At the risk of overly gassing up my fellow Gillette Stadium-goer, WEEI’s own Andy Hart had me chuckling as I walked out of the facility by perfectly summing up Bill Belichick’s cage match with the media yesterday.
Reporters peppered Belichick with multiple questions about Mac Jones’ health and availability for this weekend to which he simply replied, “We’ll see.” (Jones once again practiced in limited fashion, per the team, though his mobility and overall football functionality looks improved.)
He even responded thusly when asked directly if Jones would be the unquestioned starter over Zappe when he was healthy: “We’ll see where he is today. I don’t know.”
At those answers, the laptop keyboard “clickety-clacks” pick up across the room. Some of them are simply reporting what Belichick said. Others are preparing to write something approximating this: “Belichick refuses to commit to Mac Jones as starter when healthy, suggests Bailey Zappe could win the job for the rest of the year.”
To my amusement, Mr. Hart responded to my post-practice write-up about the Patriots purposely dialing up the intrigue around the quarterback position with a subtle acknowledgment of our role in spreading the message far and wide.
“Why won’t Bill just say Mac is the starter?” He tweeted. “Must want us all to speculate irresponsibly!”
In the words of Omar Little: “Oh, indeed.” And inevitably, he can count on someone, perhaps even a bunch of people, to play along.
Was it an accident that the Patriots let us disclose Mac Jones was present at practice two Fridays ago the moment media availability began — we normally have to wait about 10 minutes — despite him barely being able to move? No way.
Was it simply idle fancy to allow media to glimpse a bit of Jones throwing to receivers this Wednesday — something we rarely get to see in pre-practice availabilities — or throwing on the run? I don’t think so.
What about Bailey Zappe conspicuously working on his cadence with the offensive line during warmup drills, which is something Jones can often be spotted doing when healthy? Or Zappe being the one at the media podium on Wednesday and not Jones?
Some of it is just guys going through their routines and trying to get ready for this weekend’s game against the Browns. Zappe doesn’t care about us watching him practice; he’s just preparing for a game and going where he’s told.
But we have a job to report on what we see down in Foxboro, and Mac Jones’ presence and clear determination to get back on the field as well as Belichick declining to confirm when that will happen can’t be ignored.
As goofy as the “competitive advantage” trope seems, the Detroit Lions actually took the bait last week. Head coach Dan Campbell even said his team prepared as if Jones would play and would just assume the Patriots would run a “crisper, cleaner package” if they turned to Zappe, which they did.
One could understand some of the strategic merits of over-preparing for the test going into it, but it seems funny thinking of the Lions preparing for the possibility of Jones throwing sideline fades while hopping up and down on one leg.
Who knows if the Packers similarly took extra time to prepare for the two-package system New England reportedly prepared for Jones and Brian Hoyer two weeks ago? But if they spent even one minute on Jones that week, Belichick’s plan met its aim.
That’s what all he cares about: making life as hard for his opponents as possible. He knows how much work it takes to prepare diligently for a football game, and he wields that knowledge as pointedly and as often as anyone in the game.
In the meantime, go ahead and speculate that Bailey Zappe might start the rest of the season if he keeps winning in the easiest part of the schedule.
Spend whole radio and TV segments debating the merits of the two quarterbacks, as I and many have done, and argue with profile pic-less people on Twitter about why last year’s first-round pick isn’t getting benched for a rookie fourth-round third-stringer after a few games.
Belichick's not going to make quarterback decisions based on what the fanbase wants or any reporters think is best anyway.
He only cares that we disseminate the information he gives us so as to frustrate his opponents’ planning as much as possible. He doesn’t care what conclusions we draw or what hair-brained conspiracy theories we draw up (as long as we don’t ask him about them).
Even when he gives the ball back to Jones and inoculates everyone against “Zappe Fever” — those who want to be, anyway — he’ll find something else to play around with. And chances are we’ll be helping out in that endeavor just by doing our jobs.
