones and the Patriots faltered, and he believes Bill Belichick is to blame for Jones’ decline. Jones’ performance dropped significantly after his rookie year, leading to his benching and eventual trade. However, Harris argues that Jones is not at fault.
In an interview on “The Athletic Football Show,” Harris pointed to Belichick’s decisions as the root cause of Jones’ issues in New England. He criticized Belichick for removing the offensive coordinator who had helped Jones achieve Pro Bowl status and nearly led the team to a division title in his first year.
Harris highlighted the problematic shift in offensive coaching during Jones’ second season. Belichick didn’t fire Josh McDaniels, as Harris implied, but replaced him with Matt Patricia, a defensive coach, as the offensive play-caller, and Joe Judge, a former special teams coordinator, as the quarterbacks coach. Harris, who played for the Patriots from 2019 to 2022 before joining the Buffalo Bills, viewed this as a significant error by Belichick.
Harris described the coaching change as haphazard, stating, “You just throw them in there and say, ‘Hey, coach this kid up. He’s a first-round pick, but as long as you teach him what I say, everything gonna be fine.’” The result was a disorganized offense from the beginning, evident during training camp with a new, chaotic run scheme. This disarray continued into the 2022 season, where the Patriots ranked 26th in yards, and Jones’ stats plummeted to 2,997 passing yards, 14 touchdowns, and 11 interceptions in 14 games.
According to Harris, the offensive struggles were apparent to the players even before the season started, likening their plays to something out of a video game. He claimed that Belichick dismissed any concerns raised by offensive leaders with a blunt “Shut the f— up” and insisted he knew best.
Harris firmly believes that Belichick’s inflexibility led to Jones’ regression. “The breath of Mac Jones in New England — it came and went. It shouldn’t have gone the way that it went,” Harris said. He attributes this outcome to Belichick’s rigid mindset and authoritative control over the organization alongside owner Robert Kraft.
The Patriots traded Jones to the Jacksonville Jaguars in March for a sixth-round pick, ending what once seemed like a promising tenure. Additionally, the team parted ways with Belichick at the start of the offseason after 24 seasons. Harris suggests that Belichick’s stubbornness and expectations contributed to his failure to secure another head coaching job this offseason. “What he was expecting to be handed to him versus what people were willing to give him — in retrospect, I think that maybe they just didn’t align,” Harris concluded.
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