Socci’s View: Another pre-season surprise for Pats’ Slater to process
Before this week, the doors to Gillette Stadium’s home locker room had opened in the recent past to Patriots still processing a Bill Belichick surprise in late August or early September.
Two weeks before opening the 2014 season, he traded six-time Pro Bowler, four-year co-captain, iron-man exemplar and Tom Brady-protector Logan Mankins to Tampa Bay. The week of the 2017 opener, he sent second-year quarterback Jacoby Brissett to Indianapolis, parting with a likable youngster who earned team-wide respect as a rookie subbing for Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo in two starts; the latter with a thumb in need of surgical repair.
As a Patriot since 2008 and leadership cohort of Mankins, co-captaining alongside the rugged lineman in 2011-12, Matthew Slater was there for both. Just as he was at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, less than an hour after NFL Network’s The #Patriots have waived backup QB Bailey Zappe, source said. A surprise.
Encircled by reporters and videographers amid cleats and gear scattered on the carpet near his and adjoining lockers, Slater shared thoughts ordered to express widely-felt surprise and fondness for Zappe and invoked a widely-used — and probably only suitable — phrase to wrap one’s words around the often unpredictable in the NFL.
Especially in New England, where a Mankins and Brissett can be dealt in the final pre-season days. Or, a Garoppolo and Jamie Collins can go in the middle of a season.
“I’ve learned to expect the unexpected,” Slater said. “Certainly something that is, I guess, surprising for a lot of us, but that’s just kind of the nature of the business. I know he’ll land on his feet and do a great job. And I also trust that Coach (Belichick) is always doing what’s in the best interest of the football team, and put us in the best position to have success.
“Mixed emotions on that. I love Bailey; he knows how I feel about him. He’s one of my favorite kids all-time.”
It’s easy to understand why. Even if one doesn’t really know, or barely knows Bailey.
Start with his football story.
Relatively short from, initially, a relatively small school at a lower level of college football, he puts up outsized numbers at FCS member Houston Baptist and in a season at Western Kentucky, a non-Power Five program. The Pats pick him in the fourth round. Four games into his pro career, injuries to Mac Jones and Brian Hoyer suddenly thrust him into the huddle at his own 8-yard line, opposite Aaron Rodgers at Lambeau Field. Before his first snap, a false start moves him back to the 4. Welcome to the NFL, kid.
Zappe manages it all — from emotion to the offense — well enough to help his team reach overtime, where the outcome isn’t determined until the final seconds. A week later, he wins his starting debut vs. Detroit, resplendent in a Pat Patriot throwback at Gillette. In road white the next Sunday at Cleveland, he wins again. In three weeks, he’s gone from third string to the first Patriots’ rookie to win his first two starts at home and away.
But that’s only half the story.
NFL Films circulates “Bailey Zappe’s Draft Moment.” See his smile, one ear to the other listening to Belichick on the cell. Hear his “That’s crazy” to family upon hanging up. Enjoy his tears-of-joy FaceTime with agent Nicole Lynn, an “I’ve been crying the whole time” and “I am bawling!” back-and-forth.
It’s a seemingly pure joy that comes from life’s most pleasant surprises, which helps to explain why so many are quick to indulge in the chants of a name — “Zap-py! Zap-py!” — that rhymes with happy. Their embrace of the rookie has much to do as well with the struggles of the offense and frustrations of Mac Jones in his second season as the regular starter.
Offseason arrives and needed changes — beginning with the hiring of coordinator Bill O’Brien — occur, yet the calls for Zappe continue from some corners of Patriots fandom, frequencies on Boston radio and within word counts on-line and in print.
But, rightfully, a “fresh start” and “clean slate” under O’Brien allow Jones to pick up where he left off at the end of a promising rookie campaign. Again, like then under Josh McDaniels, he’s put in a system that relies on and accentuates perhaps his greatest strength as a quarterback; the circuitry to process defenses pre-snap and the voice to audibly counter what he sees at the line of scrimmage.
Obviously more relaxed from day one of training camp, with a noticeable growing confidence each week, Jones is never really challenged for the No. 1 job. Even for those of us who know enough to understand we know nothing about quarterbacking — except that it’s the most important and most difficult job in sports — it’s clear: while Jones rediscovers his comfort zone, Zappe struggles to find his.
No doubt, there are contributing factors. Dropping back behind a ‘second-string’ line of backups to the backups playing on a ‘first-string’ line plagued by injuries. Trying to throw in many cases to receivers who won’t wind up on the regular-season roster. Then, that comes with the job of backup quarterback.
It’s also a role that, these days, requires taking most of the snaps in preseason games.
On Friday at Tennessee, Zappe didn’t just take most; he took more than anyone — including him, you have to think — could have expected going into the contest. Starting, exiting and returning to the game, he took 35 of the 46 offensive snaps. Trace McSorley, the team’s third quarterback, took five. Zappe also took, it appeared on television, some, ahem, hard coaching from O’Brien.
He completed eight passes, including a touchdown, and was sacked four times. The offense mustered eight first downs and 79 yards, averaging fewer than six feet per play.
It was hard to watch, even as preseason finales go. And it was hard not to feel for Zappe, waiting at the podium for a few questions from a few reporters in his postgame press conference. And it was beyond hard, impossible actually, not feel for him late Tuesday afternoon.
A day later, as Slater believed, Bailey Zappe landed on his feet. Clearing waivers, he slipped them into his cleats and returned to a field behind Gillette as part of the practice squad. Jones joined him, the lone quarterback on the roster. For now. That’s bound to change by 4:25 p.m. on Sept. 10.
It’s the nature of the business in the NFL. No team can possibly enter the season carrying a single active quarterback. Not even the one that continually reminds us to expect the unexpected.
Bob Socci is in his 11th year calling play-by-play for the Patriots Radio Network on 98.5 The Sports Hub.
