Getty Image / Bryan Bennett
The New England Patriots went through some real drama at the quarterback position during the 2022 season.
Mac Jones struggled early in the year before being injured.
While he was out, Bailey Zappe stepped in and led the team to a pair of wins.
When Jones was ready to return, there were some who wondered if he should immediately get his job back. He did, but was benched in the first half of his first game back.
He started the next game, but the questions about his job security continued as he struggled.
Jones never ended up relinquishing the starting job, but it appears there were some in the locker who believed Zappe might be the answer at QB.
During an appearance on “The Greg Hill Show” on WEEI, former Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty revealed that there were some guys in the locker room that thought the team should give Zappe a shot.
I think player-wise there was enough trust that we’re going to put the best guy out there. But the struggles on offense, I think there were some guys in the locker room that were like, ‘Let’s go with Zappe.’ Or, ‘No, Mac looked good today.’ It was just a back-and-forth, which to me, spoke more about what we had on offense than the quarterback. We never were solidified as an offensive group that guys had full confidence in anything we were doing. There was never true hope.
In spite of the, the Patriots’ front office appears to be committed to Mac Jones early in the 2023 offseason.
While they may still be committed now, he’ll likely need to be a lot better in 2023 if it’s going to stay that way.
Jones regressed in his 2nd season after leading the Patriots to the playoffs as a rookie, but a lot of that regression was likely caused by the team’s lack of a real offensive coordinator.
Now they have Bill O’Brien coming in to get Jones’ career back on track and just signed Juju Smith-Schuster to be his number 1 receiver.
We’ll see if he can get the unanimous support of the New England Patriots’ locker room back in 2023.