The Patriots have named their starting quarterback for the 2024 season

The New England Patriots have officially named their starting quarterback for the 2024 season - perhaps the entire season.

The NFL's top two reporters, Ian Rapoport and Adam Schefter, both reported within seconds of each other Thursday morning that Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo informed players that Jacoby Brissett will be the Patriots starting quarterback to begin the 2024 season. Rookie Drake Maye will begin the season as Brissett's backup. Mayo later confirmed the report to the media in Foxboro.

"As an organization, we're 100% behind Jacoby," Mayo said in a brief press appearance Thursday morning. "There's no, 'We got a guy right here, we got a guy right there.' We're 100% behind Jacoby.

"As an organization, we feel like Jacoby gives us the best chance to win right now."

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Despite reports that Brissett would be the team's starter for Week 1 against the Cincinnati Bengals, Mayo seemed to take it many steps further, saying Brissett would be the starting quarterback "this season" - implying that Brissett could start for the entire 2024 campaign.

"I don't want to get into hypotheticals," Mayo said. "We can't go into the season saying, 'He's going to go X amount of weeks.' Look, as long as Jacoby is going out there and performing the way that we all have confidence in him doing, he'll be our quarterback this season."

At that point, Mayo abruptly ended his presser.

Peculiar messaging aside, this was ostensibly the Patriots' plan all along. Brissett was brought here to play. The team is maintaining patience with Maye, despite the rookie's impressive preseason, which was coupled with a declining performance by Brissett.

However, Mayo reiterated in his Monday morning press conference after the Pats' preseason finale that there was more going into their decision on the starting quarterback than just who played better in the preseason games, namely Brissett's experience in both the league and in offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt's system.

"When I spoke about experience, I just wanted to make sure that you guys had transparency as far as the different factors that go into making this decision," Mayo said. "It's no secret that Jacoby's been in the league for a long time. At the same time, I will say Drake has been performing well here over the last few weeks. So, I just wanted to make sure that you guys knew the different factors that go into naming a starting quarterback."

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Maye's physical talent was already known before the Patriots even took the field in the preseason. The questions for him, which the team itself apparently still has, is whether he was ready to play against starting NFL defenses that have devised a specific gameplan to stop him and Van Pelt's offense. The Pats ostensibly have more confidence in Brissett's ability to handle the mental aspects of the game to begin the season, despite being less physically talented than his rookie counterpart.

Now, the pressure is on Brissett to perform, and make people forget (relatively speaking) about the No. 3 overall pick lurking on the sidelines. Because if he doesn't play well, the pressure will start mounting on Mayo to make a change. It's up to the Patriots to stick to their plan, and only make the switch on their own volition.

Matt Dolloff is a writer and digital content producer for 98.5 The Sports Hub. Read all of his articles here.