You won’t find many offensive or defensive similarities between the 10-3 New England Patriots and 1-12 Cincinnati Bengals, who face off Sunday.
But special teams is a different story. Scott O’Brien groomed Bengals special teams coach Darrin Simmons and Patriots special teams coordinator/wide receivers coach Joe Judge.
“It’s like an intrasquad scrimmage,” Belichick said. “They have all our calls. We have all their calls. The way they handle situations is probably fundamentally the way we handle them — not that we always do it the same way. You might have two or three options. But you would see similar strategic positioning or strategy that either we would use or have used.”
Simmons started his NFL coaching career under O’Brien in 1998 with the Baltimore Ravens. Both O’Brien and Simmons moved on to the Carolina Panthers in 1999. Simmons broke off from O’Brien in 2003, when he became the Bengals’ special teams coach. O’Brien joined the Patriots in 2009. Judge, who joined the Patriots staff in 2012 as an assistant, took over the top special teams coaching role in 2015 when O’Brien retired. O’Brien is still on the football staff as an area scout.
The Bengals have struggled on offense and defense this season, but they’re ranked first in special teams DVOA on Football Outsiders. The Patriots surprisingly rank 19th in the same metric despite the impressive performance of rookie punter Jake Bailey and the outstanding gunner work of Matthew Slater and Justin Bethel.
The Patriots rank dead last in field goal and extra point DVOA, which shouldn’t come as a major surprise since they’ve gone through four kickers this season. They’re sixth in kickoff DVOA, 20th in kick return DVOA, third in punting and tied for 10th in punt return.
Bailey has also handled kickoff duties since long-time kicker Stephen Gostkowski hit injured reserve after Week 4 with a hip injury. The Patriots have used Mike Nugent, Nick Folk and Kai Forbath at kicker since Gostkowski’s injury.
The Bengals are Football Outsiders’ top ranked team in kick returns. Brandon Wilson is averaging 31.3 yards per kick return with a touchdown. Bengals punter Randy Huber and kicker Randy Bullock also are having solid seasons.
