Former Patriots running back Damien Harris was on the Athletic’s Football Show podcast recently with Robert Mays and talked about a variety of things including the offense during the 2022 season.

Harris confirmed everything we pretty much already knew. It was a debacle. Harris said the players knew the offense under Matt Patricia and Joe Judge wasn’t going to work even before the season started. 

“We knew before our first game — we knew during training camp,” said Harris. 

The players went to Bill Belichick to express their concerns but according to Harris, Belichick wasn’t willing to listen to their concerns. 

“If anybody had anything to say about it,” Harris said, “it was (met with) a very, very quick, swift, ‘Shut the f— up. I know what I’m doing.’ And that’s it.’”

Harris did say on the show that he liked playing for the legendary coach and he praised him. He also said that when he played in Buffalo last season, it was a “different world” in terms of players being listened to and having a voice. 

It is why Harris was not surprised that Belichick did not land a head coaching job this off-season. Being in one place for 24 years hurt him according to Harris. 

“I’m not saying that to say anything bad about Bill Belichick, but I just wasn’t surprised because he’s been in one place for so long,” Harris said. “And I think that just at the stage of his career that he’s in, I think that what he was expecting to be handed to him versus what people were willing to give him — in retrospect, I think that maybe they just didn’t align.”

Part of the problem according to Harris is the fact that he controlled everything. The former Patriots running back thinks that scared teams away. 

“That’s something that I could have seen coming because, you know, Bill was the head coach, Bill was the GM, Bill was damn near the offensive coordinator, damn near the defensive coordinator, damn near the special teams coordinator, damn near this, damn near that. And you know, if he was going to go coach for another team, it would have probably.”

It was an interesting interview but Harris thoughts on the 2022 season are the most noteworthy tidbits to come out of the 70 minute show.