Growing up as a New York Jets fan, I had to accept the reality that Tom Brady owned my team and the AFC East for decades.
So forgive me if I get a little sad about the fact that it’s August 17th and the New England Patriots still haven’t revealed who their starting quarterback will be for the regular-season opener at Cincinnati in three weeks.
It’s a whole new era in Foxboro.
The Patriots are not only five years removed from Brady’s last snap as quarterback, but now have to move forward without Bill Belichick. Jerod Mayo got a chance to start anew after the Patriots waived former first-round pick Mac Jones.
Mayo made the safe decision to open camp, saying Jacoby Brissett was his starting quarterback because he was the most “professional-ready” guy in the room. Third overall draft pick Drake Maye is slowly starting to overtake him. On Friday, after the Pats’ second preseason game, Mayo said the competition “is definitely not over.”
Will New England wait until Week 7 or 9 to hand the reins to a rookie? The two players taken opposite Maye, Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels, are undoubtedly starters for Chicago and Washington. Maye should join them and start Week 1.
This isn’t the weirdest quarterback situation in the NFL this year; the Atlanta Falcons did this to themselves by paying Kirk Cousins a ton of money, then screwing him over by selecting Michael Penix Jr. eighth overall. But Brissett signs one-year, $8 million deal He wants to return to the team that selected him in 2016, and he’s becoming an obstacle in the Patriots’ future moving forward.
I’ve always been a quiet Brissett fan. The guy has been through some weird situations before, most notably in 2019, when Andrew Luck retired a few weeks before the season and Brissett did a great job as the Indianapolis Colts’ unexpected starter all year. Then in 2022, when he played 11 games for the Cleveland Browns after Deshaun Watson finished his suspension.
Brissett is now 31 going on 32, and if preseason results mean anything to you, he hasn’t made a splash in the world. A three-and-out in the opener before Mays came into the game. Seventeen yards and an end zone interception against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday.
Maye has shown steady improvement under the radar, finishing 6-of-11 passing in limited action on Thursday, including a rushing touchdown.
“What happened the last couple of weeks was just being able to put pressure on him. I thought he did a better job overall of using his legs and moving the game,” Mayo said.
“… He’s got to be faster, get guys in and out quicker, get to the line and just be in the right spot. That’s something he needs to work on, and he’s doing that. We have three more days of camp, and that’s what I’m going to stress to him.”
He sounds like a guy who plans on waiting until the last minute to call his name for Week 1. Belichick would be proud of this!
The Patriots — and again, as a Jets guy, I’m very happy to say this — are not going to be competitive this season, no matter the QB decision. They recently traded away disgruntled pass rusher Matthew Judon. The roster isn’t far off from beating out the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets for the AFC East, and they moved on from luring Aiyuk to the 49ers after a trade offer didn’t work out. So get Maye under center, get him game reps as soon as possible, and start preparing for their future.
Or Mayo can always get his old teammate Brady on the phone. It seems he thinks he can still throw the pigskin around.
