The Pats-Giants game last weekend may have set football back about 40 years and certainly won’t be going on any clinic highlight reels any time soon.

New England’s offense is worse than it was last year with Joe Judge and Matt Patricia running the show and it doesn’t seem like there’s an easy fix anytime soon. With a mediocre offensive line, a well below average group of receivers and no real quarterback right now, the free fall only seems to be picking up speed.

On Tuesday morning, Bill O’Brien met with the media on WebEx and took the bullet for all of them, although it’s probably too little, too late.

“If you want to blame anybody, blame me,” he said answering a question about Mac Jones’ confidence. “I’m the one that designs it and it’s not going very well. So, look, at the end of the day, can he execute better and are there things he can do better? Sure, but there’s things all of us have to do better to put a winning product on the field. Right now, that’s not what it is.”

Only Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Tennessee, Las Vegas, Carolina and both New York teams have averaged fewer yards per game on offense than the Pats (293.5). New England is 32nd in scoring (148 points, 13.5 PPG). While it’s admirable for Bill O’Brien to try and place all of the blame on himself, it’s ultimately Bill Belichick that’s made his life more difficult with the roster building. Players win games, but O’Brien has been limited in what he can do this season with the glaring lack of talent, especially at QB.

O’Brien was asked where his confidence level is at coming back home and unexpectedly walking into a giant crap storm.

“I’m confident,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that come up in football that’s unexpected. Expect the unexpected is kind of the way you have to live as a football coach. We feel very good going into every game about our game plan and how we practiced it. Then, many times it really hasn’t played out that way. I do think it’s a collective effort and we all have to be better. Like, I don’t think you can blame one player. You can’t blame one person. I don’t think it is about blame. I think it’s about football.

“The teams we’ve played have made less mistakes than we have offensively and that’s why we’ve lost.”

O’Brien was also asked how he feels about all the chatter surrounding the team and in particular, the noise surrounding Belichick and his job security.

Even though he’s put him in a tough spot, O’Brien pointed to Belichick’s past success in defense of him.

“I would say…because you’re so immersed in what you’re doing, you get up at 5 A.M. and you’re in the office and just working, working, working, that you really don’t see all of that,” he said. “Now, look, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that when you’re home on a Saturday with your family or whatever you don’t hear it or see it, like everybody, I understand that. But, this is Bill Belichick we’re talking about. Bill Belichick has done so much for the game of football, the New England Patriots organization. It’s football. We’ve lost some tight games. To think about what he’s done here in this organization and what he’s done for this community…what he’s done for this game. For the game of football. He’s been 50 years in the game of football…to me, everybody just needs to understand, look, we’ve all got to win. We understand we’re in a winning business.

“We’re not winning right now, but we’ve got to step back and ‘hey, look at what this guy’s done for the game of football,’ I think that’s very important to think about.”