Paul Perillo on the Patriots quarterback situation
Paul Perillo of Patriots.com joined Felger and Mazz on Wednesday to discuss the latest on the New England Patriots. While on, Perillo discussed the Patriots quarterback situation with the recent moves made by the team.
Audio
Thoughts on Matt Corral….
Paul Perillo: I was very surprised by it. And I remain sort of surprised by it. I love the idea of Matt Corral because I think Matt Corral is a guy with a skill set that’s different. I think there’s certainly some questions about his size and his maturity off the field, but I think his upside, now we talk about this stuff “ceiling” you guys have been busting my chops about the win loss total, his ceiling, I think is probably higher than Mac Jones’s in terms of skill set. Now I don’t think he’ll ever get there. He’s got a better arm, a quicker release, and he can run. Now he’s small and I think he’s a little reckless as a runner and I don’t know how long he’d hold up trying to play that way like he did in college, but I like the idea of rolling the dice there. I think your old guy, Ron Wolfe, was a big believer in just always investing in that position. I think it’s great business to do that. And even if it doesn’t pan out that he’s better than Mac Jones, now you have a tradable commodity that you can get something for. I love that move.
GREEN BAY, WI: Mac Jones of the New England Patriots scrambles during a preseason game against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on Aug. 19, 2023. (Patrick McDermott/Getty Images)
Thoughts on Mac Jones and Bill Belichick….
Felger: Why do you think Bill is playing nice to Mac Jones this week?
Paul Perillo: Well, I think he’s his guy. I think I might be reading too much into this, too, but I sort of believe in the fact that the lack of attention paid by Belichick to Mac Jones was real. And I think he did enter the OTA’s in the summer with the idea of “I’m going to let these two guys compete”. And I think Zappe got off to a decent start in camp and then trailed off. But I think that was real. I know a lot of people like these fake stories about training camp, I think that they opened camp with the idea of “Mac Jones is the starter, make no bones about it, but we’re going to give Zappe opportunities, too”. And I don’t think he succeeded and I think Bill looked at that and said, “okay, I gave him a little challenge. I gave him a little adversity. I like the way he handled it”. He’s been night and day a different guy.
Felger: Meaning Bill or Mac Jones?
Paul Perillo: Mac Jones. I mean, you might as well have given him, like, the the newest offense that you could ever think of and this is like the most quarterback perfect thing you could ever think of. He’s so happy to be away from what he went through last year. And again, I don’t think he handled last year well, but he’s certainly embraced Bill O’Brien and I think that Belichick has recognized that like, “this is the kind of leadership that we need and I’m embracing it”. I might be on an island on that, but I think he was impressed with the way Jones handled it.
