Although it wasn't how he had planned for it to go, Jarrett Stidham was active for the first time this season and made his debut Monday night in Kansas City.
Following Cam Newton's positive COVID test, Stidham was active in a game for the first time this year, backing up Brian Hoyer, and then got into the game when Hoyer was pulled in the third quarter.
Stidham played better than his numbers suggest, as he went 5-for-13 passing with 60 yards a touchdown and two interceptions. One of the interceptions came on a drop by Julian Edelman, and his touchdown pass to N'Keal Harry was his first career TD.
“Obviously, I’m really excited to get the opportunity just to get in there and play football with the guys. I just wanted to come in and move the chains, trying to give us a shot to just score some points,” Stidham said via video conference after the game. “It’s frustrating that we couldn’t pull out the win, but we can definitely learn and get better.
“It’s nice to get out there and to play, and to get those reps, but it’s obviously very frustrating to not come away with a win, throwing the two interceptions and so forth. I think I’ll be able to take a deeper look once I am able to watch the film. I definitely think there’s some better throws I could have made out there on the field. I’m anxious to watch the film and see what I can do better.”
As for if he thought he did enough to be active the first three games and serve as Newton's backup?
“I definitely think as a competitor you want to be suiting up and on the field every single game," he said. "I’ve just been controlling what I can control. Going further down the road here, I am just going to continue to get better, really focus on what I can control and really focus on what I can do to help the rest of the team out in whatever fashion it may be.”
It's unclear if Newton will be able to return this Sunday against the Broncos and if he doesn't the Patriots will need to decide between Hoyer and Stidham.
“I don’t really know," Stidham said when asked if he plans on starting Sunday. "I am just mainly focused on the game that we just played, watching the film on the way home and seeing what I can do better. Then as we get into [Tuesday] start to get ready for Denver and moving on to them.”
