1 – A quarterback will start for the Patriots Sunday afternoon at MetLife Stadium against the Giants.
Probably and reportedly will be Mac Jones. Could be Bailey Zappe.
Won’t be Will Grier, who was released. Or Malik Cunningham, who remains on the practice squad where he’s apparently not practicing as a quarterback despite that one week in Las Vegas when he was the primary backup.
In some ways, it doesn’t matter who starts at the most important position in football – maybe all of sports – for the Patriots in this post-bye trip to New York.
Wait, what?
The reality is that the Patriots do not have a starting quarterback right now. That’s been proven by the play at the position over the first 10 games of the season, but more recently it’s been proven in the way that Bill Belichick has handled the preparations to play the Giants.
There is a difference between having a starting quarterback and simply a player that starts at quarterback for a team. New England’s lacks the former and regardless of who the guy is it will field the latter against the Giants.
A starting quarterback is, for any moment in time, the unquestioned leader of the offense for a team. An elite starting quarterback is a franchise QB. But a journeyman can be a clear starting QB, as Baker Mayfield has shown in Tampa Bay. Heck, a fill-in can even be a starting QB, as Tommy DeVito has proven in the last couple weeks in New York.
But when you simply have a quarterback start rather than a starting QB there is nothing but uncertainty. There is the strong possibility that the guy who starts the game may not finish it, as has been the case with Jones four times this season. There is the possible divide in the locker room as to who teammates think should be starting, as has reportedly been the case at Gillette in recent weeks.
Starting quarterbacks, even backups and fill-ins thrust wholly into that role, bring some stability to the position even if only for that mere moment in football time.
When you simply start a quarterback, there is only partial trust and an almost expected, awaited change amid failure at the position.
The Patriots will start 11 players on offense Sunday afternoon in New York. One of those will be a quarterback. Probably will be Jones, despite his seismic struggles. But that doesn’t mean they’ll have a starting quarterback against the Giants. Because right now the team doesn’t have one, regardless who starts at the position. And if you have two QBs, we all know you have really none.
2 – As recently has Friday, Zappe declared that he did not know who was starting at quarterback for the Patriots in New York. He apparently split preparatory reps this week with Jones on the practice field as Belichick held some sort of late-season competition at the critical position trying to figure out on the post-Thanksgiving fly who to prepare and who to play against the Giants.
While the present day Belichick likely will say his two-QB system on the practice field this week was in the best interests of his 2-8 football team, it’s certainly a far cry from what the future Hall of Fame head coach believed in the past.
In late November of 2001, when Belichick was announcing that Tom Brady would be the Patriots starter for the reminder of that season with Drew Bledsoe sliding into a true backup role, he made it clear that there are only so many reps to go around in practice and giving the bulk of those to the starting quarterback was a top priority.
“I don't think you can really get two quarterbacks ready,” Belichick said back in 2001. “I think you can get one ready and that is what we have to do. We have to get one guy ready to play and that is my responsibility to the football team.”
Now, Belichick spent the last week apparently trying to get both Jones and Zappe enough reps to get the job done in New York. Sunday afternoon we’ll find out if that was successful because as the sports cliché goes, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.
3 – Much deserved attention has been paid to the Patriots’ quarterback position and depth chart this week after Jones’ was benched in the final minutes of the pre-bye loss to the Colts in Germany despite it still being a one-score deficit. The bigger picture is that New England’s QB depth chart has been a debacle all year long. This was seen as a make-or-break year for Jones and, well, he’s now broken. Along the way New England was never able to secure or build any depth behind its questionable third-year former first-round pick. If you recall the Patriots had only Jones on the roster at the cuts down to 53 this summer, with both Zappe and Cunningham made available to any other team that may have wanted them. There were no takers. Zappe, Grier, Cunningham, Trace McSorley, Ian Book and Matt Corral have all spent time working behind Jones this summer and fall. None has done much to impress or even remain in the mix other than Zappe. The Patriots quarterback position feels like a mismanaged mess this week. But, really, it kinda feels like it’s been a mismanaged mess all year.
