The Patriots are on the verge of losing both of their coordinators, Matt Patricia and Josh McDaniels, to head coaching jobs. Will things roughly stay the same, even after two of the league’s most talented young assistants move on?
“I mean, I believe so,” said Patriots captain Duron Harmon (via Phil Perry of CSNNE.com). “The culture is built. The culture is built. This is two decades of winning. A winning franchise. Coach Belichick is going to make sure whoever is in the defensive room is going to be the right guy to display the message and the picture that he wants his defense to play with. That goes through the defensive coordinator, whoever he hires.”
Replacing both Patricia and McDaniels will be a tall task, but the belief in Foxboro is that Bill Belichick will be able to keep things moving with new coaches in each role. For now, that’s all on the backburner as the Pats get set for the conference title game against Jacksonville.
Here’s more from the AFC East:
- Jarvis Landry‘s upcoming negotiations with the Dolphins will be about more than just money, Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald writes. The wide receiver has been productive, but he also loses focus at times and doesn’t run the right routes. He has also allowed his emotions to get the best of him at times and the team is worried about how he’ll hold up in the long run. Sources have described Landry as “a pain” to deal with and “hard to reach,” according to Salguero. Of course, money will still be a major factor in talks. Big name receivers like Dez Bryant, Julio Jones, Davante Adams, and Demaryius Thomas average between $14-14.5MM per season and Landry believes he deserves to be in that group or perhaps make more. The Dolphins, meanwhile, might prefer to pay him something in the neighborhood of $10-$11MM/year. Ultimately, it sounds like there is a disparity between how the Dolphins view Landry and how Landry views himself. The Dolphins probably see Landry as being a very good wide receiver, but not in the same tier as, say, Antonio Brown.
- The Dolphins are trying to pluck defensive line coach Kris Kocurek from the Lions after receiving permission to interview him, Albert Breer of The MMQB tweets. Kocurek coached Ndamukong Suh for five years in Detroit, so he could help Miami get the most out of the mercurial defensive tackle.
- It sounds like the Jets could move on from tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins this offseason.
- Over the weekend, the Bills hired a new offensive coordinator.
- The Dolphins hired a new running backs coach on Wednesday.