Newton has been ‘best option’
Stidham continues to make progress
Bill Belichick is insistent that Cam Newton will remain the starting quarterback of the Patriots. His offensive coordinator seems to have no issue with that.
The morning after the Patriots’ 24-3 loss to the Rams, in which Newton and the offense as a whole were abysmal, the Patriots head coach again backed his quarterback, saying he was done answering questions about it. There still seems to be no consideration for backup Jarrett Stidham at this stage.
“Cam’s certainly been the best option for us all year along, since he earned the opportunity in training camp,” Josh McDaniels said Friday. “Whenever the offense struggles, I know the attention is always going to be turned to that position. Me personally, it’s my responsibility to put us in a position to be more productive than we were last night. Every time we struggle offensively and don’t score enough points to win the game, I know I have to do a better job.
“Quarterback play is dependent on a lot of things to be done right, and to be executed properly. The quarterback has to do his job, but there’s a lot of other people that go into doing that same thing and being a productive offensive unit.”
The Patriots seem to think they know enough about Stidham that he’s not better suited to win games than Newton, even if he’s only played in four games this season, all in relief duty. Belichick said the secondyear quarterback is still ascending and has room to grow.
But what exactly do they know about Stidham? Most of their evaluation is coming not from games, but the practice field.
“The biggest body of work we can see from Jarrett is in practice,” McDaniels said.
“He’s certainly made progress in some areas and he’s got room to grow as well. … In some ways he’s made the most of his opportunities but there’s definitely some things we can fix and tweak as we move forward. He’ll hopefully improve from some of the things we’ve seen on tape.”
That practice time might not tell the whole story, though. Patriots quarterbacks coach Jedd Fisch, who has only worked with Stidham this season, said he’s only been running the scout team, which means he hasn’t had much time with the offense. “There’s not a lot of plays in a practice where the No. 2 quarterback gets to work on our offense,” Fisch said.
But the Patriots still see progress in Stidham, not regression. Asked what specific improvements he’s seen in the quarterback, Fisch complimented his growing knowledge.
“We kind of always talk about in the quarterback room that knowledge is power, and the more you know, the more you understand and the more you can comprehend, the more power you have at the line of scrimmage, the more confidence you have as you play,” Fisch said. “I’ve seen some growth in terms of his confidence, growth in terms of the speed of play. He’s always been a very pure passer, he throws a very good ball. That’s always been the case from coming out of college, but what he has done is he’s continued to improve each week his ability to process and play fast.”
Harry makes strides
The biggest offensive bright spot in Thursday’s loss was N’Keal Harry, who made a few tough, contested catches, including a 30-yard completion and third-down reception over the middle.
McDaniels said Harry has had a consistent approach to practice, and Fisch said he’s been practicing at a high level, which is translating to games.
“Hopefully he can continue to build off of that and he’s got three more games at a minimum this season to be able to continue to build off of that,” Fisch said. “And then we’ll see what happens from there. But in terms of can he continue to play more, we know that these next three games, he can build and become an even better receiver than he’s been the last couple of weeks, which is fun to watch.”
Harris doing better
Damien Harris left late in Thursday’s game after suffering a back injury and didn’t return. It didn’t look good as he struggled to walk off the field, but Patriots running backs coach Ivan Fears had some encouraging news on Friday.
“He was much better by the time we left, by the time the game was over, which was great,” Fears said. “It’s one of those things, you never know what shows up today or tomorrow. We’re feeling pretty good, we’re feeling pretty confident right now, but who knows? We got banged up a little bit and we’ll go with whoever we got.”
For the first time since September, Sony Michel — who was on injured reserve — was involved in the running game during the trip to Los Angeles. He carried the ball 10 times for 35 yards against the Chargers and had seven rushes for 22 yards against the Rams.
Michel has become the clear No. 2 option behind Harris, and Fears praised his approach.
“He’s been a real team player,” Fears said. “He knows that Damien is really playing well and Sony’s sort of waiting for an opportunity to show what he can do, which is what you can expect. He’s done a good job, he’s been always up to date, of course, he always knows what to do. He’s always ready to go … he’s the kind of guy you just love having around. The kind of guy you can depend on and we’re fortunate.”