Thursday was the day Patriots fans who want to see a different quarterback this year had been waiting for.

Throughout the first week of training camp, Cam Newton had done enough to look like he should remain the starter, but a lot to do with that was the fact that Mac Jones simply wasn’t doing anything to stand out. Both guys have had their ups and downs the first week, but on Thursday in a driving rain storm, Jones not only out performed Newton, but he out-repped him by quite a bit.

Jones was very good in both 7-on-7 and 11-on-11 and his command of the two minute offense – albeit in its infancy in terms of execution – is hard to ignore. Most of Newton’s poor throws on Thursday came because they were late, sometimes two steps behind receivers. You rarely, if ever, see that with Jones. The ball is always out quick and even if it’s batted down or picked off, you can see he knows where to go early. Newton has his moments where he’ll throw absolute darts on the intermediate stuff too, but Jones’ footwork under pressure is better and his accuracy is much more consistent.

Still, is any of this really going to matter? For all we know, coach Belichick has already decided on Newton – he did say Cam’s the starter a week ago – and all of the scrutiny over the most basic football activities is a complete waste of time. It probably is, but it sure is fun and for at least one day in the rain, Jones made a serious case why he should be the guy.

“I think all our players are making progress out there,” Belichick said prior to practice on Thursday morning. “They should be. We’ve been practicing basically everyday now, getting into week two here. Everybody’s getting better day by day and we still have a lot of things to go over. We still don’t have all of our plays in. That’ll go a few more days here. We’re certainly getting closer, but that’s really what we’re doing here. We’ve had two days. This will be the second day where we actually can go out there and play football, and the rest of it is kind of an extension of the spring. By the time we get done with this week, we’ll have the majority of our stuff installed and we can spend a little more time evaluating how everything is coming together next week.”

Both Jones and Newton spoke after practice today as well. Newton was asked about the discrepancy in reps on Thursday with Mac getting a lot of work.

“I don’t get involved in the reps. I just do what I’m asked, and do from there,” he said.

If the Patriots are going to be successful on offense with pass catching tight ends and speedy wide receivers, a return to the get-it-out quick, Tom Brady offense of old instead of the plodding Cam Newton offense. A lot of that offense requires quick decision making and it’s clear that both quarterbacks have the ability to make a pre-snap call and get the ball out quickly at the line so far, although Mac has looked better in the red zone when it comes to that.

For Jones, it may take long hours of cramming like he’s back at Alabama, but he’s feeling good about where he’s at learning this complicated offense.

“I try to put time into it. Whatever I can do to try and make it easier, I think that’s what everyone does,” he said. “You’ve got to study it, to learn it. It’s just like school. You gotta study hard for the test, so as long as you’re putting in the work, usually it’s fine.” Jones added that it’s “all day long, it’s great” when asked how much of his day aside from practice is dedicated to the game and also said he’ll draw plays to help him out as a visual learner.

Whatever he’s doing, he should keep doing it. Bill Belichick may already have his mind made up, but if Jones can string days like the one he had Thursday together heading into the first preseason game next week, we may finally have a real competition and more importantly, the Patriots might have a real decision to make.