New England Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo's Thursday announcement that veteran Jacoby Brissett will be his starting quarterback in Week 1 of the regular season against the Cincinnati Bengals seems to be more about the team’s highly flawed offensive line than any indictment of rookie Drake Maye's development.
Interestingly enough, it's not the first time the Patriots have turned to Brissett as a surprise starter under odd circumstances. New England selected Brissett out of North Carolina State in the third round of the 2016 draft, and it's a good thing they did. New England began that season with Tom Brady suspended the first four games due to his involvement in the Deflategate scandal, and Jimmy Garoppolo was the man in charge while Brady served his time.
That strategy worked until Garoppolo suffered a shoulder injury against the Miami Dolphins in the second game of the season, which put Brissett in the crucible. Brissett completed six of nine passes against Miami for 92 yards in relief, also rushing four times for 12 yards.
In Week 3 of the 2016 season, Brissett and the Patriots faced the Houston Texans, who had a top defense and were coached by Bill O'Brien, Bill Belichick's former and future offensive coordinator. Everyone knew that Belichick was one of the greatest adapters in football history, with his ability to tailor his schemes to his personnel. But nobody expected what the Patriots put on the field against Houston's defense in what became a 27-0 rout in New England's favor.
Belichick and his staff basically took their offense back to a read-option system in which Brissett — who had 283 rushing attempts for 902 yards and 12 touchdowns at North Carolina State and Florida before that — led with his legs. The Texans had absolutely no answer for it. Brissett completed 11 of 19 passes for 103 yards, no touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 72.9. But on the ground? He was lethal, gaining 48 yards and scoring a touchdown on eight carries.
"It was crazy," Brissett said of his 27-yard rushing touchdown, in which the Texans gave him a cow pasture to the end zone. "It was awesome. Definitely great to see all the players just run up to you. I got a headache from all the head-bobbing and head-bumping. But it was definitely worth it."
Brissett became the first Black quarterback ever to start a game for the Patriots, a franchise that had been around since 1960. And outside of Steve Grogan, who was a proverbial sneaky-athletic guy for the team in the 1970s and 1980s, you never really saw this kind of quarterback run game from anybody with Pat Patriot on his helmet.
Brissett lasted just one season with the Patriots in his first go-round; he was traded to the Indianapolis Colts on September 2, 2017, because Andrew Luck was dealing with injuries. He signed a one-year, $8 million deal with his first NFL team this offseason with $6.5 million guaranteed, and the idea was always that he'd be the veteran ballast for Maye, the North Carolina alum selected third overall in the 2024 NFL draft.
Will Jerod Mayo, who retired as a Patriots linebacker the year before Brissett's unexpected performance, give the Bengals something similar to think about with his quarterback as a runner? If so, there is a past that would be an interesting prologue.
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