The Patriots are bringing back Bill O’Brien to serve as their offensive coordinator. That looks like a good move. Matt Patricia seemed to be in over his head calling plays last year, with his background being on the defensive side of the ball.
Mac Jones in particular now looks more viable as a possible up-and-coming quarterback (a second quarterback in a 12-team league). He was dreadful last year, but Jones put together a strong rookie season. Setting aside a wind-affected game at Buffalo, Jones that year averaged 234 passing yards in his final 14 starts, with 22 touchdowns versus 14 interceptions.
When O’Brien was at Houston, he won division titles in four of his six full seasons. Two of those titles came with modest quarterbacks – Brian Hoyer and Brock Osweiler.
Looking at the stats of O’Brien’s quarterbacks in Houston, however, I don’t see anything too meaningful in predicting whether Jones will sink or swim in his third season. With the Texans, O’Brien had Deshaun Watson (who’s not similar to Jones at all) and he had a bunch of lesser guys.
For fantasy purposes, Watson was the only quarterback in those six seasons who really got off the ground statistically. In the chart below, the final column shows where the quarterbacks ranked on a per-game basis, relative to quarterbacks who started at least half the season (for the numbers preceded by a tilde, it’s where they would have ranked had they played at that pace for at least eight games).
| BILL O'BRIEN'S HOUSTON QUARTERBACKS | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | St | Pass | TDP | Int | Run | TDR | Pts | Rk |
| 2017 | Deshaun Watson | 6 | 266.2 | 3.00 | 1.17 | 42.2 | .33 | 32.2 | ~1 |
| 2019 | Deshaun Watson | 15 | 256.8 | 1.73 | .80 | 27.5 | .53 | 25.9 | 5 |
| 2018 | Deshaun Watson | 16 | 260.3 | 1.63 | .56 | 34.4 | .31 | 24.8 | 6 |
| 2019 | AJ McCarron | 1 | 225.0 | .00 | 1.00 | 39.0 | 1.00 | 21.2 | ~16 |
| 2015 | Brian Hoyer | 10 | 237.4 | 1.70 | .70 | 4.4 | .00 | 19.1 | 26 |
| 2014 | Ryan Fitzpatrick | 12 | 206.9 | 1.42 | .67 | 15.3 | .17 | 18.5 | 22 |
| 2014 | Case Keenum | 2 | 217.5 | 1.00 | 1.00 | 17.5 | .00 | 16.6 | ~27 |
| 2016 | Brock Osweiler | 14 | 193.1 | 1.00 | 1.14 | 9.3 | .07 | 15.0 | 30 |
| 2014 | Ryan Mallett | 2 | 200.0 | 1.00 | 1.00 | -.5 | .00 | 14.0 | ~33 |
| 2017 | Tom Savage | 7 | 201.7 | .71 | .86 | .3 | .00 | 13.0 | ~30 |
| 2015 | Ryan Mallett | 4 | 168.0 | .50 | 1.00 | 1.3 | .25 | 12.0 | ~33 |
| 2015 | T.J. Yates | 2 | 150.5 | 1.00 | .50 | 1.0 | .00 | 11.6 | ~33 |
| 2017 | T.J. Yates | 3 | 116.0 | .67 | 1.00 | 6.7 | .00 | 9.1 | ~31 |
| 2016 | Tom Savage | 2 | 100.5 | .00 | .00 | 6.0 | .00 | 5.6 | ~32 |
As long as we’ve got the stats out, we may as well take a look at the other positions.
O’Brien’s teams in Houston didn’t tend to have notable running backs. Arian Foster (at the tail end of his greatness) put up top-5 stats in 2014, but then it was a series of modest backs, including Lamar Miller, Carlos Hyde and Alfred Blue.
(For the final column in this chart, it’s showing cumulative rank among, rather than per-game like with the QBs.)
