Lazar: What Will Joe Judge Bring to the Patriots if He’s the De Facto Offensive Coordinator?

Trying to sell Patriots fans on former Giants head coach Joe Judge returning as the de facto offensive coordinator is like selling my short-haired pup Atlas on New England winters. 

Like a Rhodesian Ridgeback in freezing temperatures, Judge has very little experience with coaching offense and has never been an offensive play-caller.

Officially, Judge is returning to the Patriots as an offensive assistant. With Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels bringing three former Pats assistants with him to Las Vegas, the chatter around league circles when you present the idea of Judge directing New England’s offense is shock and disbelief. 

Most expect head coach Bill Belichick to keep adding experienced offensive assistants to his coaching staff, and even take a hands-on approach with the offense himself in the wake of McDaniels and others’ departure.

However, Belichick was expected to put Judge on the offensive coordinator track when McDaniels was expected to become the Colts head coach following Super Bowl 53 in 2019. 

Whether you’re sold on the idea or not, Judge could be heavily involved in New England’s offense, which brings us to the following question: what does a Joe Judge offense look like?

During his two seasons with the Giants, former Cowboys coach Jason Garrett was Judge’s offensive coordinator, and New York adopted Garrett’s Air Coryell system. 

Ultimately, Judge and Garett’s inability to make quarterback Daniel Jones and the Giants offense successful is what got them fired, which is why it’s hard to sell you on Judge as an OC. 

The Giants ranked second-to-last in points per game, dead-last in expected points added per play, and although injuries play a role, many of their personnel moves offensively failed. 

After reviewing their 2021 season, the one saving grace is that the Patriots’ offensive line is significantly better, and many of the issues New York had were lacking pass protection up front.

Furthermore, the Pats aren’t changing their system to the Judge-Garrett playbook; if Judge is running things now, he’s running New England’s EP system that we saw under McDaniels. 

Judge is not returning to overhaul the Patriots’ offense, but with a different coach at the helm comes a different perspective.

Although it’s hard to decipher how much of an influence Judge had on the Giants offense, it was clear watching their film that there were some Patriots imprints on New York’s playbook.

For example, the Giants called New England’s HOSS variations both in the traditional sense (HOSS Z Juke from empty) and variations with running back Saquon Barkley on the option series from out of the backfield. 

Garrett put his own spin on HOSS by combining the Air Coryell staple, Y cross, with a HOSS combination to put the post safety in conflict. The deep safety can help over the top of the seam or cut off the crosser, but he can’t protect against both routes.

Plus, some of the Giants-specific wrinkles were sound schemes, even if the results weren’t always there. It’s an NFL offense. Let’s not lose sight of that just because it didn’t stack up well compared to other NFL offenses.

The two areas where the Patriots could borrow from the Giants are utilizing more run-pass options (RPOs) and two-tight end sets (12 personnel).

RUN-PASS OPTIONS (RPOs)

For those of you that come here often, you all know I’m a broken record about adding Mac Jones’s bread-and-butter to the offense.

During his college days at Duke, Daniel Jones was in a very RPO-heavy offense, so the Giants catered to his strengths by ranking 12th in run-pass options with 137 plays last season.

According to Pro Football Focus, the Patriots were dead-last by running an RPO only 15 times, despite Mac’s resounding success with them at Alabama.

RPOs are a great way to put defenses in run-pass conflict, giving the offense positive plays and even explosive gains with defenders in no-win scenarios.

An easy RPO to install for the Patriots is pairing their frequently used gap schemes with a backside slant. The only significant difference here is there’s a read for the quarterback, while the O-Line blocks and the X receiver runs a five-step slant. Pretty simple.

As easy as it sounds, it’s not easy to defend because it puts defenders with run and pass responsibilities in difficult binds. 

Above, the Giants run a guard-tight end counter to the weak side with a backside slant route. The weak side safety is rotating down to get an extra hat in the box against the run, and the counter action is heading right towards him. The safety has to choose: either step into the fit to take on the lead blockers or sit back in the slant window. He’ll have a pulling tight end coming downhill at him if he sits back. But if he steps into the run, he’ll leave the outside corner out-leveraged on the slant. The safety stays down, so Jones pulls it and hits the slant for a first down. 

Here’s another example where the Giants pair one-back power with a backside slant. This time, they catch the Saints’ defense in a slot blitz. The nickel corner blitzing forces the deep safety to Jones’s left to guard the slot, putting the deep safety in the fit with the defense playing a man down in the box out of a two-high shell. Since the deep safety is being stressed with the run action, he starts coming down to play the run, but Jones throws the slant. Now, the deep safety is out of position to make a tackle on the slant, and Kadarius Toney gets loose. 

The hope of bringing in Bill O’Brien as the offensive coordinator was that he’d blend the Patriots’ playbook with the Alabama spread style to cater to Mac Jones’s strengths. 

Although Judge doesn’t have O’Brien’s resume on the offensive side of the ball, the Giants were integrating run-pass options at a much higher clip than the Patriots last season.

If Judge is tasked with integrating more Mac-specific schemes for the Pats’ quarterback in year two, he has an RPO package from New York that he can install in New England. 

TWO TIGHT END PACKAGE

Another head-scratcher for the Patriots offense a year ago was that they were only in 12 personnel, two tight ends and one running back, on 14% of their offensive plays (27th in NFL).

Despite committing over $56 million in guarantees to Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith in the offseason, the Pats weren’t a two-tight end heavy offense during the 2021 season. 

The Giants ranked seventh in percentage of plays in 12 personnel. Although some of that is because Evan Engram is a move tight or jumbo receiver, New York also played plenty of 12 personnel snaps with tight ends Kyle Rudolph and Kaden Smith on the field together.

New York mostly ran play-action concepts to take shots downfield by using their two tight ends as extra blockers. 

In this example, the Giants get the Saints to match 12 personnel in their base defense, leaving only three defenders deep to defend a post-cross combination. The post route occupies two defenders, leaving the corner out-leveraged on the crosser for a chunk play. 

The Giants run a standard three-level stretch play off bootleg action here. By motioning into a nub formation with the tight ends as the furthest players in the formation to Jones’s right, the vertical release by Rudolph floods the cover-three zone, and Engram is wide open on the shallow. 

The Giants threw 164 passes out of 12 personnel last season, compared to the Pats’ 75 throws with two tight ends on the field, so we could see an uptick in multiple tight ends under Judge. 

Patriots fans who are skeptical about Judge serving as the de facto offensive coordinator heading into Mac Jones’s second NFL season are justified in their concerns. 

Belichick is putting Jones’s development and the offense as a whole in a coach’s hands who has very little experience coaching offense and wasn’t exactly successful with the Giants. 

However, from a schematic standpoint, the Giants ran schemes with RPOs and two tight ends on the field that would help the Patriots’ offense. 

Although he will need to prove his offensive mettle, there are reasons to believe that Judge will bring some new flavor to New England’s offense next season.