The Patriots have a quarterback conundrum on their hands, one that they created. If the plan was indeed to play both quarterbacks last night, the plan failed.

The Patriots should have never played Mac Jones last night. Especially if he wasn’t 100%. Why rush him back when your back up is playing as well as Bailey Zappe has? It makes zero sense.

Jones struggled mightily on Monday night and capped off his evening by throwing an I’ll-advised interception to Bears rookie safety Jaquan Brisker. Brisker made a great play on the ball but it was still a bad decision by Jones. When asked after the game who the Patriots starting quarterback was, Bill Belichick simply said: “We just finished the game.” A far cry from the unabashed support he showed Cam Newton after every game during the 2020 season.

Starting Jones and then pulling him in favor of Zappe sends a pretty clear message. The Patriots don’t trust Jones and one has to wonder if they even see him as the guy moving forward. If they viewed him that way, don’t see him as being have committed to him the past two weeks and stuck with him last night.

As for Zappe, his play up until last night night made the decision more difficult. He is a fan favorite and the fans were calling for him, especially after the interception. The offense immediately came to life after he entered the game. Like something out of a movie script, he led the offense on two scoring drives on two possessions. Unfortunately, not all movies have happy endings. The clock struck midnight for Zappe in the second half as he was picked off twice and had four passes batted down at the line of scrimmage.

So in summation. The Patriots went from having two quarterbacks to no quarterbacks in a span of three hours.

Clearly Zappe isn’t the guy either and while the Zappanistas out there can make excuses for him, he struggled too. He is what he is. A good enough quarterback to spot start and back up a starter.

So where do the Patriots go from here? It’s actually a simple fix. Name Mac the starter, see if he’s the guy and live with the results. I know Patriot fans don’t want to hear that but the organization needs to figure out if he’s the guy. If he is not, then they need to enter the quarterback market this off-season.

It is hard to believe that Bill Belichick would mishandle a situation like. I get Jones made it difficult with his sloppy play and Zappe played well in his place, but Jones only missed three games. I am not sure that is grounds to bench him and go with Zappe.

It will be interesting to see how things transpire the rest of this week. The Patriots are in New York this weekend so it is a short turnaround. How Belichick handles this situation moving forward will impact the rest of the season.

If Belichick doesn’t handle this the right way, he risks losing the locker room potentially. If that happens, this season will go down the drain.