Report: Schiano to be named Patriots defensive coordinator

The Patriots are moving quickly to restock their coaching staff after losing several pieces following their Super Bowl LIII win.

According to the Boston Globe, the Patriots will name Greg Schiano as their next defensive coordinator. Schiano has been rumored to be coming to Foxboro for weeks as the Patriots prepared to lose defensive play caller Brian Flores, who was named the head coach of the Miami Dolphins on Monday.

The Patriots will enter the 2019 season with a new [...]

The Patriots are moving quickly to restock their coaching staff after losing several pieces following their Super Bowl LIII win.

According to the Boston Globe, the Patriots will name Greg Schiano as their next defensive coordinator. Schiano has been rumored to be coming to Foxboro for weeks as the Patriots prepared to lose defensive play caller Brian Flores, who was named the head coach of the Miami Dolphins on Monday.

The Patriots will enter the 2019 season with a new defensive play caller for the third-straight season. This past year, Flores replaced Matt Patricia, who is now the head coach of the Detroit Lions. Schiano will become the sixth defensive coordinator to work under Bill Belichick in New England. Others were Romeo Crennel, Eric Mangini, Dean Pees, Patricia and Flores.

Schiano comes to Foxboro from Ohio State where he was the defensive coordinator for the last two seasons. Prior to that, he coached at Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, Fla., for two years following a two-year stint as the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For most Patriots fans, Schiano is remembered as the head coach of Rutgers, where he was from 2001-2011.

During that time, Belichick drafted multiple players from Schiano’s program such as Devin McCourty, Logan Ryan and Duron Harmon. Countless other undrafted free agents and veteran free agents from that Rutgers program also made their way to Foxboro, such as Jason McCourty and Kenny Britt. Schiano also coached Belichick’s son Steve Belichick, who’s now the Patriots safeties coach.

Over the years, Belichick and several other Patriots players have lauded Schiano as a coach.

“Being there under coach Schiano – he can be a tough guy to play for but the one thing you’re always going to respect about coach Schiano is the way that he worked," Jason McCourty said this season. "He spent a lot of nights in that office and he was a grinder. I think for a lot of us there that went to Rutgers from Logan [Ryan], to Duron [Harmon], all of us guys – Marcus Cooper – we kind of got accustomed to that amount of film study, the amount of knowledge that was poured into us as far as football. I think that just continued to carry over.”

“I think Greg’s a tremendous coach,” Belichick said in 2017. “I’ve learned an awful lot from him and had an opportunity to spend a lot of time with him when he was at Rutgers and Stephen was at Rutgers and I’d go down there… Then at Tampa and the couple of years after Tampa was really even better for, I would say, my relationship with him because he had those last two years in the NFL and I’ve learned an awful lot from him. ...

“He’s one of the very best coaches I think in our profession. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Greg and the way he runs his program and the job that he does.”

In 2017, Schiano was going to be named the new head coach at the University of Tennessee. However, a social media campaign cost him that job after it was alleged that Schiano knew about the child sex abuse scandal during his time at Penn State. Schiano stated those allegations were false. Officials from Penn State also denied the rumors. That year, Devin McCourty told reporters in Foxboro he was disappointed with the news.

“I think it’s terrible the news and what happened with that whole thing. I mean, I played under him for five years – great character, coached us the right way, huge on discipline,” Devin McCourty said. “So to see something that kind of came out that wasn’t fair to him and was really untrue, and the time we live in where social media has such a huge impact and kind of lost a job over that, was terrible.”

With Schiano in the fold, the Patriots now have to replace their receivers coach Chad O’Shea and assistant quarterbacks coach Jerry Schuplinski. Both are following Flores to Miami with O’Shea becoming the offensive coordinator and Schuplinski becoming the quarterbacks coach.