4 – While it would be irresponsible for Belichick to do anything other than prepare his team and his quarterback to try to win a football game, there is clearly a portion of the Patriots fan base that would prefer not to see New England win in New York. The three-win Giants are one of the teams the Patriots will be “battling” down the stretch for prime draft picks in next April’s first round. A loss this Thanksgiving weekend – or maybe it’s Tank-sgiving Weekend for some – would strengthen the Patriots' chances to secure one of the top two or three picks in April’s NFL Draft. That would give the organization a strong chip to try to turn things around, potentially even securing one of the top quarterback prospects on the board. Baring an unfathomable late-season winning streak, New England is going to have a top-10 pick in the draft. But a loss on Sunday would go a long way toward pushing that pick into the franchise altering area near the very top of the draft.
5 – Oh how the Patriots and Giants have fallen as they get set to rekindle their “rivalry” Sunday afternoon. There was a time when New England and New York played some of the most important games in NFL history. Certainly the two Super Bowls in which Eli Manning defeated Brady’s New England squad were a tough pill for Patriot Nation to swallow, none tougher than the end to the march toward an undefeated season in 2007. But that year also saw the Patriots secure the 16-0 regular season in a game against the Giants in New York that had Brady hit Randy Moss on a late touchdown pass that was the record-breaking 50th for TB12 and 23rd for his Hall of Fame target. Now? There will be no Hall of Fame, Super Bowl-winning QBs on the field for either team on Sunday. Neither squad is headed toward postseason play of any kind any time soon. In fact Belichick and former assistant Brian Daboll are battling for little more than draft positioning and their coaching reputations, each of which has taken a massive hit this season.
6 – Two of the better players on the field at MetLife on Sunday will be the teams’ respective running backs, Saquon Barkley and Rhamondre Stevenson. Each is among the best dual-threat running backs in the NFL, with the ability to hit big runs and make big plays in the passing game. Barkley, playing on a one-year revised contract and clearly upset with his lack of a long-term deal, has continued to be the centerpiece of the New York offense. Stevenson has come on in recent weeks as the focal point of the Patriots attack. Of course in an NFL where the running back position has been devalued for anyone not named Christian McCaffrey, the questionable value of guys like Barkley and Stevenson can been seen in the teams’ combined five wins through a total of 21 games played. Great running backs are fun to watch make plays, something both Barkley and Stevenson are more than capable of. But if it’s not part of an offense that also includes a high-end QB, a strong line and capable pass-catchers it’s not enough to find winning success.
7 – Prediction Time!: A “must-lose” game for these two historic franchises, including a scuffling Patriots team that played so many supposed “must-win” games earlier in the year. New England is in what Matthew Slater has called “uncharted waters” with its ugly, losing ways. There is no definition at the quarterback position. Arguably three of the team’s best players – Matthew Judon, rookie Christian Gonzalez and Kendrick Bourne – are on IR. In the long term New England would be better off with a loss on Sunday. But for the guys that take the field, that’s not the mentality. They are professionals.
They are playing for pride. They are playing for their next season or next job.
But the reality is that DeVito is the more stable, productive quarterback in this game. Barkley might be the best player in this game. Kayvon Thibodeaux is the best pass rusher in the game. Daboll, like many former Belichick assistants, has a history of upsetting his former boss. Both teams are at the bottom of the standings for a reason. This a bad game between two bad teams. Neither scores many points. It could get ugly. And at this point in the year there is no reason to give the Patriots the benefit of the doubt. They are on the road. They have a very unsettled QB position. And, yet, they are somehow favored. Well, maybe Vegas knows something we don’t because we’re going with the 17-13 win for the Giants. Which would be music to the ears of many Patriots’ fans already focused on draft day dreams at this point.
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