On Tuesday, when NFL teams trimmed down their rosters from 90 to 53, it didn’t make a lot of sense when the New England Patriots cut both Bailey Zappe and Malik Cunningham, leaving Mac Jones as the only active quarterback on the roster.
While the Patriots have since re-signed Zappe and Cunningham to their practice and claimed former Carolina Panthers quarterback Matt Corral, though they were the only team to put in a claim, it still didn’t make a lot of sense at the time.
That confusion was cleared up by Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer, as he addressed the Patriots cutting both Zappe and Cunningham in his latest mailbag. And while the moves came as a surprise to many, they weren’t that surprising from a roster-building standpoint, as according to Breer, the Patriots needed roster sports to get players to short-term injured reserve.
To put a player on that list, you need to carry him through the 53-man cutdown, and New England had a number of players who were candidates to go on it (Tyquan Thornton is one who’s already there). So for the Patriots to get those guys through, they had to cut players they otherwise might not have, and could bring back after moving hurt guys to IR.
Another factor at play here, according to Breer, is that Zappe “didn’t have a great summer.”
Last year, Matt Patricia and Joe Judge actually did a pretty good job of getting Zappe playing fast and confident, in a simpler system that was a little closer to what he did at Western Kentucky. This year, Bill O’Brien replaced Patricia and Judge, and went back to an offense closer to what New England’s traditionally done (with a lot of responsibility on the quarterback), and one that better leverages Mac Jones’s strengths. And as they did that, Zappe became less of a fit.
If Zappe wasn’t a fit for this system, you would think the Patriots would be a bit more diplomatic about making the backup quarterback position a priority, especially when considering Jones’ past struggles. In any event, it remains to be seen how the Patriots’ quarterback depth chart will shake out through the remainder of the 2023 NFL season.
