The 2023 Patriots Preseason Period

[Mazz22]

While I might sometimes be guilty of giving Bill credit for moves that are actually mistakes,

You should have stopped here. It is a colossal mistake at the most important position.

the first thing I thought of when
I heard we cut Zappe was that it's possible that Bailey really was as bad as he looked over the preseason games, but there were
a bunch of reports that he did OK against our own D and not just the Rodney Randle Jr's. It's all relative, but I'm suspicious that Bill
had his finger on the scale the way he utilized the very bottom of the barrel personnel giving the kid little chance at success. He
might have been trying to scare people off of him.

Scare people off of him? Really? We have stooped to this in defending all things Bill?

Maybe, just maybe, he did that on purpose. If so, then it's a crazy-ass gamble.

I guess this is really the only explanation left for the inexplicable.

You could see how frustrated Zappe was at times and he even got chewed out by Billy O for a pass that might have been well-placed
if the WR didn't round off his route terribly. I don't believe that he is that bad but I suppose we'll know what the drill is if he doesn't
get picked up by somebody else and it turns out to be a technical gambit that works out for the Pats in the end.

Yes, let's pray a guy we cut who won two games for us last year as a rookie somehow falls back into our lap because genius Bill made him look bad on purpose just so we could cut and then resign him. Good golly.

I try to have patience until everything settles down, but I gotta state that I never even imagined that Zappe would get waived even
though he mostly looked terrible.

He should have never been cut. He showed last year that he could win games when called upon. We have 3 more years on his next to nothing contract and and we just tossed him to the rest of the league to have at him.

A few days ago we had 4 QBs and today we had one. Bill is one inscrutable, unpredictable mofo.

This is where we diverge. You and others still see Bill as this mastermind when you literally just typed that we had 4 Qbs and now we have one. This again is another huge mismanagement of assets by Bill at the most important position. It is so bad that folks that loathe Brady are actually typing/hoping he returns to back up Mac!

That is the ridiculous state Bill has left us all in. Now we wait to see if we sign some retread like McCoy or Wentz who have zero experience in our system when we could have actually signed one of those guys weeks ago when it was apparent to Bill that Zappe was going to be cut. He continues to make decisions that go against any barometer of reasonable. He could have got Mac some help with a 4th round pick; instead gets a backup QB (even after Mac had a good first season) then dumps him the next year. And on top, we couldn't tell if the offense was any better in the preseason because the OL was a sieve so much so that just a few days ago we went bargain basement shopping using draft capital to try stop the bleeding.

I really don't know anymore what it is going to take for people to see that the game has passed Bill by and while he was once a savant at making moves that were one step ahead of everyone else, he has now become the court jester still trying to muster the old act while his peers are laughing at him.

 

[HSanders]

I really don't know anymore what it is going to take for people to see that the game has passed Bill by and while he was once a savant at making moves that were one step ahead of everyone else, he has now become the court jester still trying to muster the old act while his peers are laughing at him.

omg...
did you watch this?

View: https://youtu.be/W_5J-puoaiE?si=SudbWd116-M7htmI

 

[Hawg73]

Evan Lazar has a detailed analysis to go along with the team picture.

Analysis: Instant Reaction to the Patriots Initial 53-Man Roster

The Patriots made a series of moves to whittle the roster down to an initial 53 players on Tuesday.

www.patriots.com

I'll be curious to look back on that team picture in two weeks and will guess there will be a number of changes.

Meanwhile, Lazar covers the 53 in his insightful way as one of the best of the local Belichick whisperers.

For instance, he mentioned that perhaps the acquisition of Ty Wheatley Jr. makes more sense if you factor in his background as a former TE, albeit
one that weighs well north of 300 now. Maybe his initial role is as a 6th OL/blocking TE much as Cam Fleming was often used circa 2017.

While questions still abound about our offense, Evan makes a point that while we don't have a "number one" WR, his asterisks,
the depth appears to be the best at that position in recent years. Gunner Olszewski wasn't making this roster.

Now that the shock has worn off I'm seeing an improved roster in the overall as we head back for minor editing and
maybe even another move or two that makes sense.

 

[zeke mowatt]

Gotta admit I don’t understand waiving Zappe. He showed he could be a relief guy last season. I’m willing to believe that’s closer to what he is than anything that happened Pre season. He’s a gamer.
Hoping he clears seems reckless. It’ll suck to wind up with the destroyer again.

 

[BostonTim]

Seriously, can you put it past either one of them for him to come back in a Flutie role?

Drop kick me Jesus, through the goalposts of life.

