If Patriots want new offensive coaches, they better act fast

FOXBORO -- The Patriots began their offseason evaluation process on Monday, less than 24 hours after the season came to an end with a Week 18 loss to the Buffalo Bills. If Bill Belichick ultimately determines that he wants to make changes to his offensive coaching staff -- and many, many people are really hoping that he does -- they better act fast.

Belichick didn't say much about where he'll go with his staff when he held his postmortem Zoom with reporters on Monday. But it obviously did not work out with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge running the show on offense in 2022. New England's 8-9 record and the team's offensive stats make that abundantly clear.

At least in missing the playoffs, Belichick can get an early jump on the offseason. But he'll have to act quick, because some of the other crummy teams that didn't make the playoffs have already made decisions on their staffs.

We've heard a lot about Bill O'Brien potentially returning to New England to run the offense all season. He reportedly wants back in the NFL after spending two years with Alabama, and he'd reportedly like to come home and coach with the Patriots.

But one of his good buddies is now looking for a new offensive coordinator: Titans head coach Mike Vrabel.

The Titans fired three offensive coaches on Monday, including OC Todd Downing. Vrabel, like Belichick, likes to work with other coaches that he knows and has worked with in the past.

O'Brien fits that bill, considering he gave Vrabel his first shot as an NFL coach as an assistant with the Houston Texans in 2014. By 2017, Vrabel was his defensive coordinator, a position he held for one year before getting his head coaching gig with the Titans.

Now Vrabel is in a position to return the favor to O'Brien, and potentially steal someone away from the Patriots in the process. 

The Arizona Cardinals fired Kliff Kingsbury on Monday, and will be looking for a new head coach and offensive staff. (Kingsbury could maybe come to New England to run the offense, but that could be a longshot.) The Broncos are in the same boat, and so are the Texans, though don't expect O'Brien to return to Houston in any capacity. But with Nick Caserio calling the shots for the Texans, he may be dipping into the same pool of coaches as the Patriots, his former team.

There's also the matter of offensive coordinators around the league getting head coaching gigs, which would leave more teams searching for someone new to lead their offense. The Bills, Lions, and Eagles could all be in that boat, and others could join them when the playoffs conclude.

We're still not sure if the Patriots will even make a change and go outside the organization for a fresh new voice on offense, though Robert Kraft promised "critical evaluations" everywhere in the organization in a letter to season ticket holders on Monday. He may force a change on the offensive staff.

If the Patriots are going to make changes, it would be in their best interest to act quickly. The competition is only going to grow from here on out.