Did Bill Belichick mess up and which QB is best for the Patriots?
Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson and Terez Paylor discuss which available QB would be a good fit for the Patriots and if Bill Belichick messed up. Subscribe to the Yahoo Sports NFL Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: Cam Newton, Jameis Winston, Andy Dalton-- you've got some quarterbacks out there who want to be starters who are trying to find some starting slots right now.
The Patriots lose Tom, OK? And let me tell you, so I had a chance to talk to somebody in their building today. And I can tell you that there are at least a few people inside the Patriots who are stunned that Tom did not come back and honestly that don't know what the plan is, that do not think that there is a plan readily available because there was just this refusal to believe that could actually happen, and then it did. So I'm telling you there may not be a plan in New England right now.
So knowing what you said, now you're the Patriots. Say which of those three guys are you picking and why are you picking them for the Patriots?
TEREZ PAYLOR: There's no way Bill Belichick doesn't have a plan. He has to have a plan. He always got a plan. He might not be telling anybody what the plan is, right?
CHARLES ROBINSON: Maybe. Yeah, it's possible he might not be telling us everything.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Because, I mean, we know-- yeah, but he's got something.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Like he had a plan for Rob Gronkowski?
TEREZ PAYLOR: Well--
CHARLES ROBINSON: Ooh, I like this.
TEREZ PAYLOR: I mean, you know you-- you know you basically just called Belichick incompetent, right? Like, that--
CHARLES ROBINSON: I'm not saying that--
TEREZ PAYLOR: Like--
CHARLES ROBINSON: I'm not-- I'm not-- I'm not saying he's incompetent, OK? Don't put-- that's unfair. Don't put a word like incompetent in my mouth. You said you are basically--
TEREZ PAYLOR: Well, hold on.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --calling him incompetent, but I did not say that.
TEREZ PAYLOR: But to think that he didn't, like, think that through-- I'm just going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he chose to make decisions that go elsewhere or he hedged his-- or he thought that Gronk would come back and took the gamble, right?
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Just state it clearer is all I'm saying.
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK, I'll-- let me follow up then.
TEREZ PAYLOR: OK, cool. Cool.
CHARLES ROBINSON: So far, Andy Dalton has not been his plan, OK?
TEREZ PAYLOR: OK.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Everything you've seen written--
TEREZ PAYLOR: OK, good.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --whatever you've seen-- I'm telling you right now, Andy Dalton has not been his plan up until now, up until Thursday.
TEREZ PAYLOR: OK.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Cam Newton was not the plan.
TEREZ PAYLOR: OK.
CHARLES ROBINSON: No reach out. There's no like, hey, we're coming to get Cam to Carolina. Cam Newton was not the plan, OK? And Jameis Winston, not the plan, OK? So that's three guys, none of those three guys.
Now that does not necessarily mean that Bill doesn't have something secret or that maybe he's looking at Jarrett Stidham and he's like I--
TEREZ PAYLOR: Right.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --actually really like this guy a lot--
TEREZ PAYLOR: Right.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --and maybe that's his plan. But I'm just telling you, there has not been a quick pivot to move to Andy Dalton. There has not been a quick pivot to poke around Cam Newton, and they're not-- there has not been a quick pivot to Jameis Winston. So those three guys were not the plan.
TEREZ PAYLOR: OK. So is this somebody we haven't talked about yet or there's some measure of action that we just don't know about? Like, I thought, like-- here's the thing. Like, you covered the league long enough to know, like, in general, there's a real belief that, like, the cocoon of, like, trust as far as, like, what the Patriots are going to do, that's like a two- or three-man circle, right? Like it's Belichick.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Sure.
TEREZ PAYLOR: He talks to Ernie Adams, right, and he gives Kraft updates. So, like, I'm just saying that's actually really good information. But I'm just saying I don't know how prepared we'd be to know if those things are off the table, which you said they are. We can narrow it down, but how many people would know what it's going to be, right?
CHARLES ROBINSON: I-- the reason why I bring this up is because the replacement for Gronk was not-- they messed that up. OK, he messed that up. Now I'm not saying-- OK, maybe he didn't have-- maybe he had a plan, and the best plan didn't work out or whatever, but it didn't work, right? They screwed that up.
TEREZ PAYLOR: It didn't work. You can say that--
CHARLES ROBINSON: It did not work.
TEREZ PAYLOR: --100%.
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK.
TEREZ PAYLOR: And we've been ripping him for that.
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK. So-- OK.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Like-- no, we've been ripping him for that.
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK, so he didn't--
TEREZ PAYLOR: Like, they [BLEEP] it up.
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK.
TEREZ PAYLOR: They did that.
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK. They didn't-- right. They didn't have a plan that worked, OK? So there you go.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Yep.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Secondly--
TEREZ PAYLOR: [LAUGHS]
CHARLES ROBINSON: --they did not have a plan at the skill positions to the point where Antonio Brown had to burn his feet off and try to kill Mike Mayock to get himself out of the Raiders to become the plan, and then what happened? The plan melted down. Now unfortunately-- you know, unfortunately but they had no clue what was coming. They didn't know they were stepping on the train tracks. Which, OK. I mean, fair enough. You didn't know. So, again, that's another situation. And we saw down the stretch the skill positions became a problem, so much so that Tom Brady's liking and favoriting and sending heart emojis to Antonio Brown.
And like, OK, so that's two things. That's two specific things that I felt like undermined the idea that no matter what-- no matter what, Bill Belichick always has a plan. Like, I just-- I--
TEREZ PAYLOR: No.
CHARLES ROBINSON: --I think sometimes things happen, and they are not readily prepared for exactly what is facing them.
TEREZ PAYLOR: I don't think it undermined the concept that Belichick always has a plan. I think he does. I think it undermined the concept that he's infallible, right? I think--
CHARLES ROBINSON: OK, that's fair.
TEREZ PAYLOR: --that he-- because you and I have both spent the last six months being like what the [BLEEP] are they doing--
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
TEREZ PAYLOR: --at the skill positions? Like, what is this? I'm just saying I'd have a hard time believing it doesn't get corrected at some point. Every coach makes mistakes. No one's infallible, but the best ones fix it sooner rather than later.
So I think it's could be fun to see what ends up happening in New England. I think we talked about that on the last podcast. We have no idea who's going to be the quarterback for the Patriots in 2020, but we do know it will be different, and it could be really fun.
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