 

[gf5205]

Gotta admit I don’t understand waiving Zappe. He showed he could be a relief guy last season. I’m willing to believe that’s closer to what he is than anything that happened Pre season. He’s a gamer.
Hoping he clears seems reckless. It’ll suck to wind up with the destroyer again.

To put a player on IR and get him back during the season he has to be on the initial 53. I think you'll see a couple of players placed on IR and some of the head scratching cuts brought back, perhaps Thorton and Anderson.

 

[aloyouis]

Gotta admit I don’t understand waiving Zappe. He showed he could be a relief guy last season. I’m willing to believe that’s closer to what he is than anything that happened Pre season. He’s a gamer.
Hoping he clears seems reckless. It’ll suck to wind up with the destroyer again.

They are either bringing him back or bringing in a vet QB2. If the former it is simply a roster game and he will be back on the PS and dressed for game days. If the latter, well then, they cut the Zapster.

 

[Alk]

Cutting Zappe probably makes more sense than not. This eliminates all of the talking heads from asking THE question at every. single. press conference. Mac has shown to be a bit of a mental midget. He doesn't need the thought of being yanked at any given time in his head whether it's actually a possibility or not. Bill obviously isn't going into Week 1 with one quarterback on the depth chart so he most likely already has someone in mind.

 

[aloyouis]

Cutting Zappe probably makes more sense than not. This eliminates all of the talking heads from asking THE question at every. single. press conference. Mac has shown to be a bit of a mental midget. He doesn't need the thought of being yanked at any given time in his head whether it's actually a possibility or not. Bill obviously isn't going into Week 1 with one quarterback on the depth chart so he most likely already has someone in mind.

False. Did he show he has fire and a bit of a temper? Yes. "Mental midget" is ridiculous.

 

[Alk]

False. Did he show he has fire and a bit of a temper? Yes. "Mental midget" is ridiculous.

We'll have to agree to disagree there. But there is one thing that we can agree on. He's the best QB on the roster.

 

[aloyouis]

We'll have to agree to disagree there. But there is one thing that we can agree on. He's the best QB on the roster.

Okay. I think that we are defining your term differently. Mac is clearly VERY intelligent. Can we agree on that? If yes, what are you using mental midget to define?

 

[Alk]

Okay. I think that we are defining your term differently. Mac is clearly VERY intelligent. Can we agree on that? If yes, what are you using mental midget to define?

I have little doubt that he's intelligent. Maybe I'm using the term incorrectly but when I say mental midget I mean someone who isn't mentally tough. If things start to not go his way then he becomes unraveled. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I'm not a Mac Jones fan. I tried to be but he lost me. I don't think he's the answer but I still hope he does well. I would rather be wrong and have my team play well than be right and have them be an embarrassment.

 

[PatsFan09]

You should have stopped here. It is a colossal mistake at the most important position.

Scare people off of him? Really? We have stooped to this in defending all things Bill?

I guess this is really the only explanation left for the inexplicable.

Yes, let's pray a guy we cut who won two games for us last year as a rookie somehow falls back into our lap because genius Bill made him look bad on purpose just so we could cut and then resign him. Good golly.

He should have never been cut. He showed last year that he could win games when called upon. We have 3 more years on his next to nothing contract and and we just tossed him to the rest of the league to have at him.

This is where we diverge. You and others still see Bill as this mastermind when you literally just typed that we had 4 Qbs and now we have one. This again is another huge mismanagement of assets by Bill at the most important position. It is so bad that folks that loathe Brady are actually typing/hoping he returns to back up Mac!

That is the ridiculous state Bill has left us all in. Now we wait to see if we sign some retread like McCoy or Wentz who have zero experience in our system when we could have actually signed one of those guys weeks ago when it was apparent to Bill that Zappe was going to be cut. He continues to make decisions that go against any barometer of reasonable. He could have got Mac some help with a 4th round pick; instead gets a backup QB (even after Mac had a good first season) then dumps him the next year. And on top, we couldn't tell if the offense was any better in the preseason because the OL was a sieve so much so that just a few days ago we went bargain basement shopping using draft capital to try stop the bleeding.

I really don't know anymore what it is going to take for people to see that the game has passed Bill by and while he was once a savant at making moves that were one step ahead of everyone else, he has now become the court jester still trying to muster the old act while his peers are laughing at him.

No one here loathes Brady.

The rest of your post deserves no other response.

 

[Hawg73]

Matt Light was on Quick Slants this morning with Curran and Perry and he was asked for his thoughts on Mac and he had
some interesting ones.

