Josh McDaniels Reflects On Goal Line Play-Calling: 'Not A Good Sequence For Me'
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- It is a week of honesty for coaches of the New England Patriots.
A day after Bill Belichick owned up to a mistake in Sunday's win over the Chargers, offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels did the same.
In McDaniels' case, it wasn't a matter of objectively being wrong. Rather, it was his play-calling on two first-half trips to the red zone that came into question.
The first sequence came early in the second quarter, with the Chargers leading 14-7. The Patriots drove to the 4-yard line and ran passing plays on three of four snaps. (The Chargers entered the game with the NFL's worst run defense, and they had yet to stop an opponent from reaching the end zone in any goal-to-go situation all year.)
That drive ended with an incomplete pass off play-action from the 1, followed by an incomplete pass on a fade to Jakobi Meyers on fourth down. The latter play came after a timeout, too, meaning McDanielshad extra time to get exactly what he wanted in that spot.
McDaniels said that he didn't love the way the offense performed on Damien Harris' earlier touchdown run from the 1-yard line, despite Harris plunging in.
The penetration in the middle of the line on that run gave him pause to run it between the tackles on the team's next goal line appearance.
"We had already been down there once and run one of our goal line runs down in there," McDaniels said when talking to reporters on Tuesday. "We're fortunate to get it in on that one; [Jakob Johnson] made a great block. We had some other things, there was some penetration on the play, Damien kind of pounded it through there and ended up scoring. But you know, we only have a handful of things you do down there inside that yard line. And so I chose, obviously at that point, incorrectly."
In fairness, the pass on first down in the sequence should have gone for a touchdown, but Mac Jones' pass for Kendrick Bourne was too high and was nearly intercepted.
McDaniels could have mentioned that if he felt like getting defensive, but he did not. Instead, McDaniels shouldered the blame for some poor play selection.
"I look back on that sequence, and it's probably one of the ones that I wish could do differently. If it works out on third-and-goal -- whatever it was, it was on the one and a half, two, whatever. And you end up with the [play-action] pass and it works, it's great, and everybody thinks that it was a great call," McDaniels said. "At that point, is it the wrong thing to do to run it? No it's not the wrong thing to do to run it at all. But I was kind of using some of the things that I had seen previously, made the choice to do that. It didn't work out in our favor. And then obviously we didn't convert the fourth down play either. So not a good sequence for me. I think I can do better than that, and I want to do better than that for our team."
The Patriots' defense forced a three-and-out on the ensuing Chargers possession, and the Patriots were right back inside the 10-yard line in a matter of minutes. Once again, they went with two passes. Once again, both fell incomplete, as Jones faced heavy pressure on both snaps.
The execution on both plays was severely lacking, so the Patriots settled for a field goal rather than take another stab at a fourth-down play.
The Patriots ended the game with just one touchdown on their four red zone trips. They were able to come away with a win -- thanks in large part to a defensive touchdown scored by Adrian Phillips. But with the Patriots ranked 28th in red zone scoring, McDaniels knows that the execution near the goal line -- from the call in the headset to the play on the field -- has to improve.
"Those are always really important plays. Hard sometimes to choose between certain things, based on what you've done previous," McDaniels said. "But I've gotta do better and we can do better than that for sure."
