Patriots’ Bailey Zappe Not Concerned Despite Decreasing Reps

Jacoby Brissett and Drake Maye is the QB competition getting all the hype around New England, but the Patriots have a more competitive battle happening in the same position room.

Bailey Zappe or Joe Milton III?

The Patriots are still working through the early kinks of training camp, but three days in Zappe and Milton have been the only two signal-callers to move on the unofficial depth chart — with the former finding himself getting the least amount of total competitive reps (24).

“The quality is what you make of it. The quantity is all the same,” Zappe said Friday, per team-provided video. “I don’t really get into — ‘Oh, he got one more than I did’ or anything like that. That’s left to the coaches. It’s based off the quality of those reps.”

Milton received third-team reps Thursday, with Zappe returning to that spot Friday. It’s been fairly even across the board, which is something we should probably begin to expect moving forward.

“Sometimes maybe you have Joe get more reps, maybe you have Zappe get more reps,” Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo said Friday, per team-provided video. “The one person I will say is going to get a lot of reps is, obviously Jacoby knows the offense, but Drake is going to have an opportunity to go out there and compete. Look, all four of those quarterbacks do have a skill set that we like. We’ll just see how it plays out.”

Zappe is the incumbent, but given the fact New England is installing a new offense he and Milton are essentially on a level playing field.

“You just do what you can do with the reps that you can get,” Zappe said. “Like Mayo said, it’s a competition, reps are going to be switched back and forth. The days that you do get less reps means you have to put more emphasis on the reps that you do get. Every day is a new day. You just have to come out and attack it.”

Zappe has been efficient through the first three days of camp, completing 75% (18-of-24) of his passes. Maye completed 73% (33-of-45), Brissett completed 73% (32-of-44), as well, while Milton is at 71% (22-of-31).

It’s been fairly even across the board when it comes to completions, but until Zappe finds himself closer to Milton, it can be assumed there’s a new leader in the clubhouse for that QB3 job.