It’s the most wonderful week of the year: Super Bowl week. If you’re a Patriots fan, of course. This is most likely New England’s last hurrah with both offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who is set to become the Colts’ head coach (good for him, but yuck), and defensive coordinator Matt Patricia, who is in line for the Lions’ head coaching gig.
McDaniels has been on all five championship teams to some capacity while Patricia has been apart of the most recent three. As both are on their way out, it’s time to take a look at who their replacements may be in the coming months.
Brian Flores, New England’s linebackers coach, is seemingly the heir to Matty P. He was most recently a top option to become Arizona’s head coach before they hired Panthers’ DC Steve Wilks.
Flores is well-known around the NFL and is highly respected by both his current team and the rest of the league. The 36-year-old has been apart of the Patriots organization since 2004, when Scott Pioli hired him as a personnel evaluator and was so for four years. Flores has been an assistant for New England in some facet in all three phases of offense, defense and special teams, a unique and major attribute for an aspiring coordinator, especially seeing how he’s viewed The Patriot Way evolve since 2004 on both sides of the fence.
Flores was the safeties coach before getting promoted to linebackers in 2016 and has been respected and loved in the organization in all of his 13 years. Players and coaches love him and view him as one of the smarter and more personable coaches they’ve come across.
Flores coordinates the red zone defense, which has obviously been a strength for the Patriots this season. The defense allowed a red zone touchdown only 43.8 percent of the time in the regular season, good for fifth-best in the NFL. In the final eight games, that percentage was only 34.6 percent of the time.
No matter where he’s coaching and on what level in the coming years, Flores is about guaranteed to receive many calls from around the league. He’s arguably the best assistant out of himself, McDaniels and Patricia, in my opinion. He’s the most plausible option to replace Patricia given the fact that he’s still young, has been around the Patriots for as long as he has and has played such a versatile coaching role over the years in Foxboro.
People forget that Flores was the one who screamed “Malcolm, go!” at Butler to get on the field in Super Bowl 49 in the final minutes, an iconic moment in Patriots history among many.
As for McDaniels’ successor, one has to believe that wide receivers coach Chad O’Shea is the primary choice, another inside option who’s been around the team for a while, similar to Flores.
O’Shea has 22 total years of coaching experience, dating way back to 1996 when he was a graduate assistant for the University of Houston and ended his tenure there in 1999 as the tight ends coach, a special teams assistant and a recruiter. He was then Southern Mississippi’s special teams coach until 2002, a Kansas City Chiefs volunteer in 2003 and a special teams assistant with KC until 2006. O’Shea was the Vikings’ wide receivers coach and a general offensive assistant until 2009 when New England scooped him up for the same gig.
O’Shea has obviously coached the likes of Julian Edelman, Wes Welker and Danny Amendola, all whom have had successful Patriots careers. Edelman has totaled two 1000-receiving yard seasons since he broke out in 2013 and has, of course, been a playoff hero on so many occasions and has become Tom Brady’s best friend and best target for some time now. Welker was a pivotal part of that legendary 2007 offense and had two 120-catch seasons and set a Patriots record with 1,569 receiving yards in 2011. Amendola has too played playoff hero roles in recent memory and is Brady’s go-to receiver when Edelman isn’t on the field.
O’Shea notably helps out in all phases of the offense when he can, giving anyone and everyone heads-ups on the sidelines during games, a huge advantage for an up-and-coming coordinator. McDaniels recently praised him during Super Bowl media availability saying that he’s responsible for the Patriots’ red zone success; New England scored 63.29 percent of the time when in the red zone this regular season, good for third best in the league.
The 45-year-old even called the plays in Week 4 of this past preseason, something that teams do when they expect turnover at the coordinator position. O’Shea is no stranger to being patient when it comes to promotions, as has Brian Flores, and this coming offseason may just be when that patience pays off for both of them in a huge way for both the individuals and the Patriots as an organization.
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