| The season is fast approaching, the New England Patriots haven’t yet announced their starting quarterback, and when Bill Belichick is asked about Cam Newton and Mac Jones, he talks extensively. Just not about them. In response to questions about Newton, Belichick speaks about his defenders and how they tackle, his running backs and receivers and how they handle the ball, about the offensive linemen and the work they’re doing together and even the punt team and their preseason preparation. When probed about Jones, he discusses the speed of the modern game and how every player on his roster, on both sides of the ball, needs to adapt to it. He’ll even, sometimes, address the reporter quizzing him by name – “that’s really true of every player, Mike.” But amid his near-daily briefings there are no “Cams” or “Macs,” no “Newton” or “Jones,” no “No. 1” or “No. 10” (although Jones wore the Patriots’ traditional first draft pick No. 50 for the early part of camp). It is a strategy designed to give nothing away – and Belichick has taken it to an extreme level. The first (and second) rule of the quarterback competition is … yeah, you know the score. Don’t mention it. Every day, as the campaign rolls closer, the topic of whether it will be his former MVP-winning veteran or his promising young first rounder from Alabama taking the new season’s initial snaps remains the one everyone wants to know about. And every day, amid a whole lot of words that don’t amount to much, there is no mention of the guys in question, even when the question is specifically and directly about them. Belichick is not going to tell us why he does it this way so we have little choice but to guess. Most likely it is an attempt not to play into the circus of preseason, where limited information means that each phrase uttered about key players in a position battle are parsed and scrutinized, even the tone of voice they were delivered in. Belichick probably knows who he is planning to start under center when New England hosts the Miami Dolphins on Sept. 12, but he doesn’t want to show his hand to the general public or to either of the men involved. At the same time, he doesn’t want them to think too much about the competition, and not enough about how they can individually improve. “We’ve told all the players from back in May when we started, which is the absolute truth, not to spend a lot of time worrying about who else is out there with you,” Belichick said. “Worry about what you’re doing and try to get it right. I think that’s the most important thing for each and every one of us is if we would focus on what our job is, how to do it well, how to do it better.” This wasn’t an issue when Tom Brady was in town. No one was guessing about who would be handling the opening plays of a season in Foxborough for nearly two decades. Now they are, after Newton struggled at times during the Patriots first losing year in recent memory and Jones was the fifth QB taken off the board. “Is there a franchise right now in the NFL that has a worse quarterback situation than New England?” FS1’s Colin Cowherd asked on “The Herd.” “You have Cam, a former playmaker who’s beat up physically and a shell of his former self. And then you have a kid with a low ceiling who’s not really ready to play.” It feels like a sideshow but it is hard to know even how to describe it, as it’s far from trivial to the team’s chances. It’s one of the more fascinating stories of the summer, we all want more information about it and yet the coach doesn’t even want to acknowledge it exists. Newton showed some irritation when quizzed this week and said Belichick has not given him any kind of indication one way or another. “Y’all sitting up here asking silly questions to me, and I’m looking at y’all with the same thing, so I don’t know what y’all want me to say,” Newton said. “No, you know that he hasn’t said that, so for you to just ask the question, you know what it is. “Every single day, I’m coming out here with the anticipation to get better and, that’s the only thing that I can do.” Newton and Jones both have some limitations, but they are all Belichick has to work with right now. In truth, there are plenty of teams with a worse QB position, this one just stings so severely because it comes on the back of all the years of Brady’s consistent excellence. Belichick didn’t win six Super Bowl rings by being unable to deal with adversity and he will have his own ideas on how to shepherd the offensive unit toward a productive campaign. For now, however, the code of silence rules – and the guessing game must continue. Here’s what others have said … Marcellus Wiley, Speak For Yourself: “He (Newton) knows that going out there and acting like how he feels is not going to get him anywhere. You gotta go perform, and that’s as simple as it gets.” Jason La Canfora, CBS Sports: “The contrasts between Jones, 22, and Newton, 32, coming off a 2020 campaign in which his ability to push the ball downfield and command a requisite aerial attack were both called into question, are striking. They are quite opposite in so many ways.” Danny Jaillet, Yahoo Sports: “These next couple of weeks could prove to be crucial in the quarterback position battle. The final three preseason games may paint a clear picture in that regard.” |
