Patriots Named Their Starting Quarterback and Other QB News from Taylor Heinicke to DeShaun Watson

Patriots Named Their Starting Quarterback and Other QB NewsPhoto byNew England Patriots

Head coach Jerod Mayo of the New England Patriots said yesterday that he would announce the starting quarterback today. And he is a man of his word. The Patriots named their starting quarterback; and there is some other pertinent QB news to get to as well. So let's dive in now. Jacoby Brissett will be the starting quarterback over rookie Drake May. But that seemed to be the plan all along when they brought Brissett on board as a free agent in March. According to Mayo there is no need to rush Maye onto the field but to bring him along slowly.

“There are a lot of factors that led to this choice. The hard part is thinking in the short term and the long term at the same time,” Mayo said. He added that he didn’t want to get into “hypotheticals” about possibly turning to Maye later in the season, saying, “We can’t go into the season saying [Brissett] is going to go ‘X’ amount of weeks. As long as Jacoby is going out there and performing in the way we all have confidence in him doing, he’ll be our quarterback this season.”

Last week, offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt weighed in on the quarterbacks’ development:

“There’s certain things in this offense that Jacoby, having played in this offense, understands some of the tools that you can use to get out of certain situations, pressure situations, things like that. Drake is still learning,” Van Pelt said. “The hardest position in sports is a quarterback, and especially for a rookie guy coming in and not seeing all the defenses that they’re going to see in the NFL, it’s tough. It’s hard to transition, and it takes a little bit of time. We’re going to be as patient as we can with that process,” Van Pelt concluded.

Patriots Named Their Starting Quarterback and Other QB News

In other news, according to Dianna Russini with The Athletic, the Falcons traded Taylor Heinicke to the Chargers in exchange for a conditional sixth-round pick. The Falcons had traded former starter Desmond Ridder to the Cardinals in the offseason. With Heinicke now gone, the Falcons have two QB’s, Kirk Cousin and Michael Penix Jr. They didn’t sign any to their practice squad either.

The Vikings, on the other hand, have several QB options. Per Kevin Seifert, the Vikings are signing QB Brett Rypien and waiving Jaren Hall. Another veteran behind Sam Darnold and Nick Mullens.

Field Yates reported on DeShaun Watson. The Browns have restructured the contract of QB Deshaun Watson. Converting $44.79M of his 2024 base salary into a signing bonus and creating $35.832M in cap space, per source. Cleveland now has over $62M in cap space, the most in the entire NFL.

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