‘We went with who was best’: Bill Belichick bluntly explained why he started Brian Hoyer in loss to Chiefs
Belichick also shared why he couldn't challenge the call on the sack of Patrick Mahomes.
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“I think we’ve done everything right and what we’re supposed to do,” Belichick said when asked by reporters if he had any concern about playing on Monday. “So, it’s in the hands of medical people here.”
Cam Newton’s positive test for the coronavirus caused the league to push back the Patriots’ game from Sunday to Monday. They were also forced to travel to Kansas City on Monday morning.
Belichick, in the wake of Newton’s positive test, wore two masks while coaching Monday’s game, which the Patriots lost 26-10.
While Belichick believes that his team is doing everything right in regards to dealing with COVID-19, he thought the opposite of the Patriots’ performance on Monday.
“It was a disappointing night,” Belichick said. “We had some opportunities, we just weren’t able to take advantage of them. You can’t give a good football team those kind of opportunities. We competed hard we just didn’t make enough plays. We turned the ball over four times and had too many penalties. We just didn’t play good enough.”
With Newton out, Belichick tabbed veteran journeyman Brian Hoyer as the team’s starter against Kansas City. Hoyer, who is in his sixth season with the Patriots over three stints, had never started a game for New England in his career.
“We went with who was best,” Belichick said of his decision to start Hoyer. “That’s what we did.”
Hoyer’s night was full of miscues.
On the first play of the Patriots’ third drive, Hoyer threw an interception that gave the Chiefs the ball at the Patriots’ 23-yard line.
Luckily for Hoyer, the Chiefs fumbled two players later and gave the Patriots back the ball. That led to Hoyer’s only scoring drive of the night, which ended with a Nick Folk field goal to cut the Chiefs’ lead to 6-3.
Hoyer had a chance to tie the game or give New England the lead going into halftime. However, on 3rd-and-9 from the Chiefs’ 13-yard line with eight seconds left, Hoyer took a 13-yard sack. Hoyer looked to call for a timeout, but the Patriots had used them all earlier in the drive and had nothing to show for their 13-play drive before halftime.
Belichick said there wasn’t any miscommunication with Hoyer on whether or not the team had any timeouts remaining.
“We were out of timeouts,” Belichick said.
Frank Clark with the SACK to end the half! #ChiefsKingdom
📺: #NEvsKC on CBS
📱: NFL app // Yahoo Sports app: https://t.co/9fyGwoYxWA pic.twitter.com/wtUkOUPUln— NFL (@NFL) October 6, 2020
After a three-and-out on the opening drive of the second half, Hoyer again led the Patriots into the Chiefs’ red zone. This time, he was stripped sacked by Taco Charlton and the Chiefs ended up with the ball.
That was Hoyer’s final play of the night.
Jarrett Stidham replaced Hoyer on the Patriots’ next drive. Down 13-3, Stidham led the Patriots on a six-play, 75-yard drive that ended with him throwing a four-yard touchdown pass to N’Keal Harry, cutting the lead to 13-10 early in the fourth quarter.
With Stidham’s quick success, Belichick was asked why Hoyer wasn’t pulled sooner.
“I don’t know, not a lot,” Belichick said when asked if he thought about starting Stidham in the second. “(We) just try to play better. We were down by three points and missed some opportunities in the first half. So, we were just trying to find ways to keep playing well. It was a three-point game.”
Another moment that raised a lot of questions in Monday night’s game came in the first half when the Patriots appeared to force a turnover on Patrick Mahomes.
Defensive ends Chase Winovich and Deatrich Wise Jr. got to Mahomes, knocking the ball free and directly into the hands of Shilique Calhoun.
While it was clear that Calhoun caught the ball before it hit the ground, it did not matter. Lead official Tony Corrente called Mahomes down on the play even though his whistle appeared to be blown after the ball was lost.
“I felt that he was being controlled quite a bit prior to him actually going to the ground,” Corrente told a pool report of the play after the game. “And as he was being controlled, other players were coming in at him. And so with those other players baring down on him, a quarterback is considered in the grasp and his forward progress is considered stopped when I feel as though the player’s safety is being jeopardized. And that was the case in this instance. So, rather than allow him to get hit by a second and third player, we shut it down and considered it forward progress at that point.”
Terrible call. The #Patriots should have the football. Also…Mahomes still doesn’t trust what he’s seeing and when he’s seeing it, he’s seeing his guys covered. #Patriots #Chiefs @nflnetwork @AroundTheNFL pic.twitter.com/Lf6sKKNhQg
— Mike Giardi (@MikeGiardi) October 6, 2020
Belichick appeared upset about the call on the sidelines but said he couldn’t challenge it.
“He called forward progress and he was down,” Belichick said. “You can’t challenge that. You call him down, you call it forward progress.”
Corrente also said the play wasn’t able to be challenged.
“No, because the play was shut down and stopped prior to the fumble occurring, or prior to him losing control of the football,” Corrente said. “There was no reviewable aspect of that play.”
Monday marked the return of running back Damien Harris, who missed the first three games of the season due to a hand injury.
Harris rushed for 100 yards on 17 carries, but Belichick said he couldn’t really evaluate his performance right after the game.
“I can’t evaluate everybody out there tonight,” Belichick said. “I was trying to do what I could to help the team win. We’ll look at film. I’m sure everybody had some good plays. I’m sure everybody had some plays they wish they could have had over again. That’s the way it always is in the National Football League.”
After Stidham replaced Hoyer, he threw two interceptions himself, giving the Patriots four turnovers for the game to the Chiefs’ one.
Belichick continued to harp on the missed opportunities.
“We’ve just got to do a better job of coaching and playing and taking advantage of our opportunities,” Belichick said. “We missed some in all three phases of the game. We’ll keep working to improve those and getting better.”
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