Both Bill Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels respectively praised the performances of Mac Jones and Cam Newton at OTA’s this week. Belichick met with the media yesterday and when asked about his assessment of Jones thus far, gave a surprising answer by his standards. “He has a pretty good understanding of the things that we do… He’s working hard. He puts in a lot of time. Certainly giving his very best effort to do everything we’ve asked him to do and do it the way we’ve asked him.” Pretty high praise for the rookie quarterback and rare coming from Belichick who hardly ever throws around this kind of praise, especially when it comes to rookies. McDaniels met with the media on Thursday and praised Cam Newton. “He’s worked really hard. He worked hard all year last year. He was certainly at a point last year when he got here that was a unique situation having no experience and exposure to our system prior to training camp.” McDaniels went onto say that he cannot remember another player doing that during his time in New England. Both McDaniels and Belichick sang Newton’s praises last season so clearly there is a lot of respect between the coaching staff and Newton. What does any of this mean moving forward? Nothing. The team’s plan is to proceed with Newton as the starter and leave it up to him to keep the job. Jones will compete for the job as will Jarrett Stidham and Brian Hoyer but ultimately, Belichick would prefer if Newton were the starter in 2021. Regardless of who is under center for the Patriots come September, it is good to know that the team has some options at the position. The quarterback situation is no where near as bleak as it was a year ago at this time.