| BILL O'BRIEN'S HOUSTON RUNNING BACKS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Att | Yards | TD | Receiving | PPR | Rk |
| 2014 | Arian Foster | 260 | 1246 | 8 | 38-327-5 | 277.6 | 5 |
| 2017 | Lamar Miller | 238 | 888 | 3 | 36-327-3 | 193.5 | 16 |
| 2016 | Lamar Miller | 268 | 1073 | 5 | 31-188-1 | 193.1 | 19 |
| 2018 | Lamar Miller | 210 | 973 | 5 | 25-163-1 | 174.6 | 23 |
| 2019 | Carlos Hyde | 245 | 1070 | 6 | 10-42-0 | 157.2 | 28 |
| 2019 | Duke Johnson | 83 | 410 | 2 | 44-410-3 | 156.0 | 30 |
| 2014 | Alfred Blue | 169 | 528 | 2 | 15-113-1 | 97.1 | 46 |
| 2015 | Alfred Blue | 183 | 698 | 2 | 15-109-1 | 113.7 | 47 |
| 2018 | Alfred Blue | 150 | 499 | 2 | 20-154-0 | 97.3 | 51 |
| 2015 | Jonathan Grimes | 56 | 282 | 1 | 26-173-1 | 85.5 | 57 |
| 2016 | Alfred Blue | 100 | 420 | 1 | 12-40-0 | 64.0 | 65 |
| 2015 | Arian Foster | 63 | 163 | 1 | 22-227-2 | 79.0 | 65 |
| 2015 | Chris Polk | 99 | 334 | 1 | 16-109-1 | 72.3 | 70 |
DeAndre Hopkins put up top-5 numbers four times for O’Brien in Houston, but the Patriots right now don’t have a Hopkins-type receiver.
| BILL O'BRIEN'S HOUSTON WIDE RECEIVERS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2018 | DeAndre Hopkins | 115 | 1572 | 13.7 | 11 | 337.5 | 1 |
| 2017 | DeAndre Hopkins | 96 | 1378 | 14.4 | 13 | 311.8 | 1 |
| 2019 | DeAndre Hopkins | 104 | 1165 | 11.2 | 7 | 270.6 | 4 |
| 2015 | DeAndre Hopkins | 111 | 1521 | 13.7 | 11 | 331.1 | 4 |
| 2014 | DeAndre Hopkins | 76 | 1210 | 15.9 | 6 | 233.0 | 14 |
| 2014 | Andre Johnson | 85 | 936 | 11.0 | 3 | 196.6 | 28 |
| 2016 | DeAndre Hopkins | 78 | 954 | 12.2 | 4 | 197.4 | 29 |
| 2015 | Nate Washington | 47 | 658 | 14.0 | 4 | 136.8 | 49 |
| 2019 | Will Fuller | 49 | 670 | 13.7 | 3 | 134.0 | 54 |
| 2019 | Kenny Stills | 40 | 561 | 14.0 | 4 | 120.1 | 61 |
| 2017 | Will Fuller | 28 | 423 | 15.1 | 7 | 113.2 | 61 |
| 2016 | Will Fuller | 47 | 635 | 13.5 | 2 | 128.2 | 61 |
| 2015 | Cecil Shorts | 42 | 484 | 11.5 | 2 | 112.2 | 62 |
| 2018 | Will Fuller | 32 | 503 | 15.7 | 4 | 106.3 | 69 |
| 2017 | Bruce Ellington | 29 | 330 | 11.4 | 2 | 75.7 | 83 |
| 2014 | Damaris Johnson | 31 | 331 | 10.7 | 1 | 72.0 | 93 |
And O’Brien never had a notable tight end in Houston. Darren Fells caught 7 TDs in 2019, but with just 34 catches. Two other tight ends caught 50-plus balls, but without touchdowns.
| BILL O'BRIEN'S HOUSTON TIGHT ENDS | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | Rec | Yds | Avg | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2019 | Darren Fells | 34 | 341 | 10.0 | 7 | 110.1 | 17 |
| 2016 | C.J. Fiedorowicz | 54 | 559 | 10.4 | 4 | 133.9 | 17 |
| 2016 | Ryan Griffin | 50 | 442 | 8.8 | 2 | 106.2 | 24 |
| 2019 | Jordan Akins | 36 | 418 | 11.6 | 2 | 89.8 | 25 |
| 2018 | Jordan Thomas | 20 | 215 | 10.8 | 4 | 65.5 | 32 |
| 2017 | Stephen Anderson | 25 | 342 | 13.7 | 1 | 65.2 | 33 |
| 2018 | Ryan Griffin | 24 | 305 | 12.7 | 0 | 54.5 | 40 |
| 2015 | Ryan Griffin | 20 | 251 | 12.6 | 2 | 57.1 | 42 |
| 2015 | C.J. Fiedorowicz | 17 | 167 | 9.8 | 1 | 39.7 | 48 |
| 2014 | Garrett Graham | 18 | 197 | 10.9 | 1 | 43.7 | 48 |
Ultimately, I don’t see much value in looking through what O’Brien did with the Texans. I would expect Bill Belichick will have some opinions about things he’d like to see done – I think he’s a believer in running the ball. And I expect O’Brien has picked some new ideas the last two years while serving as an offensive coordinator at Alabama.
But O’Brien isn’t Matt Patricia, and he isn’t Joe Judge, and I think that’s a good thing.
—Ian Allan