FOXBORO, Mass. — Still wondering if it’ll be veteran Jacoby Brissett or rookie Drake Maye who starts at quarterback for the New England Patriots in the Sept. 8 season opener in Cincinnati? While every other team in the NFL has already named a starting quarterback, the Pats were content with holding a news conference Wednesday afternoon to announce who’ll be deciding who their starting quarterback will be.
And according to rookie head coach Jerod Mayo, the person who will be doing the deciding is rookie head coach Jerod Mayo.
“Ultimately it’s my decision to make,” Mayo said.
In the event there were some in the back of the room who couldn’t hear what was being said, Mayo made it abundantly clear.
“I’m sure they all have an opinion on who they think should be the starting quarterback,” Mayo said, referring to his own players, “but I don’t think I have to explain it to anyone else. It’s my decision, and if it doesn’t work, blame me. Blame me.”
But what about vice president of player personnel Eliot Wolf?
“He definitely weighs in, but I would say once again it’s my decision to make,” Mayo said. “And a lot of people have opinions and how they think about things, and I’ve lost quite a bit of sleep trying to think about this stuff as well. I would ultimately put it on me.”
LIVE: Jerod Mayo Press Conference 8/28:
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) August 28, 2024
And so it went during this, the first news conference of Mayo’s New England coaching tenure that could be labeled as, oh, let’s call it interesting. The session wasn’t as over the top as when Bill Parcells accused ownership of not letting him shop for the groceries, or as head-scratchy as that time back in the good ol’ days of Deflategate when Bill Belichick invoked Mona Lisa Vito from “My Cousin Vinny.” But it’s definitely something Pats fans are going to be talking about for a while.
So, who should quarterback the Patriots? If the Pats go with Maye, it’ll be for the obvious reason: He was the No. 3 selection in the 2024 NFL Draft and looked better than Brissett during the preseason. If the Patriots choose Brissett, it’ll be for the obvious reason: You don’t want to risk getting Maye hurt by putting him behind offensive linemen who’ve been performing with the kind of precision you’d expect from the little plastic players in those old Electric Football games.
The media room at Gillette Stadium was a crowded, bustling place early Wednesday afternoon, this in anticipation Mayo would pull open a curtain to reveal either Brissett or Maye. Early on, as in before training camp began, the indication was that the Patriots would go with the codger (Brissett) over the kid (Maye). But then the Pats started playing actual preseason football, and that’s when Mayo started talking about a quarterback “competition.” Where are we now? As of Wednesday, it’s deciding who does the deciding, that’s where.
And yet there’s news value in Mayo putting it out there that it’s his decision — he said so not once, not twice, but three times — because the ongoing storyline prior to Wednesday was that it would be a “collaborative effort” involving Mayo, Wolf and first-year offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. So glowingly did Mayo talk about this “collaborative effort” that after a while it began to sound a little too “Kumbaya,” as though they’d be picking a quarterback while sitting ‘round a campfire.
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For those who believe front-office people should acquire players and that coaches should determine how to deploy them, it came as good news Wednesday that Mayo was raising his hand and talking like, well, like a head coach. It did come across as a tad performative, Mayo saying over and over and over that Brissett/Maye would be his call, but at least he’s on record now.
And just so we’ll never need to have this conversation again, allow me to explain why it’s vitally important that Mayo gets to pick his starting quarterback. One word: Belichick. When it comes to the actual coaching part of being a head coach, he’s just about the best there’s ever been. But when it comes to drafting players? The Patriots have been contracting with Greyhound this week to transport former Belichick draft-day selections out of Foxboro.
Translation: If you don’t want a coach doing your drafting, you shouldn’t have front-office people — and owners for that matter, and hello there, Kraft family! — doing your coaching.
If Mayo is to be believed, the Patriots have arrived at this separation of powers. Pats fans should pray he’s on the level.
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(Photo: Eric Canha / USA Today)