Did Bailey Zappe Do Enough To Earn Another Start For Patriots?

It was a tale of two halves for Bailey Zappe on Sunday.

Starting over Mac Jones, the sophomore quarterback completed just five of 12 passes for 39 yards in the first half of the Patriots’ eventual 6-0 home loss to the Chargers. But Zappe improved in the final two quarters and completed eight of 13 passes for 102 yards. He also saw Tyquan Thornton drop a potentially huge gain and DeVante Parker land out of bounds on another.

When the dust settled, Zappe was 13-of-25 for 141 yards, sacked five times, and made zero trips to the red zone. He didn’t throw any interceptions, but he didn’t score any points, either. Zappe looked like the borderline backup that he is.

“I thought he did some good things,” Bill Belichick said during his weekly WEEI appearance. “Obviously, we didn’t produce any points offensively, so that wasn’t good. That wasn’t just him. That’s everybody. We’ve got to do a better job there, but no turnovers from the quarterback position, and there were some positive plays. We just need to make more.”

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On one hand, you could argue New England’s offense looked better than it did in recent weeks with a cratering Jones at quarterback. On the other hand, you could make a case the Patriots would’ve beaten Los Angeles if Jones made the start and somehow avoided disastrous mistakes.

However, Zappe probably didn’t do anything to lose the job and should start Thursday night’s road game against the Steelers. But, as was the case last week, Belichick probably won’t show his cards until gameday.

“We just finished the game,” a very grumpy Belichick said Sunday night when asked about Zappe’s Week 14 status. “I didn’t even start on Pittsburgh yet.”

When asked the same question Monday morning, Belichick said, “We’ll talk about the gameplan here today.”

During his “The Greg Hill Show” interview, Belichick was asked whether Jones could be back under center against the Steelers.

“Everybody — look, everybody that’s active needs to be ready to play,” Belichick said, echoing his favorite line from last week. “And everybody that’s potentially active — which is practice squad players and all 53-man roster players — get ready to play and see how things turn out this week. I mean, I don’t know, there’s a number of questions, from game-planning to injuries to things like that — we’ll see how all that turns out. I don’t know.”

With only a few days and just one practice to prepare for the Steelers, it would be a surprise to see a change at quarterback for the Pittsburgh game. It would make more sense for Jones to get the long break afforded by the post-Thursday mini-bye to get his head right.

That said, Belichick’s surprising honesty after Sunday’s loss indicated he’s prepared to give Zappe a long leash. It’s entirely possible that Jones won’t play again this season unless Zappe suffers an injury.

But one thing is clear: Zappe should start against the Steelers. He wasn’t great against the Chargers, but he earned another look.