No plan for ‘dramatic change’ with offense

A change at offensive play-caller isn’t imminent, according to Patriots coach Bill Belichick.

“I think we need to do what we’re doing better,” Belichick said Monday morning during his weekly radio appearance on WEEI. “I don’t think, at this point, making a lot of dramatic change is — it’s too hard to do that. If we can just do consistently what we’re doing, I think we’ll be all right.”

Given the state of New England’s sputtering offense, the viability of senior football adviser Matt Patricia and offensive assistant Joe Judge as play-callers is being questioned. Since training camp, the Patriots have struggled to establish offensive consistency.

The team has struggled from all aspects, whether it be execution, discipline, or play-calling.

“That’s hurt us,” Belichick said.

“It’s not one thing. It’s just one time it’s one thing, the next time it’s something else. We just have to play and coach more consistently.”

Criticisms about the state of the offense are starting to brew internally, with quarterback Mac Jones seen shouting on the sideline during last Thursday’s loss to the Buffalo Bills, “Throw the [expletive] ball. The [expletive] quick game sucks.” After the game, wide receiver Kendrick Bourne chimed in, saying the Patriots need to throw the ball downfield more and “scheme up” better plays.

Because the Patriots did not officially name an offensive coordinator, neither Patricia nor Judge are required to speak to the media every week. Instead, a trio of rotating assistant coaches answers questions.

Asked about Bourne’s comments Monday, wide receivers coach Troy Brown kept his answer general.

“We need to do it all better,” he said. “We need to scheme up better. We need to practice better. We need to play better. We need to do a whole lot of things better. There’s not one thing you can throw out there and say we need to do better. We just have to execute better. That comes in every department in the building, playing, coaching, whatever it is.”

Belichick also did not have much of a response to Bourne’s comments.

“We work through the schemes every week depending on who we play and so forth,” he said. “We run our schemes every week.”

Both players and coaches can stress the importance of improvement and the need to establish consistency, but the clock is ticking for the team to turn things around.

While players are starting to air their grievances, Belichick won’t point to specifics when asked for the reasoning behind the inconsistencies. Like Brown, he pointed to a number of factors, not one component.

“It’s been a little bit of a combination of things on every front, really, coaching, playing, penalties,” Belichick said. “We’ve had some high-penalty games, and then we’ve had some low-penalty games. We’ve had some turnover games, and then we’ve had some no-turnover games, and so forth.

“It hasn’t always been the same problem, or it hasn’t been the same problem on certain plays. Sometimes that’s shifted, and there have certainly been some plays that haven’t matched up well against the defense when they were called, whether that’s the design of the play or the way it did against a certain defense. Those have come up as well.”

Before the season opener,

Belichick told the Globe to “blame [him]” if the pairing of Patricia and Judge didn’t work. Thirteen weeks into the season, he stands by that statement.

“I’m responsible for our team’s performance, so I accept that,” he said.

Change in TV plans

The Week 15 showdown between Belichick and Josh McDaniels will no longer be played in prime time.

The Patriots-Raiders game, originally slated for 8:20 p.m. ET on Dec. 18, will now kick off at Allegiant Stadium at 4:05 p.m. on Fox.

Instead, the Commanders and Giants will face off in the prime-time slot that week on NBC.

At the time of the NFL’s schedule release, the matchup carried significant intrigue, given the relationship between Belichick and McDaniels, as well as the presumed playoff implications. But the allure has simmered over time, with the 5-7 Raiders not living up to preseason expectations and the 6-6 Patriots hanging in mediocrity.

The Patriots have just one primetime game remaining on their schedule, Monday at Arizona.

The time for their regular-season finale against Buffalo has yet to be scheduled.

Mosely joins squad

The Patriots signed rookie defensive back Quandre Mosely to the practice squad. The Kentucky product was originally signed by Dallas as a rookie free agent and then spent time on practice squads in Seattle and Tampa Bay before being released Nov. 29.