How Bailey Zappe Earned This Specific Praise From Bill Belichick

FOXBORO, Mass. — Bill Belichick clearly is impressed with Bailey Zappe.

And how could he not be? Zappe, a rookie fourth-round quarterback, followed up last week’s near-win against Aaron Rodgers by completing 17-of-21 passes for 188 yards and a touchdown in the Patriots’ 29-0 win over the Detroit Lions on Sunday. The Western Kentucky product played with poise and did far more than hand the ball off and complete a series of check-downs.

Belichick mentioned Zappe during the opening statement in his postgame press conference.

“Bailey made a lot of good decisions,” New England’s head coach said. “Was accurate with the ball. Thought he showed some poise there in some pressure situations where he got out of it and found an open receiver, made good decisions.”

The first question directed toward Belichick was, of course, about Zappe. Specifically, Belichick was asked for insight into how a full week of preparation helped Zappe before his first NFL start.

“I thought it was better,” Belichick said. “Definitely being able to get in the huddle every day, call a play, see it, execute it versus watching somebody else do it. That’s always more beneficial. But he learns well whether he’s in there or not. … He was confident out there.”

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It seemed as if Belichick was going to stop there. Instead, he paused and delivered a separate — and far more interesting — point on Zappe.

“He 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. “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.”

Ultimately, Zappe has done little more than managing the game while playing mistake-free football. He still hasn’t done much to make anyone believe he could be a long-term starter in the NFL.

And that’s fine. To this point, Zappe has given the Patriots all they could ask for from a rookie third-string quarterback — and probably more.

As for whether Zappe will play next week against the Cleveland Browns, we likely will get a clearer picture of Mac Jones’ current injury progress when the Patriots take the field for Wednesday’s practice.