Opening statement
On Sept. 12, Belichick, Mac Jones and the Zombie Patriots await Dolphins
This is scary. Really scary. Dull, drab, dreary-dressing Bill Belichick splashed a bucket of surprise across the NFL on Tuesday.
The New England Patriots coach named rookie Mac Jones his starting quarterback against the Miami Dolphins. He cut veteran Cam Newton. The NFL fainted.
Some scouts studied Jones before the draft and saw a nondescript arm and a square haircut, a cross between Jimmy Garropolo and Woody from “Toy Story,” and thought he was terminally unremarkable.
Belichick sees tomorrow. He sees a dice worth rolling right from Day One. And so a big, loud, important opener just got bigger, louder and more important.
The concern isn’t so much Jones in this first game. Dolphins coach Brian Flores has a top defense and now a rookie mind to mess with. The last rookie quarterback Flores went against was the Los Angeles Chargers’ Justin Herbert. The rookie of the year. The guy who broke rookie records for touchdowns and completions.
Herbert threw for a seasonlow 187 yards last November and looked like a confused rookie against the Dolphins’ defense.
“I saw a lot to think about,’’ Herbert said after that day.
Jones will no doubt say the same after this opener. But here’s the scary part for those of us thought we were done with the Patriots as contenders when Tom Brady took his Super Bowl to Tampa: What does Belichick see to make this bold move?
Oh, sure, you can chalk it up to the aging arm and tired legs of Newton. That was on display. So was Belichick’s unprofessed love for Newton all offseason. Give The Hoodie an Oscar.
All the AFC East quarterbacks of tomorrow are on the table now, too. Josh Allen is the proven great one in Buffalo. Can Tua Tagovailoa, Jones or the Jets’ Zach Wilson get to that level?
Will Allen have an unchallenged run in the division, as Brady did for decades in New England?
That’s what we start to find out. Tagovailoa had a stellar preseason. In five possessions, his offense scored three times — two touchdowns and a field goal — against one interception (the final possession was turned over on downs).
Jones’ New England offense had eight possessions and scored eight times. Five touchdowns and three field goals. Spotless. Four of the five touchdown drives went at least 75 yards — and the fifth went 50 years. What does it mean? It means he’s the starter Sept. 12. Everyone thought Newton was a lock to be the Patriots’ starter for the simple reason that he, well, started every preseason game. And was the starter every practice. And three of the Patriots’ opening four games are against teams with top-10 defenses (Dolphins, New Orleans, Tampa Bay).
Belichick, too, has only started a rookie quarterback in two games in his forever career. That was current Dolphins backup Jacoby Brissett in 2016. He went 1-1.
All that pointed to Newton starting the season. What happened? Did Newton’s being unvaccinated against the virus play into it? He missed five days last week due after violating stringent NFL protocol for the unvaccinated.
Belichick couldn’t have been happy with that. But deciding your starting quarterback on that?
No, this was Jones. Only Jones. In going with him, Newton had to be released. Think of the Dolphins needing to let Ryan Fitzpatrick go (not that he would have returned) to make it Tagovailoa’s team.
Another scary part: Jones must have done what Tagovailoa’s didn’t last year. He must have won over his teammates to show he was the better quarterback.
And so here we are, the clock ticking down to the Dolphins opener, and it has the feel of a building wave. That wasn’t the only news out of Foxobrough on Tuesday. The other was better for the Dolphins: Top cornerback Stephon Gilmore will miss the opening four games.
So that’s one less worry for Tua, one more degree of hope for the Dolphins.
Jones vs. Tua is the headline of the game. Both from Alabama. The Dolphins tanked for Tua. Jones was the fifth and final quarterback drafted last spring. So he was delivered on a tray to the Patriots.
If he looks like someone more than Woody from “Toy Story” from the start, if he develops into what Belichick must envision, the Patriots aren’t dead as America hoped.
They’re the Zombie Patriots. They’ll go on and on. This is what’s scary.