BREAKING: The Patriots has made a decision at quarterback, but Jerod Mayo will not disclose it until……
The Patriots have made their decision on quarterback. But we’ll have to wait another day to find out whether Jacoby Brissett or Drake Maye will start in Week 1 against the Cincinnati Bengals.
According to Jerod Mayo, even Brissett and Maye do not know yet.
The first-year head coach informed reporters at Gillette Stadium on Wednesday that a choice had been made, but he would not announce it until Thursday. He’ll brief his players about the decision during morning meetings, and then he’ll make a formal announcement.
“I’m going to speak with the individual players and hold a team meeting tomorrow. “Then I’ll get it to you,” Mayo said on Wednesday.
Asked HC Jerod Mayo about the QB spot and naming a starter – @patriots @wbz pic.twitter.com/b1A7a2gogZ
— Dan Roche (@RochieWBZ) August 28, 2024
Why not simply tell everyone on Wednesday? Mayo described the morning as “hectic” as the team continued to make roster changes. While the Patriots made a number of moves to get to 53 players on Tuesday, including dismissing backup quarterback Bailey Zappe, Mayo indicated there was more work to be done Wednesday on the waiver wire and creating the practice squad. That did not allow the head coach enough time to hold positional sessions on Wednesday morning.
“Honestly, I want those guys to hear it from me before they hear it from someone else,” he told me. “As much as you’d like to have squad meetings, time constraints sometimes make that impossible.
“So I’ll see you guys right here tomorrow, is that it?” Mayo chuckled.
The trouble is, Mayo isn’t scheduled to speak with media again until next week. Perhaps he will make a surprise appearance on Thursday to make the big announcement.
Patriots players will speak with reporters in the locker room at 10:15 a.m. on Thursday, before to their 11 a.m. practice. The club will then be off from Friday to Monday before returning on Tuesday for Week 1 of the NFL season.
Mayo stated that offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf were involved in the decision-making process, but the final choice was his.
“It’s my decision and if it doesn’t work out, blame me,” replied the man. “I feel like I’m doing what’s best for the team with the decision that I’ve made.”
While Maye outperformed Brissett in preseason action, as Mayo admitted on Monday, that doesn’t guarantee the rookie will start over the veteran. Mayo stated that when deciding who would be the team’s Week 1 starter, he considered both players’ whole bodies of work from the summer.
“It is more than simply one day or game. “It’s everything,” Mayo explained. “The things people perform well or poorly are weighted differently. It’s the entire corpus of work; spring, summer, and all that.”
Mayo also stated that what is best for the squad at the beginning of the season may not be best for the team later in the season. That is certainly an indication that the team would stick with Brissett to start the season and let Maye mature on the sidelines, but Mayo also sees Maye playing in 2024.
“I think it’s important to remember what’s good for the team today may not be good for the team weeks down the line,” Mayo remarked. “The challenge is, you want to win every single game now, but also, we’re trying to build something special here.”