He said that he wasn't thrilled at Mac's apparent insubordination (my paraphrase) towards Patricia last season because
the optics weren't good and sent a negative message out to his teammates and the world that things weren't good. That
was it in a nutshell. He compared it to people serving in the military who have to make moves that they do not believe in, but
must give or follow orders without losing their shit.

Well, we now know for sure that things were actually in disarray and whether you think Mac was right to flip out or not none
of it means that he is a whiny, little bitch and can't modify his behavior to become more stoic and leaderly, to pin a description on it. I think
he most likely can and will present a more statesmanlike image to the team and football world, because he likely wasn't proud of how
it was perceived even if his intentions were to fire his guys up and support them. He's young and will try his best to learn what he can from his trials and
move forward.

Most everybody can relate to a situation in life where you had a lot of doubts, but had to fake it until you could make it and I'm glad
that every move I made along the way wasn't subjected to a million critics turning a spotlight on every mistake.

I'm giving Mac Jones a pass on 2022 and look forward to better things in 2023, while conceding that it probably is going to be a make-or-break
year for his career. I'm holding out hope that we can sort out the OL within a shorter time frame than how it looks right now and provide
him a legit chance to show that he's worth the investment and believe that he remains a solid bet to turn things around.

 

[Hawg73]

You should have stopped here. It is a colossal mistake at the most important position.

Scare people off of him? Really? We have stooped to this in defending all things Bill?

I guess this is really the only explanation left for the inexplicable.

Yes, let's pray a guy we cut who won two games for us last year as a rookie somehow falls back into our lap because genius Bill made him look bad on purpose just so we could cut and then resign him. Good golly.

He should have never been cut. He showed last year that he could win games when called upon. We have 3 more years on his next to nothing contract and and we just tossed him to the rest of the league to have at him.

This is where we diverge. You and others still see Bill as this mastermind when you literally just typed that we had 4 Qbs and now we have one. This again is another huge mismanagement of assets by Bill at the most important position. It is so bad that folks that loathe Brady are actually typing/hoping he returns to back up Mac!

That is the ridiculous state Bill has left us all in. Now we wait to see if we sign some retread like McCoy or Wentz who have zero experience in our system when we could have actually signed one of those guys weeks ago when it was apparent to Bill that Zappe was going to be cut. He continues to make decisions that go against any barometer of reasonable. He could have got Mac some help with a 4th round pick; instead gets a backup QB (even after Mac had a good first season) then dumps him the next year. And on top, we couldn't tell if the offense was any better in the preseason because the OL was a sieve so much so that just a few days ago we went bargain basement shopping using draft capital to try stop the bleeding.

I really don't know anymore what it is going to take for people to see that the game has passed Bill by and while he was once a savant at making moves that were one step ahead of everyone else, he has now become the court jester still trying to muster the old act while his peers are laughing at him.

I think my post was clear and balanced as to what I thought of cutting Zappe, but you didn't miss out on
an opportunity to rail against your public enemy number one and lump me in as a delusional supporter
even if I qualified the point I didn't like it several times in several different ways.

You completely whiffed on my point or I wouldn't have termed it "a crazy-ass gamble". Note that you didn't
quote that part.

To put it in simpler terms I did not like the move, but you might have missed that when your head started
spinning like Regan in the Exorcist somewhere around the middle of my first sentence. Your response was
the pea-soup part.

 

[aloyouis]

I have little doubt that he's intelligent. Maybe I'm using the term incorrectly but when I say mental midget I mean someone who isn't mentally tough. If things start to not go his way then he becomes unraveled. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I'm not a Mac Jones fan. I tried to be but he lost me. I don't think he's the answer but I still hope he does well. I would rather be wrong and have my team play well than be right and have them be an embarrassment.

Agreed.

 

[PatsFan09]

I have little doubt that he's intelligent. Maybe I'm using the term incorrectly but when I say mental midget I mean someone who isn't mentally tough. If things start to not go his way then he becomes unraveled. I'm not going to sugar coat it. I'm not a Mac Jones fan. I tried to be but he lost me. I don't think he's the answer but I still hope he does well. I would rather be wrong and have my team play well than be right and have them be an embarrassment.

Can you name one other QB who has ever been placed in a similar situation as Mac was last year?

 

[Gumpboy45]

well all this talk is for nothing, Zappe to the practice squad is being reported

 

[Roberto71]

well all this talk is for nothing, Zappe to the practice squad is being reported

Good news, BOTH Zappe and Cunningham have been signed. Good job Bill!

 

[aloyouis]

well all this talk is for nothing, Zappe to the practice squad is being reported

As expected.

Still may see BoB pick up a vet QB.

Edit: based on Roberto71 post above, maybe not. LOL.