Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots find themselves in the midst of a full-blown quarterback controversy following what we saw transpire in their humiliating home loss to the Chicago Bears on Monday night.
After being out since Week 3 with a high-ankle sprain, second-year quarterback Mac Jones got the start over rookie sensasion Bailey Zappe. Jones’ presence in front of the home crowd was short-lived after he threw an interception early in the second quarter on the team’s third possession of the game.
With Chicago up 10-0, fans inside Gillette Stadium were growing uncomfortable. That’s until Belichick opted to replace Jones with Zappe under center, ultimately leading to the latter heading two consecutive touchdown-scoring drives. Fans in New England pretty much serenaded Zappe like he was the next coming of Tom Brady.
What followed was a disastrous performance from the Patriots as a whole. Chicago scored 23 unanswered points to win the game going away with Zappe accounting for three giveaways on his own.
Following the game, Patriots wide receiver Jakobi Meyers, who had caught a long touchdown from Zappe in the second quarter, put the fans and the team’s coaching staff on blast for its handling of Jones.
“It’s tough to see somebody who works so hard get that kind of treatment,” Meyers told reporters from the Patriots’ locker room.
Andrew Callahan from the Boston Herald then asked a follow-up, at which point Meyers said, “not even the coaches, just everybody. The crowd, all of it. It was just an ugly situation, in my opinion.”
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Bill Belichick, New England Patriots seem divided
A lot of this is self inflicted. Roughly two weeks ago when Jones was still sidelined, Belichick refused to name him QB1 once the former first-round pick was able to return to action.
“We’ll see whee he is today. I don’t know,” Belichick said back on Oct. 12 when asked if Jones was still New England starting quarterback.
In the meantime, Zappe proceeded to lead New England to two consecutive wins while the team outscored its opponents by a combined margin of 67-15.
That set the stage for a ton of ambiguity leading up to Monday night’s home contest with Chicago. Reports surfaced in the lead up to the matchup that Jones would play some. It wasn’t until mere minutes before kickoff that Belichick confirmed he would start. Within 17-plus minutes of game time, he was “benched” for Zappe.
Bill Belichick himself is usually tight-lipped when speaking to the media. That didn’t change following Monday’s loss to Chicago. When asked who the starting quarterback would be Week 8 against the surprising division-rival New York Jets, he simply responded, “we just finished the game.” Belichick also stated that pulling Jones in the second quarter was not a medical decision.
In an interesting turn, Belichick noted that he did not bench Jones. Rather, the plan was to play both quarterbacks throughout the game. When pressed about Jones being pulled after throwing an interception and the timing, the six-time Super Bowl champion got a bit prickly with the media.
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“That’s not what it was, but you can write whatever you want to write. That’s not what it was,” Belichick told reporters.
There’s rightfully a lot of confusion about how things played out for the New England Patriots and their quarterback situation Monday night. Belichick did very little to clear that up. And while he thought being smart with his answers was the solution, it seems that there’s a bit of a split in the locker room right now.
“I guess when Sunday comes, we’ll know. I just, like I said, want to become a better player and prepare like I always prepare and put the hours in every day.
My schedule doesn’t change. I’m just going to continue to do that, and hopefully the results will take care of themselves. There’s some things you can’t control, and I’m just going to control, like I said, my attitude and my effort and come in early, stay late, and do my job.”
New England Patriots QB Mac Jones when asked whether he thinks he’ll be the Week 8 starter
Having two young quarterbacks hanging in the wind is a rather interesting approach. This is not similar to other situations when a young signal caller replaces a veteran or vice versa. Neither Jones nor Zappe have dealt with this in the past.
With all of that said, we’ll reserve judgment. After all, Belichick is the one with multiple Lombardi Trophies and Super Bowl rings. Hopefully, he knows exactly what’s happening behind the scenes.
But for now, Meyers’ comments and what we saw Monday night inside Gillette Stadium certainly does raise some questions. It promises to be a fun week leading up to Bill Belichick and Co. facing his “former” team with New England now two games behind the Jets for second-place in the AFC East.