Bill O’Brien wears a headset and carries a play sheet on Patriots game days.
He has the same title, quarterbacks coach, that Josh McDaniels had in his one-year apprenticeship before officially replacing Charlie Weis as offensive coordinator in 2006.
He’s the one Tom Brady consults with between plays, and the one who sends substitutes in and out of the game.
Only he doesn’t have the coordinator title.
But he has gotten plenty of the blame. Even as the Patriots rank second in the league in total offense. Even as the club is seventh in points. Even as the team is fifth in yards per play, and leading the league in first downs and time of possession.
Tough crowd, huh?
The issue, really, has been consistency.
While they’ve exploded at times, the Patriots also have been held to 21 or fewer points six times. In 2006, McDaniels’s first year with the title of coordinator, that happened seven times, but it was with Reche Caldwell and a cast of thousands at receiver rather than Randy Moss and Wes Welker, and a broken-down Corey Dillon was propping up the running game.
The Patriots have scored 400 points this season with Brady back. They scored 410 last season with Matt Cassel.
But with all that in mind, the bigger issue seems to be something that’s more about observers of the team than any member of the offense: This isn’t 2007 anymore.
Brady entered this season coming off knee surgery, and he since has suffered rib and finger injuries. A bunch of players are two years older. Moss and Welker are still stars, but they’ve been nicked as well, and Jabar Gaffney and Donté Stallworth have exited Patriot Place. There has been injury-related offensive-line shuffling.
And yes, replacing McDaniels has been a process.
“It’s inevitable with the way the league works that you are going to lose coaches,’’ said Nick Caserio, the director of player personnel who was McDaniels’s receivers coach in 2007 and his college teammate at John Carroll. “You’re going to lose players. There’s a process you go through in the offseason, so it’s ongoing.
“We have a lot of good coaches on this staff, some of whom have been around for a long time. We have confidence in our coaches. We have confidence in our players, and in the end it comes down to executing, and really everybody being on the same page. Sunday was a pretty good illustration of that.’’
There’s plenty of proof there.
