New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick showed his appreciation for backup quarterback Brian Hoyer on Monday after the team’s first win of the season in Week 2 against the New York Jets.
Belichick made the surprising decision of cutting quarterback Cam Newton in favor of promoting rookie Mac Jones and keeping Hoyer at backup. The Patriots coach was mum on cutting Newton earlier this season, but had plenty to say about what Hoyer has brought to the team in recent weeks.
Hoyer has prepared for a large number of defenses with New England, which makes him a resource for Jones.
“Brian’s done a great job for us in every area,” Belichick said Monday morning. “He obviously knows the offense better than anyone — better than any other player or quarterback. That’s a big help on executing the play. There’s the coaching version of it. And then as a player, there’s kind of the execution of it. There’s a couple of things that you remind yourself as a player that a coach sometimes doesn’t. It’s just different when you’re a player executing the play and a coach trying to explain the play.”
Surely, that information is useful for Jones in his first NFL season.
Hoyer has played for eight different NFL teams since entering the league as an undrafted free agent in New England in 2009. He has learned a wide array of offenses, which can be useful as the Patriots prepare against different offensive schemes.
“I think Brian adds a lot of good insight to that and how other teams defensively do things,” Belichick said. “They’re all different. Brian helps me with things that he’s seen. He’s been with a lot of teams. He’s been with a lot of coaches, been in other systems. We talk about plays and situations, and he has a lot of good either ideas or recollection of the ways somebody else did something, which might be something to learn from or might be something we can use.”
With all that knowledge of the Patriots offense and, often, of the coming opponent’s defense, Hoyer is a low-maintenance backup. He doesn’t need much in the way of coaching.
“He’s been good, and knows the offense so Mac’s been able to take a lot of reps,” Belichick said. “Brian’s been able to go in there and execute the offense when he’s needed to, be it in a preseason game or a practice, without taking a ton of reps so that we can give more of those to Mac.”
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