The backup quarterback had already completed his scheduled reps and was standing on the sideline watching rookie Brian Hoyer guide the offense through the second half. But Hoyer got banged up during a possession midway through the fourth quarter, and when the Patriots’ defense retrieved the ball with 1:48 to play, head coach Bill Belichick called on O’Connell to lead the comeback bid.
“Right before it,” O’Connell said, when asked when he found out he was returning to the game. “I’m not sure if Brian was a little dinged up or what the situation was, but I was ready to go, and tried to get back in there and hopefully go win the game. We came up a little short, though.”
O’Connell took over at the Patriots’ 18-yard line without any timeouts and trailing 7-6, and they were only able to gain 22 yards before time expired. The second-stringer completed 3-of-5 passes for 15 yards on the drive, and he also scrambled twice for 26 yards and was sacked once. The Bengals did a good job of keeping everything to the inside, and O’Connell had a hard time of moving the ball down the field without stopping the clock. The game ended after O’Connell ran for 17 yards and couldn’t get out of bounds.
Even if O’Connell’s Tom Brady impression fell short, he admitted how important it was for him to experience such a situation.
“Those are the types of situations that, as a quarterback, you’ve got to love — the ball in your hands with a chance to get points or go down and try to win it,” O’Connell said. “Those are valuable reps for me.”
O’Connell finished 8-of-15 for 84 yards and a 69.9 passer rating. He took over for Brady during the Patriots’ first possession of the second quarter and had a tough go of it during his first three series when he was 1-of-5 for 14 yards.
“The first couple drives, we were just a play away there,” said O’Connell, a third-round pick out of San Diego State in 2008. “We just couldn’t convert on a couple third downs.”
O’Connell did thrive in the two-minute offense before halftime, when he completed 4-of-5 passes for 55 yards and led the Patriots to a field goal. It was the quickest the Patriots moved the ball down the field throughout the game. Still, the drive stalled at the Bengals’ 23-yard line, and Belichick opted to kick a field goal rather than go for it on fourth-and-2 with 32 seconds remaining.
“Anytime you’re out there, you believe in the guys you’re out there with, the other 10 guys, that you can go get that thing,” O’Connell said of hoping to go for it on fourth down. “But we’ve got one of the best kickers in the league, and he got us the points and we got back in the locker room and regrouped. We were going to go back out there [in the second half] and try to win the game.”
As a whole, the preseason action will only help O’Connell, who didn’t really get a quality opportunity against the Eagles. He got to run the offense during some unique situations, and even more importantly, he was thrown into the game without the chance to prepare.
Not only that, but O’Connell got the chance to interact with Brady on the sideline, which is an experience he didn’t really get to take advantage of last year. O’Connell definitely left Gillette Stadium knowing there were things he needed to improve upon, but the lessons learned were vital, as well.
“[Brady] is a great asset to have for us young guys, not only quarterbacks, but the whole team, because he’s such a great leader and he’s always there for us,” O’Connell said. “I definitely had some questions for him, and he was right there with me. That’s a special situation for us young guys to be in.”
