FOXBORO, Mass. — It’s too soon for life-sized Bailey Zappe cardboard cutouts to begin popping up at Dunkin’ Donuts locations throughout New England. We’re not ready for a “Win Bailey Zappe’s Money” campaign on Fox. Bailey Zappe at Subway? No way.
But there’s no getting around this: Zappe, the fill-in quarterback for the fill-in quarterback who made his first NFL start Sunday, has given the Patriots a reprieve from the malaise that was threatening to consume the season as recently as two weeks ago. In quarterbacking the Patriots to a 29-0 victory over the Detroit Lions at Gillette Stadium, it wasn’t so much that he was brilliant, or great, or dominant — or whatever adjective you pull out of the candy dish. What’s important is that the 23-year-old rookie, making his first career NFL start, displayed none of the jitters that might have been expected under the circumstances.
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Bill Belichick's defense dominates potent Lions offense in Patriots' 29-0 win
And how cool is it that he made his first NFL start on a day when the Pats were wearing their throwback Pat Patriot uniforms? Talk about old meets new.
Six years ago, Zappe was quarterbacking the Victoria East High Titans. A year ago he was quarterbacking the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers. Now, and for now, he’s quarterbacking the New England Patriots and taking orders from — drum roll, please — Bill Belichick.
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Zappe’s numbers from Sunday aren’t important, but here they are anyway: 17-for-21 for 188 yards and one touchdown on a perfect 24-yard connection with Jakobi Meyers in the third quarter. He wasn’t sacked. He did throw an interception, but that’s only because a second-quarter pass to Nelson Agholor popped in and out of the receiver’s hands and was grabbed by diving Lions safety DeShon Elliott.
Take a bow @jkbmyrs5!
📺: #DETvsNE on @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/KUbcndB8I6
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 9, 2022
So those are the numbers. How Zappe looked was more impressive. He didn’t look like a rookie quarterback, or a fill-in quarterback, or a journeyman quarterback. He looked like a quarterback.
“He made good decisions,” Belichick said, and let’s be honest: Bill could have walked out of the room after that. He did have more to say about Zappe, and we’ll get to some of that in a moment, but “good decisions” are what the Patriots were looking for from Zappe. They wanted him to be comfortable, to be cool under pressure, to carry himself in a way that showed this moment was not too big for him.
Here’s more from Belichick: “He does a good job of seeing the game and can come off and identify and articulate what he saw, what happened. That’s usually right. What he saw is usually what I saw, or maybe when you look at the film, maybe there’s something that’s a little gray in there that his explanation is actually good. It was the way he saw it. Maybe he might not have done the right thing, but he saw the game.”
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Buckley: Bailey Zappe, Patriots quarterback and the pride of Victoria, Texas
If Pats fans want to self-diagnose a case of Zappe Fever, that’s their right. If the talk shows want to drumbeat a down-the-road competition between Zappe and Mac Jones, hey, that can be good radio. And if a New England business is thinking of signing the kid up for an ad campaign — I’m offering the “Zappe Frappy” to any local ice cream joint that wants to jump on this exciting opportunity — that would be fine too.
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But if you’re looking for a sign that Zappe isn’t going to allow himself to get too caught up in all this sudden fame, consider the answer he provided after Sunday’s game when he was asked to comment on the “Zap-pee! Zap-pee! Zap-pee!” chant that was delivered to him by the crowd.
“It’s kind of like I’ve always been told, taking advantage of your opportunity,” he said. “We had an opportunity today as a team to go out there and get a win, and we played really well, played team football. Defense played well. Offense played well. Special teams played well. To be able to play like that as a team, it was amazing to get the win.”
The kid aced his first pop quiz in Belichick 101, right?
The question was repeated a few minutes later — thanks for that, Karen Guregian of the Boston Herald — and this time, Zappe more or less acknowledged that, OK, yeah, he heard the chant.
“I like the support,” he said. “But to be honest with you, I was just more excited about the win. To get a win with my team, that was really the focus point for this week. That was going to be the focus point for the rest of the season.”
Bailey Zappe Live Postgame Press Conference: https://t.co/UWetzNXGaG
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) October 9, 2022
Of course. But what matters is that his fun was fun for a fan base that entered the season with trepidation. Trepidation that turned into high anxiety after Mac Jones limped off the field with a high ankle sprain.
A week ago, veteran backup quarterback Brian Hoyer tried to give it a go as New England’s starting quarterback but suffered a concussion and headed straight for the visiting locker room at Lambeau Field.
That’s when Zappe emerged as the fill-in for the fill-in. Now he’s got a W in his first big-league start.
Center David Andrews tried his best to speak to Zappe’s comfort level when he said, “He’s even here all offseason and all summer, so he’s been around. He came in last week, but I think he’s really done a good job that’s attributed to a lot of stuff people don’t see, the extra hours he spends, all the hard work he puts in.”
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Andrews noted that “being a rookie and having a chance to play, there was a lot of extra work that has to go into it. Not only are you game-planning and learning the game plan, but you’re trying to learn the players, what they do … ”
He then gave up and said, “I don’t know, I ain’t never played quarterback.”
It was the best thing Andrews could have said. And the most accurate. Only a quarterback, a real quarterback, could fathom what was going through Zappe’s head Sunday. All the rest of us are just throwing darts.
But we do know what we saw, and what we saw was this kid, this Bailey Zappe from Victoria, Texas, this project of a fourth-round draft pick from Western Kentucky, who didn’t let himself get swallowed up by the moment.
In this first start, that’s a start.
(Photo: Maddie Malhotra / Getty Images)
