FOXBOROUGH -- With Cam Newton and Mac Jones firmly in a quarterback competition, some have thrown out the idea of using them both at the same time.
Given Newton's running ability, he could be used in certain packages, especially in the red zone, while Jones could run the more traditional offense.
Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels was asked about that being a possibility Wednesday, and he didn't exactly seem to be in favor of it.
“I’ve never done that, really," he said. "We haven’t even gotten close to that conversation, so I’m not sure about that.”
Would Newton be OK with it, if you did?
“I don’t know that, and again, I think the goal is to get all of them, to improve, get close, let them compete and eventually Bill [Belichick] will make a decision on what's the best thing for the team," McDaniels said.
As far as the quarterbacks being different, McDaniels noted that would be the same as having tight ends on the field with different skillsets and calling plays to get the most out of them.
“I think we've always tried to marry the offense to the personnel on the field," he said. "Normally, for a long time, we were talking about which tight end was in the game, which receiver was in the game, which halfback was in the game, who was playing left tackle. It's no different with the quarterback. So if you have a quarterback that his skillset’s a little different than somebody else's, our job is to try to maximize his ability.
"We all know Cam can move and do things with the ball that there's a lot of guys in the world that can't do. So it is what it is. There's things that we’ll have in the offense ready to go for that. Like always, there's gonna be parts of our offense that we won't run with other guys. I'm hopeful that we're putting every guy that goes in the huddle and a good position to be successful, which means that there's some things that we don't feel like are really their strengths, we don't do them. Hopefully we're gonna pick the right ones.”