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New England Patriots fans weren’t happy with what they saw in the 33-14 loss on Monday night at home against the Chicago Bears. Thanks to a Twitter poll, Pats Nation voted on the team’s starting QB.
The Boston Globe’s Christopher Price posted a poll to discover who New England fans wanted to start in Week 7 vs. the New York Jets. Price included Mac Jones, Bailey Zappe, and even practice squad veteran Garrett Gilbert. However, he left the injured Brian Hoyer out of the mix.
Jones was the overwhelming favorite, despite the thousands of fans who chanted “Zappe! Zappe! Zappe!” when Jones threw a first-quarter interception.
Who should start at quarterback for the Patriots against the Jets?
This poll doesn’t encompass the opinions of everyone in Patriots Nation. Still, over 1,000 fans of a prominent writer for the team should be able to generate a fairly telling result with this kind of poll.
More than 61% of the fans voting to select Jones probably means that this is the consensus. The question moving forward for the Patriots is: does Bill Belichick feel the same way?
Has Bill Belichick Lost Confidence in Mac Jones?
According to Belichick on Monday night and even on Tuesday during his follow-up meeting with the media, he’d always planned to play both Jones and Zappe against the Bears on Monday night.
Whether Belichick planned to play both quarterbacks or not, it’s a peculiar strategy to use with a young quarterback who has seemingly been put into a position to be the team’s leader moving forward. The Patriots elected Jones, a team captain, and selected him with the No. 15 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.
They dumped a veteran and former league MVP Cam Newton to adorn Jones with the starting spot ahead of the 2021 season. Jones responded with a solid rookie campaign. He has struggled mightily under the new direction of the team’s offensive leadership with Matt Patricia.
After just three series, benching Jones looked like a clear message that he didn’t believe in his second-year signal caller. The fact that he never returned to Jones was perhaps even more telling.
Belichick doesn’t look as confident in Jones as it originally seemed, and now the team has something it hasn’t had in decades, and that’s an identity crisis.
What’s the Bottom Line With Bailey Zappe?
Zappe took a lot of flack for his performance against the Bears, but he was put into a tough situation. He played decently on the first two drives as he led New England on their only two scoring drives of the game.
However, a game and well-prepared Bears defense clamped down on him with two interceptions and a forced fumble that came on a botched handoff from Zappe to Jakobi Meyers. It appeared that some trickery was coming considering Meyers is a former quarterback, and the Patriots have used him on gadget plays in the past two seasons.
Zappe still puts a little more zip on his passes and is seemingly more definitive with some of his decisions. One of his interceptions was a tipped pass. The other was thrown well behind his receiver.
It is still a little too soon to pass judgment on Zappe overall, but if Belichick listens to Pats Nation, we might have seen the last of the rookie this season.