Has Bill Belichick lost Mike Lombardi?!

The former Patriots coaching assistant has typically been more of a supportive voice for Belichick’s decisions during his time as a media personality – a mouthpiece, a bobo, a bootlicker, if you want to be CRASS. His Patriots takes always seemed curiously aligned with what the head coach may believe about his own team.

Is it possible that’s no longer the case? Lombardi went in on Belichick during a recent episode of “The GM Shuffle,” which you can see in the above clip. Normally, you might expect Lombardi to defend Belichick’s decision to put Matt Patricia and Joe Judge in charge of running the offense, or find a way to downplay it. But he can’t defend the indefensible. Lombardi is seeing what everyone else is seeing: that under Patricia and Judge, two failed head coaches whose experience is primarily on defense and special teams, the Patriots’ offense, especially the passing game, is utterly inept.

“There’s going to have to be a really hard self-evaluation, and it’s going to have to start with the head coach because they can’t throw the ball,” Lombardi said. “Let’s just put it out there. They cannot throw the football. This whole Matt Patricia-Joe Judge … it’s not working.”

Belichick’s assertion that good coaches can coach any position, his justification for Patricia and Judge’s roles on the offense, was at best an outside-the-box idea that had to prove itself, that had to be seen to be believed. We’ve seen more than enough to know that you can’t just take defense/special teams guys and park them on the offense and expect good results. The experiment has failed spectacularly.

“Just because he coaches defense, doesn’t mean he can call offensive plays or set up an offense,” Lombardi said of Patricia. “It’s not there.”

“They just have no idea on how to set up a gameplan, how to attack a [defense], how to attack the adjustments,” Lombardi continued. “All the things that I learned from [working in the NFL], all the things that I believe in offensive football from learning it from there, from [Bill] Walsh, from Belichick, from all the coaches … they just run plays.”

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA – DECEMBER 18: Head coach Bill Belichick of the New England Patriots coach Matt Patricia react before a game against the Las Vegas Raiders and at Allegiant Stadium on December 18, 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

The question for Belichick is how much he really cares about Patricia’s ineptitude running an offense. He’s 70 years old and obviously close to the end of his coaching career, whether he retires from the Patriots or ends up coaching elsewhere. He and Patricia are close friends. According to Urban Meyer, Belichick told him back in 2017: “At this point in my career, I want to coach guys I like. I want to coach guys I want to be around and that’s it.”

Belichick hasn’t really been on the record saying that, but his actions suggest that it’s an accurate statement. And while the Patriots head coach certainly wants to win, it feels too much like being around his friends has come at the expense of winning, and he can live with that.

Can Robert Kraft live with that? If he wants the Patriots to return to Super Bowl contender status, he’s going to have to enforce major changes on Belichick’s staff for 2023. If Belichick is staying, he’s likely going to have to put Patricia and Judge in roles that better suit their experience, and bring in real offensive coaches. If Belichick refuses to do that? Things could get dicey between those two.

But please, do not bury your head in the proverbial sand over this thing. The Matt Patricia Experiment™ has blown up in Belichick’s face, and even he has to know deep down that he made a mistake and needs to fix this in the off-season. And don’t discount the idea of Kraft’s unrest, either. The Patriots owner said before the season that the lack of a playoff win since 2018 bothers him, and now the Pats are looking at a season without making the playoffs altogether.

The main culprit for that backslide will be the struggles of the offense, and that can be blamed on Patricia and Judge running things, and Belichick himself said to blame him for that. So that’s what we’re doing. That’s what Kraft is doing. And that’s now what even Belichick’s biggest supporters in the media are doing.

Matt Dolloff is a writer and podcaster for 985TheSportsHub.com. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of 98.5 The Sports Hub, Beasley Media Group, or any subsidiaries. Have a news tip, question, or comment for Matt? Yell at him on Twitter @mattdolloff and follow him on Instagram @realmattdolloff. Check out all of Matt’s content here.