The preseason is over, which means it is officially time for Patriots coach Jerod Mayo to decide who will be his starting quarterback when New England opens the regular season on Sept. 8 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Mayo was not ready to reveal his starter during his weekly appearance on The Greg Hill Show Monday, but he did say the decision would be finalized in the next couple days.
Rookie Drake Maye outplayed veteran Jacoby Brissett for a second straight preseason game Sunday night against the Washington Commanders, completing 13-of-20 passes for 126 yards and a touchdown while also running for 17 yards. Brissett played one series, completing 2-of-4 passes for 19 yards while also suffering a shoulder injury on a sack.
Mayo acknowledged as much, but still wasn’t ready to hand the starting job to Maye.
“Jacoby may come in here today saying the shoulder is no good, so I'm not going to get too far down the road on if Jacoby could play or couldn't play,” Mayo said. “What I will say is that this was, or is a true competition. It wasn't fluff or anything like that. It's a true competition. And I would say at this current point, Drake has outplayed Jacoby. Now, in saying that, we have to take in the full body of work, going all the way back to the spring and the beginning of training camp, and we'll see where we end up. But those are the conversations that will happen here over the next couple of days.”
Mayo also explained why Brissett was named the No. 1 quarterback earlier in training camp, only to eventually have that shift towards this becoming a “true competition.”
“After much thought, after the cuts, I would rather personally announce who the starting quarterback is to the team before I announce it to everyone else,” Mayo said. “We've maintained our stance that Jacoby was QB1, and early on, you could see that there was a huge gap between 1A and 1B, or I will say 2, but now that gap has definitely shrunk here over the last few weeks.”
Has that gap disappeared enough for Maye to start Week 1? We’ll all find out in the next couple days.