NFL News: Joe Judge gets real on the Patriots' offensive struggles

The New England Patriots aren’t a better team right now than they were last season. Their defense took big hits in free agency, and their offense didn’t get much better, at least personnel-wise.

Also, the early reports were far from encouraging. Beat writers and analysts pointed out that their offense struggled vastly in training camp, and preseason didn’t do a lot to ease those concerns.

But even though people question Bill Belichick’s decision not to name an Offensive Coordinator and share play-calling duties between several staff members, Joe Judge isn’t concerned about the team at all:

NFL News: Pats Aren’t Worried About Offensive Struggles

“I’m not a big guy to take one small clip of something and over magnify it,” Judge told Boston.com. “I say all the time, the NFL is a league of extremes. It’s one week, what’s the storyline. We’ve got a week in between the games, in this instance we have two weeks in between the games. So it’s what’s the storyline that’s going to run? You can’t chase that. You can’t chase the narratives. You’ve got to show up every day.”

“There may be an adjustment here or there, just based on how we match up with something,” Judge said. “But preseason games are really much more about getting out there and letting players play. It’s not really scheme heavy, it’s not about game-planning against the opponent. We had competitive practices last week against the Raiders. That’s a great opportunity to go out there and try new things, to work some things you’ve got in the playbook and see how they develop.”

Of course, Judge’s words should be taken with a grain of salt, as he led the New York Giants to one of the worst offenses in NFL history last season. Still, the Pats have never taken preseason all that seriously.

So, will Mac Jones take a step forward in year two? Will Belichick eventually cave in and just name an Offensive Coordinator like everybody else? Will the Pats finally suck? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.