Relatedly, though, I seem to recall reading in years past about the "coaching of the coaches," which, I assume, would start with the coordinator. It seems to be holding up on the defensive side.
Strictly speaking, they don't have a coordinator. Now, in the past, they've often had a coordinator without naming a coordinator, but I get the sense that the offense is more of a collaborative process between Patricia, Judge, and Belichick rather than Patricia serving as a true coordinator. Patricia is calling plays on game days, but I'm not sure if he's plugged into the WR minutiae on this level. I'd be kind of surprised if he was, given that he's also responsible for coaching the OL.
Well, the WR are having a bunch of issues, so it's not illogical.
My opinion is that they are missing that "role model" WR that sets the standard for all other WR on the team. The guy that works his ass off, runs great routes, that the rest of the guys look up to add respect and want to emulate. Edelman, Moss, Welker, Branch, etc.
I think Agholor is actually that kind of role model guy, the problem is Agholor sucks on the field.
The WR coaching could absolutely suck, but I certainly can't tell the difference between the player, the coaching, the scheme, the offensive system as a whole, etc. Troy Brown and Ross Douglas are both coaching the WRs--are they both doing their job? Neither? Who is coaching up Marcus Jones who seems to be doing well? Are the routes actually being run wrong or is Mac Jones throwing in the wrong place? Is the bad spacing a WR coaching issue or an overall offensive system? Are Brown and Douglas doing a good job of getting players ready for their specific matchups and diagnosing how to attack the DBs and helping with the overall gameplay? Sometimes coaches get responsibility for various scouting and play design elements (third down or whatever)--how are they doing at those jobs? There are so many questions that are so far from obvious to me that I certainly don't think I can judge if the WR coach is doing his job--and that's with unit that's one of the worst performing groups in the NFL!
Ultimately it's just insanely hard to judge if a coach is a a good coach or a bad coach and that becomes more and more true the further down the coaching rank you go.
I agree with this. The only thing that's for certain is that any issues are ultimately Belichick's responsibility and therefore fault. He has the power to change anything he doesn't like (whether coaches, techniques, or personnel) and any authority anyone else has is at Belichick's behest.
What is hard is, if outsiders like Orlovsky and Warner see these issues, you have to imagine Belichick and his cohort do as well, spending so much more time with things, yet things haven't improved at all over the course of the season and in many ways have gotten worse.