I’ve never understood fans with a penchant for criticizing offensive coordinators.
First of all, everything goes through BB. It’s not like McDaniels is off coming up with his own ideas for what works willy nilly and Belichick is just hoping he comes up with something good. The game plan is a methodical selection of plays designed to attack perceived weaknesses based on down and distance and what the defense is doing.
Secondly, what do any of us fans know about a game plan to begin with? We don’t know what tendencies or players the game plan is trying to exploit, nor do we know why the staff believes the play will be successful against certain defenses. We also have no sense of play concepts or what the offense might be trying to set the defense up for later in the game.
And thirdly, who’s to say it was even the actual play that was called, or that it wasn’t just a missed assignment or block that caused the play to fail? There is just so much we don’t know.
Fans see an ill-executed play, or a run when they think it should’ve been a pass and go crazy about the “play calling”, but it’s so much more complicated than that. Maybe that run seemed like a bad call because it got blown up, but what if they told you 85% of runs in that situation went for a first down?
You’re either on board with Belichick, McDaniels, Brady, Dante Scarnecchia and the entire Patriots offense as assembled, or you’re not on board with all of them.
Singling out McDaniels is way over-simplified criticism.
And for the record I think McDaniels is one of the most creative offensive minds in the game today. Check out Michael Holley’s book War Room to see how big of a hand he had in designing the 2007 Patriots offense as the pieces came together.
The offense had a bad day against the Cardinals, but I think people need to remind themselves how much turnover there was on offense this year, and realize that it takes time to find an identity.