Bill Belichick admits that Colts, Jets knew Patriots' offensive plays at line
FOXBORO -- The Patriots' offense is having enough trouble on its own. But is the unit tipping plays and making life easier on defenses?
Players seemed to think so after Sunday's 26-3 win over the Indianapolis Colts, with a handful pointing out to MassLive's Mark Daniels that Indy linebacker Shaquille Leonard was calling out their plays before the ball was snapped.
That's a surprising admission following a win. It was even more surprising on Tuesday, when Patriots head coach Bill Belichick seemed to agree with the notion that the offense was tipping plays.
"That's what it looked like to me, too," Belichick said during his Tuesday Zoom call with reporters.
Belichick not only highlighted Leonard's intuition, but that Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley also had a few plays where it seemed like he knew what was coming in Week 8.
"We definitely want to prevent that. I thought that there were two or three plays for sure that Leonard really got a big jump on and stopped us, basically, on those plays. Mosley got a couple of those a couple of weeks ago in the Jets game; it looked almost like he heard the play in the huddle he was on it so fast. Leonard had a couple like that too," Belichick said Tuesday.
"Whether that is something we were giving away or something he anticipated based on whatever the keys were that he picked up, we certainly want to prevent that. But I thought that, Leonard for sure did it, and Mosely had a couple of plays like that as well," continued Belichick. "But that's what good defensive players do; they anticipate things and sometimes get a read on what they think may happen. They're not always right, but when they are, they can make you look bad offensively.
"As an offense, you always want to be balanced and try not to give things away to the point where you don't have something complimentary that goes with them. That's kind of the game within the game there," he concluded.
Wow. That's not the kind of answer -- or admission -- that you get from Bill Belichick too often.
The defense knowing -- or at least having a good idea of what was coming -- certainly didn't help the Patriots' offense on either of the last two Sundays. The Pats ran for just 70 yards on the ground in Sunday's win over Indianapolis, and averaged just 3.7 yards per carry on their way to 127 rushing yards against the Jets two weeks ago. The Patriots scored two offensive touchdowns -- total -- over those two games.
Whatever is going on, it's not good for the Patriots. They're either tipping their hand at the line, or they have an extremely predictable offense that opposing defenses have figured out.
Sounds like the Patriots and their coaches will have their hands full during the bye week.
