FOXBOROUGH -- Josh McDaniels is not only the Patriots' offensive coordinator, but he's also the quarterbacks coach, meaning he spends a ton of time in the QB room.
Speaking earlier in the week when assistant coaches were made available, McDaniels touched on all three quarterbacks -- Tom Brady, Brian Hoyer and Jarrett Stidham.
Even though he's entering his 20th season and is 42 years old, McDaniels acknowledged Brady is still getting better. He also noted how well the quarterback has done this summer with all the different players he's had to work with.
"Good. Really, honestly, it's just the same that it's been," McDaniels said. "He continues to press on and try and get better at little things. He's made progress in certain different areas — small things in terms of quarterback play. He really had a great attitude and mindset about the players that he's working with because he's worked with a lot of different groupings out there. He's throwing it to everybody, working well with the different centers he's had to work with and he's going to work with. Very happy with what he's doing. He's been very consistent with his approach and hasn't missed a beat."
Brady aside, the Patriots have a decision to make at this position. Will they keep three quarterbacks and Hoyer, or will it just be two and the veteran would need to be released?
McDaniels knows probably better than anyone Hoyer's value.
"I love Brian Hoyer," he said. "He's been great for us. He's been great for Tom. He's done a nice job in the preseason, obviously. Brian knows our system, knows how to operate and function within the things we do. He throws the ball well and is an extremely hard-worker. Really smart. Great teammate and as good of a leader as I have seen as a backup quarterback that I have been around. That is a difficult position to be in sometimes, but Brian understands who he is and what his role is and does a tremendous job pushing his teammates. He goes in there and takes his job seriously. Every rep he is in there, whether it would be a practice or a game, scout team, our offense, whatever it might be. He takes it very seriously. That is the way you want him to do that and he makes the guys around him better."
And then there's Stidham, who although is a rookie has done some impressive things this summer and shown tremendous potential.
"Jarrett, I think he's a good kid. He loves football. He's a hard worker. He comes in every day, he makes mistakes every day, like they all do as rookies and he gets better. He takes coaching, he listens well and he can improve from one day to the next if he'll just take the things we're talking about in the meeting room and apply them on the field the next day," McDaniels said. "He's demonstrated toughness, he's taken some hits. He's been accurate when we've given him time to throw and generally speaking, he's running the offense somewhat the way we would like him to run it. There's huge room for improvement. I don't think there is a rookie in the National Football League after three preseason games that you wouldn't say that about. Our goal is to try and get a little better every day with him."
Although things are trending towards keeping just two quarterbacks because of how talented the backend of the roster is, things could certainly change between now and Saturday.
