Bill Belichick won’t guarantee Mac Jones’ starting spot, what’s up with that?
Injury aside, the Bills starter hasn’t been playing well. Now, with the emergence of Bailey Zappe it may be that Jones’ role is under threat.
If injury wasn’t bad enough, it now seems that the Bills starting QB may have another concern after his coach wouldn’t guarantee that his spot was safe.
Patriots’ Bill Belichick won’t commit to QB Mac Jones
It’s been a tough time during what is his second season with the Patriots for quarterback Mac Jones. The former No. 15 overall pick in 2021 NFL Draft has seen his share of injuries this campaign and has in fact missed New England’s last two games due to a high-ankle sprain. Though reports have suggested, that there is a “decent chance” that he will play in Week 6 against the Browns, head coach Bill Belichick seemingly threw cold water on that notion, when speaking on Wednesday. What’s more, is that Belichick appeared to cast doubt on whether Jones would even retain his starting spot.
“We’ll see,” the coach said when asked if Jones will reclaim his QB1 role once healthy. “I don’t know.”
Concerning QBs, Belichick was unclear at best
Though his comments about Jones definitely raised eyebrows, it’s worth noting that Belichick didn’t give away much regarding the Patriots’ QB situation on the whole. When asked if Jones’ ankle had improved enough such that he’d face Cleveland, the veteran coach gave no comment other than “We’ll see what it looks like today and go from there.” Interestingly, Belichick was quick to quash suggestions that Jones’ timeline for return had been affected by the performance of third string QB, Bailey Zappe. As he denied the idea, Belichick called Zappe’s showing against the Packers and Lions “totally independent” of any progress made by Jones.
It should be said that this is not the first time that Belichick has thrown the names of the two signal callers into the proverbial hat. If you’ve been following, you will recall that just earlier this week Belichick seemed to imply that Zappe could start ahead of whether it’s due to injury or not. “I’m not going to get into a lot of hypotheticals on all those different things that might or might not happen,” he said at the time. “That’s just, to me, a waste of time. I’m not going to sit around and dream up scenarios and all of that. We’ll take things as they come and go from there.” For the record, Zappe has two touchdowns and one interception so far. The fourth round NFL Draft pick - just this year - has completed 75% of his passes while covering for the aforementioned Jones and Brian Hoyer who is out with a head injury. We should say, Jones hasn’t been at his best even before the ankle injury. In their 1-2 start, Jones has got five interceptions on his CV which is not a good look.