What Bailey Zappe Said About Replacing Benched Mac Jones

ARLINGTON, Texas — Well, it happened again.

Mac Jones was benched Sunday night in Dallas after putting on a horrible performance against the Cowboys. He was the top reason the New England Patriots suffered a 38-3 loss — the most lopsided defeat in Bill Belichick’s career — at AT&T Stadium.

It marked the first time Jones was benched for Zappe since last October’s infamous Monday night loss to the Chicago Bears. at Gillette Stadium And, as was the case in that game, Zappe wasn’t much better than Jones on Sunday, completing four of nine passes for just 59 yards. The sophomore quarterback obviously wasn’t as bad as Jones, who committed three turnovers, but he looked like the player we saw in August before he was cut and eventually re-signed.

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Zappe answered a series of questions after the game. You can read the full transcript below.

Question: What was going through your mind when you heard you were going in?

Zappe: “Just do my job, whatever it is, hand the ball off, make my points, play good football, just do my job and that’s really about it.”

Question: Thoughts on what unfolded on the field?

Zappe: “I mean, we come out every day to get a win. When you don’t get that, there’s always things that you can look back and learn from. A good thing about it is we have 13 more games to go. We always have another opportunity next week to come out and fix the mistakes that we made and continue to improve and that’s the great part about football.”

Question: Did Mac have a message for you when you replaced him?

Zappe: “Of course there’s stuff that goes on. I’ll keep that between me, (Bill O’Brien), Mac and Coach Belichick. But the biggest thing is just always staying prepared and trying to do the best for the team, whatever your name’s called.”

Question: Thoughts on the possibility of competing for a job with Mac?

Zappe: “I just try to do my job. Whenever, if I’m not on the field, I’m trying to look at defenses, stuff that they’re doing tendency-wise, looking at the iPad, just trying to do everything I can if I’m off the field. If I’m on the field, just doing my job either way.”

Question: Do you support Mac as a leader on the team?

Zappe: “Yeah, I support Mac whenever he’s on the field and I’m off. Like I said, try to do everything I can, and then vice versa.”

The Jones-Zappe conversation surely will renew this week. And it probably should, even if Zappe remains the inferior quarterback.

However, Belichick already is taking a different approach from what we saw last. The Patriots head coach said Jones will start next Sunday when New England hosts the New Orleans Saints and also indicated Zappe won’t see an uptick in practice work this week.

That said, things can change. The Patriots will return to the practice field Wednesday.