The Backup Plan
Patriots’ QB situation n looms large over camp mp
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Bill Belichick cleared up at least one thing Wednesday: Tom Brady will get his starting job back from Jimmy Garoppolo when Brady’s Deflategate suspension ends.
Everything else about the Patriots’ quarterback situation the next two months was fluid at the opening of training camp as it started to sink in here they will open a regular season with someone other than Brady as the starter for the first time since 2001.
Belichick tried to spin Brady’s decision earlier this month — to wave the white flag in his federal appeal and serve a four-game suspension — as a positive, saying it gave Belichick and the Patriots “definition with his situation.”
At least one of Brady’s teammates, though, wasn’t so optimistic.
“It’s an adjustment,” safety Devin McCourty said Wednesday. “Obviously, you can’t take the field without a guy like [Brady] and think you’re just going to go out there and pick up where you left off last year and fall right into stride.”
Whether that sentiment is shared throughout the Patriots locker room was impossible to decipher Wednesday. McCourty and special teams captain Matthew Slater were the only players Belichick made available to a throng of local and national media on reporting day.
Brady’s feelings aside from his statement on Facebook earlier this month probably won’t be known soon, either. The team said it is un-unlikely the star quarterback will speak to the media after the Patri-Patriots’ first day of practice Thursday ursday next to Gillette Stadium.
At least this is nothing new to the Patriots. They went ent through an entire training ng camp and preseason last yearr with the possibility Brady y might have to serve a suspension, until federal judge Richard Berman initially ruled inn his favor.
Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels expressed relief Wednesday that Brady’s fate for thee first month of the regular season now is crystal clear.
“It’s always good to know what you’re dealing with,” McDaniels aniels said. “In that regard, we have an op-opportunity to focus on the thing that we need to do more of or less of.”
In particular, what McDanielsaniels needs to focus on over thee next month is getting Garoppolo and to a lesser extent rookie third-round pick Jacoby Brissett ready too face an imposing September gauntlett of the Cardinals, Dolphins, Texans and Bills.
A second-round pick out off East-Eastern Illinois in 2014, Garoppolo has thrown just 31 regular-seasoneason passes and one touchdown in his first two NFL seasons. At this point, no one with the Patriots — orr any-anyone else for that matter — hasas any idea Garoppolo will respond.
Neither Belichick nor McDaniels would say how the snaps in camp will be divided among the quarterbacks, although McDaniels aniels indicated Brady won’t be shortchanged, even though he is headed for the bench in September for the first time since suffering a season-ending knee injury in the 2008 opener.
At least publicly, though, Belichick exudes confidence in his quarterbacks as a whole — “We have a good situation there,” he said Wednesday — and Garoppolo in particular.
“Experience, everything — it’s everything,” Belichick said when asked what improvement he had seen from Garoppolo. “All of the things that go into playing football — preparation, execution, knowing the opponent — we could sit here and talk about it for a day. [It’s] everything.”