The New England Patriots are on the hunt for a new offensive coordinator following the departure of Bill O’Brien. To date, the team has either conducted or scheduled interviews with three candidates: Zac Robinson and Nick Caley, who both worked for the Los Angeles Rams during the 2023 season, and Dan Pitcher of the Cincinnati Bengals. All three men have a background in the “Shanahan system,” which is named after former NFL head coach Mike Shanahan. Additionally, they are all relatively young, with Caley being 40 and Robinson and Pitcher both 37.
Robinson and Caley were introduced to the system under head coach Sean McVay in Los Angeles. Robinson, a former Patriots seventh-round draft pick, started as an assistant quarterbacks coach in 2019 before being promoted to his current role as pass game coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2022. Caley, who previously worked with the tight ends in New England for eight years, coached the same position group for the Rams last season.
Pitcher, on the other hand, worked closely with ex-McVay assistant Zac Taylor in Cincinnati. He served as assistant quarterbacks coach before becoming quarterbacks coach under Taylor, who himself was a QBs coach in L.A., for the last five years.
The “Shanahan system” originated with the Denver Broncos in the 1990s but became more popular and productive in the late 2010s when McVay and Mike Shanahan’s son, Kyle, started implementing their variations with the Rams and San Francisco 49ers, respectively. The offense emphasizes outside zone and wide zone concepts, bunch formations and compressed looks, and play-action. Considered a quarterback-friendly offense due to its relative simplicity, its main objective is to create space for dynamic playmakers like Cooper Kupp or Deebo Samuel to exploit.
In contrast, the Patriots offense for the past 24 years has been vastly different and relied heavily on players making the correct reads based on formation, call, and defense. This modified version of the Erhardt-Perkins scheme has been highly successful but notoriously challenging to learn and implement.
Although the scheme is adaptable to every situation, finding personnel capable of running it has been a challenge for the Patriots, even when Tom Brady was still the quarterback. Since his departure after the 2019 season, New England has struggled to field a competitive offense. In 2022, the Patriots attempted to modernize their offense by incorporating more Shanahan-style elements, but the results were disappointing.
