Bailey Zappe Or Mac Jones? Bill Belichick Won’t Touch Hypothetical

Bailey Zappe played well Sunday in his first NFL start. If he continues to do so, could he eventually leapfrog Mac Jones on the Patriots’ quarterback depth chart?

Bill Belichick had no interest in discussing that hypothetical Monday.

Speaking on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” one day after the Zappe-led Patriots shut out the Lions 29-0 at Gillette Stadium, New England’s head coach swatted away a question about whether he could envision the fourth-round rookie starting over a healthy Jones.

“Yeah, I’m not going to get into a lot of hypotheticals on all the different things that might or might not happen and all that,” Belichick said. “That’s, to me, a waste of time. I’m not going to sit around here and dream up scenarios and all that. We’ll take things as they come and go from there.

“Obviously, Mac wasn’t active (Sunday), so it wasn’t any part of any decision (Sunday).”

Jones is dealing with a high ankle sprain that’s kept him out of the Patriots’ last two games, and Zappe has impressed in his absence. The Western Kentucky product nearly steered New England to an overtime upset at Lambeau Field after replacing injured top backup Brian Hoyer, then delivered an efficient, largely mistake-free performance against the Lions.

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Zappe completed 17 of 21 passes for 188 yards and one touchdown in Sunday’s lopsided victory, with his lone interception coming on a throw that Nelson Agholor dropped. The Patriots, though, scored just one offensive touchdown, and Zappe was buoyed by excellent offensive line play, with that unit surrendering zero sacks, zero QB hits and just two total pressures, according to Pro Football Focus. (Detroit did have one sack wiped out by a defensive penalty.)

“(Zappe) does a good job of seeing the game and can come off and identify and articulate what he saw, what happened — and that’s usually right,” Belichick said in his postgame news conference. “What he saw is usually what I saw or, maybe, when you look at the film, maybe there’s something that’s a little gray in there, his explanation is actually good. It was the way he saw it. Maybe he might not have done the right thing, but he saw the game.

“And that goes all the way back to preseason. He played a lot in preseason. I think those snaps were good for him. He learned a lot, we learned a lot. And I think there’s definitely some benefit to the playing time that he had in preseason in the games that he’s played the last two weeks.”

Zappe’s emergence as a viable fill-in allows the Patriots to be patient with Jones rather than rushing him back from an injury that often takes a month-plus to heal. Their next five games (at Browns, vs. Bears, at Jets, vs. Colts, bye, vs. Jets) are winnable regardless of who’s behind center, as long as New England’s run game and defense perform the way they have of late. Jones was able to practice in a limited capacity last week, so it’s unclear how much longer he’ll be sidelined.

Any talk, though, of Zappe pulling a 2001 Tom Brady and stealing Jones’ job is premature.