I'm not sure how anyone coud watch yesterday's game and say they can't judge Mac because he hasn't been put into the right situation every week. Ideal? Maybe not, but yesterday he was given fantastic OL play and pretty solid playcalling and played a putrid game of football. I'm pretty much done with him, you need to move on. Yeah, maybe Mac can be a game manager type of QB, but imo that's not the ceiling you want to waste your time on with a young QB. I'm also not sure how anyone can know if Zappe is or isn't the guy. I'd probably try to trade Mac for peanuts, draft another QB in the first 1-3 rounds, and let Zappe and that QB battle it out.
First off, the bolded is a straw man argument. There are legit concerns about the quality of the Patriots offensive coaching, offensive line, and offensive skill position players other than Rhamondre Stevenson. Putting all that together as "hasn't been put into the right situation every week" is a gross understatement of the problems the Pats offense has had this year. I would think that Mac has been legitimately bad enough this year that the case against him can be made without exaggeration.
Second, Mac had a good year last year, particularly for a rookie QB. There's a great desire to retrospectively shit all over that, because he has regressed in year 2. I even see comments here saying that he's the exact same guy, etc. He's not. I think anyone being honest would say it was blatantly obvious that his performance has declined by a lot.
Because Mac had a good rookie year and has had a steep decline, it makes sense to ask what has changed. And in the case of the Patriots, a lot has changed. There was near-complete turnover on the offensive coaching staff, at least regarding the key positions. And it wasn't a case of changing one established offensive coordinator for another, as happens sometimes. Nor was it a situation where the Patriots had a successor-in-waiting, as they had done through most of Belichick's tenure. They went and hired 2 recently fired head coaches without coaching experience on the offensive side of the ball to coach the offense. What's more, there was a lot of turnover on the offensive coaching staff apart from McDaniels, and that meant one of our new-to-offense coahces had to handle not just coordinator duties but also offensive line coaching. (Reminder: the offensive line has been a disaster all year). (I'd like to know whather comparable moves have been made by other teams and how those moves panned out - this seems like an unprecedented thing BB did and had blow up in his face.)
This was an important year for Mac, and BB set him up to fail. Not intentionally, obviously, but BB badly mismanaged the tranistion away from Josh McDaniels, and Mac (and the offense as a whole) paid a steep price for that. That's inarguable.
Third, Mac is obviously broken right now. The open question is whether he can be fixed. That layers on top of the open question from the end of last season, which is how much potential for improvement he has. I don't think either question has been answered. I think this is why some of Mac's harshest critics here want to set aside the coaching changes and Mac's good rookie year and just say "he's played the same way all along and he sucks." That's easier, I suppose, than admitting there are questions.
Anyway, I thought there were 3 good answers in the poll. I picked "
I need to see Mac with better coaching, OL, and players." Taken as a whole, I think Mac is in one of the worst situations for a QB in the entire league, and that has affected his performance. I wonde if part of the issue here was that BB was used to being able to rely on Brady to pull good offensive performance out of a bunch of retreads and scrubs surrounding a couple of legit homegrown talents, and he forgot he needs to do better by a lesser QB if he wants to win.
Another answer I liked is this one: "
Let Mac and Zappe fight it out in camp (not literally) and best man wins." I'm not ready to give up on Mac, but he hasn't come close to earning the starter's nod for 2023. If the Pats run it back with Hoyer, Zappe, and Mac, Mac should have be given an opportunity to compete for the job, but nothing more than that. I don't personally think Zappe is the answer, but there is plent yof obvious reason to also doubt whether Mac is the answer.
Another good answer: "
The 2023 QB isn’t currently on the roster." The Pats, at minimum, need to bring in another QB to replace Hoyer and compete for the starting job. And they should look at bringing in a veteran to be the starter.
