The Patriots’ quarterback conundrum is entirely Bill Belichick’s creation

Now Belichick has two young quarterbacks who could be facing a crisis of confidence.

It's hard to see through the noise and put the Patriots' quarterback strategy in focus.

By Chad Finn, The Boston Globe

October 25, 2022

5 minutes to read

Welcome to the Unconventional Review, an instant reaction to standouts, stats, and storylines from the Patriots’ most recent game . . .

Just when it seemed like the Patriots were putting it together, it all fell apart.

That applies to Monday night’s embarrassing 33-14 loss to the Bears in which the Patriots did not score another point after taking a fleeting 14-10 lead in the second quarter.

And it applies to the state of the season, with an encouraging two-game winning streak now evaporated and a quarterback controversy entirely of Bill Belichick’s making suddenly looking like it lacks one appealing option, let alone two.

Belichick handled the team’s quarterback situation with bizarre secrecy, even by his standards, this week, refusing to say whether Mac Jones, who had missed the previous three games with a high ankle sprain, or rookie Bailey Zappe, who won both of his starts and won over the fan base in Jones’s absence, would start.

It was still a mystery leading up to game time. Jones ultimately got the start, but after throwing a brutal interception early in the second quarter, he was pulled for Zappe, eliciting short-sighted roars from the Gillette Stadium crowd. Zappe rallied the Patriots to a brief four-point lead, but the Bears soon solved him, batting down several passes, recovering a fumble on a botched handoff, and intercepting him twice.

Now Belichick has two young quarterbacks who could be facing a crisis of confidence, largely due to how he handled this situation, and the weirdest part of it all is this: According to ESPN sideline reporter Lisa Salters, Belichick told her at halftime that Jones would come back in the game at some point. He never did.

How bad was it by the end? The highlight of the second half was probably Bears defensive back Kyler Gordon’s wide-eyed reaction when he checked his rear-view mirror and realized Patriots speedster Tyquan Thornton was running him down from behind after an interception. Yep, it was that kind of night.

Some further thoughts, upon immediate review . . .

THREE PLAYERS WHO WERE WORTH WATCHING

Players suggested in the Unconventional Preview: Jakobi Meyers, Rhamondre Stevenson, Matthew Judon.

Justin Fields: I usually don’t include the quarterbacks in this section because the spotlight is always aimed their way anyway, but I’ve got a loophole here. I’m not talking about Fields the strong-armed but very erratic passer, but Fields the runner, and how he set the tone for a dominant Bears running game. The Patriots never solved him, whether he was taking off on a designed run or a broken play. Fittingly, Fields scored the first touchdown of the game, cutting sharply to elude Myles Bryant and charge in from 3-yards out for a 10-0 Bears lead in the first quarter. He ended up the game’s leading rusher, gaining 82 of the Bears’ 243 rushing yards. Overall, Chicago ran 45 times, with David Montgomery — who scored a late TD and never quits on a play — and Khalil Herbert each gaining 62 yards. Herbert also had a 25-yard catch-and-run for a score. The Bears entered the game averaging 170.8 yards per game, the second-best rushing attack in the league, but after watching the Patriots shut down the Browns’ Nick Chubb last week, perhaps there was some overconfidence in their ability to slow the Bears.

Roquan Smith: Meanwhile, the Patriots couldn’t get anything going on the ground, finishing with a paltry 70 yards on 19 carries. Rhamondre Stevenson did punch in the touchdown that put the Patriots ahead 14-10, but he finished with just 39 yards, and their second-leading rusher — how sad is this? — was Mac Jones, with 24 yards in a quarter of work. Smith, the Bears’ fifth-year inside linebacker, was everywhere the Patriots were trying to go and disrupting everything they were trying to do. He finished with 12 tackles, eight solo, while collecting a third-quarter sack of Zappe — he blew past rookie Cole Strange — and picking off a tipped Zappe pass in the fourth quarter to punctuate his superb performance.

Matthew Judon: The Patriots’ most consistently excellent defensive player was awfully fun to watch when there was still some genuine hope for the Patriots, collecting 2.5 sacks in the first half to bring his season total to 8.5. Judon split the first sack with Mack Wilson Sr. on a third-and-10 takedown of Fields in the first quarter, then added a pair by himself in the second quarter.

GRIEVANCE OF THE GAME

This entire column is trending toward being a listing of specific Patriots grievances, blunders, and embarrassments, so let’s go broad here: The defensive performance, First-Half Matthew Judon excluded, was a debacle. The Patriots gave up 23 unanswered points after taking a 14-10 lead in the second quarter, and 33 overall, to a Bears offense that came in averaging 15.5 per game, 30th in the league. They allowed a Bears offense averaging 293.7 yards per game, 30th in the league, to rack up 390 yards. They allowed the Bears to convert 11 of 18 third downs. They couldn’t prevent Fields from running to convert five third downs. And they forced just one turnover — a Myles Bryant interception after Judon tipped a Fields pass. I’m not saying this reminded me exactly of the 2009 playoff loss to the Ravens when Baltimore ran them off the field in — hey, this score looks familiar — a 33-14 win, but let’s just say I was mildly surprised not to see Gary Guyton’s name on the stat sheet.

THREE NOTES SCRIBBLED IN THE MARGINS

(Predicted final score: Patriots 46, Bears 10. That’s regrettable.)

(Final score: Bears 33, Patriots 14)

Trent Brown committed four penalties, including a hold on the Patriots’ second play from scrimmage, another hold and a false start within the first 10 minutes of the game, and a tripping penalty in the third quarter. If that was his way of paying homage to fellow tackle Isaiah Wynn, the most penalized player in the league this season, who missed the game with a shoulder injury, he went way over the top . . . What’s going on with Jake Bailey? Is he punting with the wrong foot or something? To end the Patriots’ second possession, he kicked an underwhelming 36-yarder that allowed the Bears to start at their own 44. He hit a worse one in the third quarter, a 33-yarder to the Bears’ 34 that Dante Pettis returned 27 yards. He’s had a rough season after agreeing to a four-year extension in August that came with a $6.25 million signing bonus . . . Former Patriot N’Keal Harry had one catch — his first for the Bears — for 14 yards. That might not seem like much, but it is one more yard than Mac Jones passed for, so it’s all about perspective.