Until this weekend, New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick had been reluctant to firmly express confidence in starting quarterback Mac Jones. And one NFL insider has a wild theory about why Belichick may have done that.
NFL insider Ian Rapoport of The NFL Network revealed that he thinks Belichick was non-commital about the future of Mac Jones to fool other teams ahead of the draft.
“I spent three years covering the New England Patriots and I feel like I speak Belichick maybe as well as anyone,” Rapoport said. “Him saying Mac Jones, absolutely that he has the confidence in him – that was really telling. Look, Belichick has not committed to Mac Jones over the last couple of months. My read – and this is just a read on this thing – is he wanted to let people wonder was he going to take a quarterback in the draft.”
From our NFL Draft broadcast: A thought on why #Patriots coach Bill Belichick didn't commit to QB Mac Jones until last night. pic.twitter.com/ZkB7DIwikX
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 29, 2023
“They were never taking Will Levis, but they brought him into the facility for a visit. Maybe they wanted another team to jump over them if they wanted Levis. Maybe they wanted another team in the second round to jump over them if they wanted a quarterback,” Rapoport said. “I think Bill Belichick liked the advantage of keeping teams guess, and only after it was clear that they weren’t taking a quarterback early did they say ‘yeah, Mac [Jones] is our guy.'”
It’s certainly a bold claim, and the NFL world had plenty to say about it on Twitter – with many people not exactly believing Rapoport’s speculation.
credit where credit is due to Rapoport getting through this with a straight face https://t.co/SgNkhAwzgX
— Kevin H. (@kjhogo) April 29, 2023
Chess not checkers 🤫 #InBillWeTrust #ForeverNE https://t.co/BZtseA5Fba
— Leo Saperstein (@saperstein21) April 29, 2023
Love this spin…
Probably not true, but the content it will create is unlimited.@Patriots https://t.co/kaRV2zr8tE
— Jeff Macomber (@jmacomber75) April 29, 2023
Been saying this for Months and people still thought mac wasn’t the guy😂🤣 https://t.co/dDHWsSKnnu
— Brent (@BrentGardiner) April 29, 2023
So you publicly doubt your QB for months to try to give you a little draft leverage? I don’t buy a second of this https://t.co/me1WKujadl
— Mike Catalana (@MikeCatalana) April 29, 2023
It’s certainly an interesting theory from Rapoport.
