Devin McCourty Suggests ‘Philosophy Change’ For Bill Belichick

Devin McCourty believes the Patriots could stand to improve by their longtime head coach tweaking his mindset.

New England was a very well-rounded football team for the majority of Bill Belichick’s first two decades at the helm. Much of this can be credited to Tom Brady, whose transcendent play allowed the Patriots to thrive offensively even in seasons when the talent level among skill-position players was mediocre at best.

But times have changed. Mac Jones looks like a fringe franchise quarterback, but in his defense, New England hasn’t given him much to work with since he arrived to Foxboro, Mass. in 2021. McCourty, a future Patriots Hall of Famer, wants to see Belichick and company invest more on that side of the ball.

“I think he’s going to have to change his philosophy a little bit,” McCourty said Wednesday on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” “Back in the day, games were won on a regular basis — 13-10 or, you know, 17-14. Those games are really hard. They come up every week in the National Football League. It’s hard for a team every single week to go out there and say, ‘This is how we need to play’ and ‘This is gonna be the key. We’re gonna hold our opponents to under 13 points and we’re gonna score around 17 points a game.’ That’s really hard to do. I think Bill was probably better than anyone else at building teams that could produce like that. Having a game like Brady, from an offensive standpoint, you jump up and you’re top three in the league every year in scoring and then your defense usually finishes in the top 10 in scoring defense. It balances out perfectly.

“Now, your defense is top 10 in scoring — sometimes top five — but your offense is 30th or 28th. Now, it’s not balancing out. So, I think they would be better off defensively and switching some of these weapons up and diving more into an offensive standpoint. Defense, if you rank inside the top 10, 12, 13, but offensively you’re in the top five, now you’re giving yourself better odds. That’s always been his key. He always talked to us, ‘NFL is about points. Score more points and hold a team to points.’ They still have that on one side. But on the other side, they have to find a way to score more points and I think that’s going to be investing more in the offense.”

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This isn’t a revolutionary take from McCourty. If you look at the teams in the NFL’s upper echelon, you’ll find a common theme: several elite offensive players on the roster. The Patriots don’t have any, so we shouldn’t be surprised they’re entering Week 5 with a 1-3 record.

New England is on pace for a third non-playoff season out of the four since Brady left town. Another sub-.500 record is firmly on the table, too. We’re not sure how much more Belichick needs to see before he realizes he needs to keep up with the Joneses.