Ex-running back Damien Harris comes down hard on the coaching staff of the New England Patriots. The fact that quarterback Mac Jones didn’t get rolling wasn’t his fault

Damien Harris, running back for New England from 2019 to 2022, has harshly criticized the Patriots’ coaching staff. The fact that quarterback Mac Jones failed there was not his fault.

“What happened to Mac Jones in New England didn’t happen because of Mac Jones,” Harris said on “The Athletic”. Bill Belichick’s coaching was “a debacle”.

It was because of “the fact” that “they took away an offensive coordinator who turned him into a Pro Bowler and almost coached us to a division win with a rookie quarterback in his first year.”

“And then you take – after Josh McDaniels left – you take Matt Patricia, who has coached defense his whole life, and Joe Judge, who was a special teams coach and coached receivers at one point,” Harris continued, “And then you just throw them in there and say, ‘Hey, coach this kid. He’s a first-round pick, but as long as you teach him what I say, everything’s going to be fine,’ and shit wasn’t fine. “

Harris also said, however, that he understands why Belichick has his habits. After all, he had been successful. Still, he would have let Jones down in the end: “He needs total control. That’s just the way Bill Belichick is. But at the same time, can you blame him? Because in the 20 years in which he had total control, he had a lot of success. So you can’t blame him.”

But if Jones were to blame him, it would be easy to understand. The 25-year-old joined the Patriots in 2021 and had to leave in 2024. In March, he was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a sixth-round pick.