EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Jacoby Brissett shrugged his shoulders as he answered the final question of his press conference in the bowels of MetLife Stadium on Thursday night.
The veteran quarterback had just spoken of the respect he has for an offensive line that allowed him to get hit 10 times, sacked five, and pressured constantly in a 24-3 loss to the Jets, and Brissett was then asked about Jerod Mayo’s comments from minutes earlier. The Patriots coach said he didn’t know who his quarterback would be next week in San Francisco.
“That’s —,” Brissett paused. “I’m not going to overreact to something that I didn’t hear.”
Brissett has done just about everything right since coming back to New England. He’s mentored and cheered Drake Maye as he competed against him, he’s served as a punching bag behind a porous offensive line, and his teammates respect him so much that he was voted a captain despite a one-year placeholder deal.
“That’s a soldier right there,” DeMario Douglas said. “Taking hits and getting up, he’s going out there fired up. That’s the definition of a soldier right there. They get up and they push through the hard times.”
After the one-sided loss to the Jets, Mayo had been noncommittal on his quarterback for Week 4 following Drake Maye’s late fourth quarter NFL debut.
“I don’t know,” Mayo said. “We talk about it every single week that you’re competing for a job so, we’ll get together as a coaching staff and see where it goes.”
In that moment standing behind the lectern after a hard-fought loss, Brissett deserved better. After all the yo-yoing on quarterback messaging over the summer, this was another curveball. And it’s only Week 3. If Mayo is truly considering benching Brissett in favor of Maye, it’d be tactless to let the quarterback hear that from a media member and not his coach. It’d be foolish, too.
Though Maye moved the ball downfield during his drive with the Jets bench emptied, there wasn’t anything to suggest he should be the starting quarterback immediately. It was a mixed bag. Maye’s first snap could’ve been a pick-six and he missed an open throw. He also had a couple beauties to Douglas and converted a fourth down with his legs. There was good and bad, but Maye needs more seasoning. Though a small sample size, he looked very much like the high-ceiling, low-floor prospect he was billed as.
Maye is still learning from watching Brissett on game day, too, and shared the strongest lesson he’s gotten from his teammate thus far.
“How to prepare,” Maye said. “There’s so many different looks teams can bring. The Jets mixed it up on the first four or five third downs, mixed up the defense. So just being prepared and going through each play. Almost how you can never prepare enough. He’s going through here the last few seconds before he goes out to the field, he’s going over the script and little things like that.”
As importantly as anything, Maye took a beating just like Brissett. The rookie was hit five times in 10 dropbacks, and they were violent shots coming from the Jets; New England’s pass protection didn’t magically improve when Maye entered the game.
If the Patriots want the 22-year-old to develop properly, he can’t do it what that kind of pressure. Carolina just pulled the ripcord on No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young after 18 games and it’s not a coincidence that he was sacked a whopping 62 times as a rookie. This is what Brissett was signed to do: Take some of the punches until the offensive line stabilizes so the rookie doesn’t have to, and continue to help him grow along the way.
“I’m big man, I can take it,” Brissett said of Thursday’s hits. “I’m always going to get back up. That’s one thing about me. I’m always going to get back up and find ways to make plays, man, that’s what it comes down to. It’s football.”
Though his job may be in jeopardy, Brissett said he still believes he’ll be New England’s starter.
“Of course,” Brissett said. “I mean, I don’t make personnel decisions. My job is to go out there, get ready to play, put good football on tape and put my best foot forward.”
How much longer that remains Brissett’s job is up in the air, but in the Meadowlands, he deserved better both on and off the field.
