He signed here, eyes wide open about the QB situation. I don't think the Pats are in any obligation or hurry to trade him now.
"Jacoby, at Foxborough, his eyes uncovered." The first episode of the next generation.
Jacoby is 31st in the NFL QBs in terms of the 2024 contract. They gave him barely nothing. Drake Maye has a higher average annually salary (9.15 million) than Jacoby's 8 million.
If that's the rationale, it's a really bad one, and yeah, I do think you're right. It was never an actual competition.
It was only going to a competition if Jacoby look lost/washed or Maye came in and just blew the doors off. Neither of those things really happened so I think they decided to stick with the plan and not rush anything.
He kind of did though, he was terrible in the little preseason we saw.
Brissett barely played in the actual games. So we are mostly relying on media reports on how he did in practice. Which were mixed. So I wouldn’t say he looked terrible or washed.
Brissett seems to me like one of these guys who really gets it. He knows he doesn't have the absolute top-flight skills and he understands that below average NFL quarterback is actually a pretty sweet gig, all things considered. And understanding that and happily rolling with it makes him perfect for this highly specific situation.
While talking every other day about how it was an open competition? To what ends?
Because it could have been Maye's job had the unexpected happened. There was really no downside to call it an open competition this year. If Brissett sulked as a result he would have been cut or traded.
I think this is right. Also, "open competition" doesn't mean "They will only be evaluated on what happens right now, without regard to past, present or future considerations," which is how I think it was interpreted. It was open in the sense that Maye had a chance. But he had to be orders of magnitude better than Brissett to get the job. Which is fine. Mayo uses words, so they get parsed to the nth degree. Belichick made himself un-parsable.
One of the radio shows yesterday mentioned the volume of money passing back and forth between the league and its broadcast partners…lotta bs on sports radio for sure, but that made a lot of sense for who gets scoopage.
Disagree. If there wasn’t a real competition, and I don’t think there was, claiming the opposite causes credibility loss across the spectrum of team/player/media for no good reason. This isn’t State Secrets level trust or anything, but I don’t think Mayo benefited from being seen as either feckless or even disingenuous.
Hopefully one or two of the team’s myriad of assistants can find some time out of their extremely busy days to work with Maye on individual drills and other impromptu sessions with willing teammates and practice squad players.
Sure, but the sentiment is that he's not ready to handle playing against real life situations with complicated plays on both offense and defense. Side sessions with assistants aren't going to help with many of that. There have been a couple of good examples of how not playing can be better for him than playing in the various conversations on the topic, but mostly it seems the thought is that he will just magically get better by being on the sidelines. Other than having more time to learn a new language/play book and being able to work on specific skills like footwork, there seem to be to be more reasons for him to play or not even be active on game day at all than to hold a clipboard on the sidelines.
Side sessions can help with footwork. Being on the sidelines can certainly help him with learning the playbook. He could also benefit from being the scout team QB. Just need to debunk the concept that all he’ll ever be doing is holding a clipboard.
The concept isn't that "all he'll be doing is holding a clipboard", but that by not starting he won't be in position to learn as much as he could if he were the starter. If it's about learning and developing, preparing to play during the week and then actually playing are much better for him than mimicing Josh Allen on the scout team and having side sessions with a QB coach to work on his footwork. Now, if he's simply not ready to play at this point, then sure, no use playing him.
Greer was talking today about how Mahomes’ rookie year he’d usually be the scout team QB and get no reps. He took it upon himself to find some friendly younger receivers etc. (No Alex Smith guys like Hunt, Hill etc.) and after practice have those guys basically replay the offensive practice with him at QB.
Game day action is important but I think you are giving it more weight than it needs at this stage in his development. There are still many flaws in Maye's game that he needs to work on and a lot of them can be best worked on when not seeing live action or even just constant side sessions (footwork for example). Perhaps the strategy is to focus on those aspects while they try to find a flow with the rest of the offence and when the time is right they will make a switch.
And Mahomes also said that he didn't have a clue how to read defenses in his second year (first year as a starter). Seems like he didn't learn all that much just by watching.
No. Mayo will never be more forgiven for losing games than he will be this year.
Honestly he probably has two full seasons of forgiveness before the vultures come.
