Earlier in the week, New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo said that he planned for all four quarterbacks to play in Thursday's preseason game against the Carolina Panthers.
He made it clear that Jacoby Brissett would start; however, what he wouldn't say was exactly how much each quarterback would play.
Brissett got the opening drive, and went three-and-out. Afterwards, it was Drake Maye, who the Patriots selected with the No. 3 overall pick, and he proceeded to get only one drive. In his debut, he went two-for-three, recording 18 passing yards.
But after that, the rest of the first half and into the third quarter was all Bailey Zappe.
Zappe got the team into the end zone on one of his drives, but otherwise, punter Bryce Barginer was busy. So that had people wondering what Mayo was thinking? And specifically why wasn't he giving Joe Milton the chance to play?
But he eventually he did pull Zappe, and Milton provided the offense with the spark they needed.
Considering all the questions everyone had about how the coaching staff decided to split up the reps, Mayo explained the thought process after the game.
"We wanted to see Jacoby [Brissett] obviously go out there and operate as well as Drake [Maye], mixing them in there with the ones," Mayo said. "The rest of those guys, like [Bailey] Zappe and Joe [Milton III], they went out there and finished up the game. Thought they did a good job. But that was kind of the thinking."
Mayo didn't decide to just bench Brissett and Maye after one drive. This was something that was decided before.
"That was always the plan. The plan was to get him in there for one series, to get Jacoby in there for one series, and then really turn it into the Zappe show and then the Joe show," Mayo explained. "That was the plan going in."
But after that, the question was why did he leave Zappe in the game for so long? And what factored into the decision to pull him when he did?
"It was about opportunity. It was about opportunity. Zappe went out there, look, he’s won games in the NFL before," Mayo added. "But then just putting Joe in at a time where we needed a spark and he provided that spark, which I thought was good."
And with that, the head coach said that Milton was the one player that exceeded his expectations going into the game.
The Patriots got this game out of the way, but the hardest week of the preseason lies ahead. They are hosting the Philadelphia Eagles for a joint practice on Tuesday and then will compete against them in the second preseason game on Thursday.
"Next week we have the Eagles. So we’ll practice against them and, who knows, the reps will probably change a little bit and we’ll see what happens in the game," Mayo said.
Most Popular
Comments / 0