The New England Patriots were one of the teams around the NFL this offseason that was holding a quarterback competition. Veteran Jacoby Brissett, who went back to his original team as a free agent, was competing with rookie Drake Maye.
The No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Maye had looked good during the offseason. At some stops along the way, he was outperforming the veteran Brissett, which had a lot of people wondering if he would be the starter once the regular season rolled around.
First-year head coach Jerod Mayo was playing things close to the vest when it came to naming a starter. Brissett seemed to be ahead most of the summer, and anyone who predicted he would be the starter ended up being correct.
On Thursday, Mayo officially announced that it will be the veteran under center as the starting quarterback.
“We have decided, or I have decided, that Jacoby Brissett will be our starting quarterback this season,” Mayo said Thursday. “In saying that, as an organization, we are 100% behind Jacoby. There is no ‘You got a guy right here, you got a guy right there.’ We’re 100% behind Jacoby.”
A third-round pick of the Patriots back in 2016, Brissett was handling a majority of the starting snaps this offseason. Maye definitely made a late charge to take over the starting spot, but it wasn’t enough to unseat the veteran.
Naturally, attention then turned to when Maye could take over as the starter. It wasn’t something Mayo was entertaining, as he doesn’t want to speak about hypotheticals.
“I don’t want to get into hypotheticals. We can’t go into the season saying, ‘He’s going to go “x” amount of weeks.’ As long as Jacoby is going out there performing the way we all have confidence in him doing, he’ll be our quarterback this season.”
The experience of Brissett seems to be what led to him winning the starting job. He has 48 starts under his belt in the NFL with 79 career appearances.
His knowledge of the playbook is also vast. Offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt was with the Cleveland Browns in 2022 with Brissett, so he had a leg up on Maye when it came to understanding the offense out of the gate.
“There’s certain things in this offense that Jacoby, having played in it, understands some of the tools you can use to get out of certain situations, pressure situations,” Van Pelt said. “Things like that that Drake is still learning. He is pushing.”
It sounds as if Maye gave Brissett a run for his money. But, in the end, it was the veteran who won out and will be leading the New England Patriots’ offense at the start of the season.
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