Who will call Patriots' offensive plays? It's Bill Belichick's latest mystery.

FOXBORO, Mass. — On the next season of "True Detective," investigators should travel to New England to decipher who exactly will be calling the offensive plays. The show would have several twists and turns with three major characters:

Matt Patricia, Joe Judge and Bill Belichick.

After one preseason game, who exactly is replacing longtime offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels doesn't seem any closer to being answered. We’ve received several hints, but Belichick’s "process," as he puts it, has left us guessing.

Last week, Patricia called the offensive plays to start the Patriots preseason opener against the New York Giants. Mystery solved, it seemed. Instead, once starting quarterback Brian Hoyer was out of the game, Judge called the offensive plays for rookie QB Bailey Zappe.

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The curious thing about that situation is that if Patricia is going to call the offensive plays this year, wouldn’t you want him to get more experience? After all, the former defensive coordinator/head coach has never called offensive plays in his life. In that preseason opener, Patricia called two total offensive series.

Similarly, if Judge, the former special-teams coordinator/head coach is to take over in a role that he has no experience in, wouldn’t you want to give him three entire preseason games to get his feet wet?

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That situation leads one to believe that Belichick was having Patricia and Judge compete for the job. After all, following that game, Belichick said, "We're going through a process" when asked if he has decided who will call plays in the regular season.

However, on Monday, Belichick squashed the notion that Patricia and Judge are competing to call plays.

"No, that doesn’t have anything to do with it," said Belichick.

Matt Patricia seems like the leader to call plays

The scene last week seemed chaotic.

Patricia was stationed on the sideline, pencil on his ear, headset on and a call sheet in his hands. He’d call in the offensive plays to Hoyer. When the series ended, he’d meet with the quarterback briefly before going over to his offensive linemen because he’s also the offensive line coach.

When Patricia wasn’t with the O-line, it was either veteran center David Andrews or assistant coach Billy Yates who talked with the players. The coaching setup seemed unusual, but on Monday, Patricia put it into perspective. That’s exactly what would happen during his days as a defensive coordinator when he also coached linebackers and safeties.

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"Whenever that happens, it’s up to the staff to communicate. It’s no different if I was calling defensive plays and coaching linebackers," Patricia said. "That’s a key component of the defensive unit – or the safeties. It’s all the same. We have a lot of great coaches who help that process of the flow of communication. ... We just try to be the best we could with it."

Patricia seems like the odds-on favorite to call offensive plays this season. In training camp, he’s mainly called the plays during full-team drills. You would think it would be Judge – if Judge was going to call offensive plays. Of course, Judge called three-quarters of the plays last week, so again, Belichick has heads spinning with theories.

Patricia said he had fun calling offensive plays, but also said there was room to grow, adding that the coaches need to work on communicating with each other and players to make this process run smoothly. When asked if he knew who would call offensive plays this fall, Patricia wouldn’t say.

"Game days this year we’ll probably take it as we go," Patricia said. "Right now it’s piece by piece. Last week was last week. We'll see what it looks like this week. My focus is really today.

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"If we try to put the cart before the horse here and say, 'hey, this is how it’s going to be,' maybe we’ll miss something along the way that we could’ve done a little bit differently, modified, improved on and in the end, we’d be better from that aspect of it. From here, I’ve learned to enjoy the process with it … and understand we always adapt every day, which is great. That’s how the game is."

Will Bill Belichick call offensive plays?

Seeing Judge call offensive plays last week was interesting. Throughout the summer, he’s called offensive plays but mainly during 7-on-7 drills when Patricia was with the offensive linemen. Judge, the Patriots quarterback coach, has some experience on the offensive end as a former college quarterback, but this is a new venture for him as well.

Judge, the former Giants head coach who was fired after two seasons, said he enjoyed being back on the field. But when it came time to analyze how he performed, he focused on what went wrong against the Giants. As it pertains to his role, Judge will do whatever Belichick asks of him.

"The assistant coach's job is real simple – make the head coach happy. He has a vision for this team. He knows what he wants it to look like," Judge said. "It's our job to listen and go out and execute the way he sees it. As far as defined roles, I come to work with one simple policy, whatever he says goes."

Complementing each other

If anything is clear, it’s that Judge and Patricia are leaning on each other to get the Patriots offense moving. Patricia noted that his relationship with Judge has been collaborative instead of competitive.

"We follow coach Belichick’s lead," Patricia said. "I’m just trying to do my job to the best of my ability – whatever he asks me to do on any given day. That's the beauty of it. That’s what I love. It’s new and challenging from that standpoint. We’re all working together right now."

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Another theory to develop is that Belichick could be the one who will call offensive plays this year. At this point, you can’t rule that out. If anything is certain, it’s that we’re not getting the answer right now in training camp.

"All of us, all the coaches and certainly with Coach Belichick being on the same page with what we want to call, how do we want the fundamentals to go with it, what do we want it to look like," Patricia said. "That’s our starting point and then as we go to the communication of that out to the field to the players, that’s something we’re pretty fluid with, which is great."

So the mystery continues.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: New England Patriots still don't have an offensive coordinator