New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick didn’t seem too happy with the New York Giants’ surprisingly aggressive approach to Thursday’s preseason opener.
The temperature in the pocket was scalding nearly every time Patriots rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe dropped back for a pass. In a glorified exhibition game, the hunt was on for the Giants defense throughout the night.
As Patriots.com Evan Lazar noted, the Giants pressured Zappe 17-of-33 times, which was over 50 percent of his drop-backs. Belichick claimed the team had to flip the script a bit just to manage the situation with how they were being played in the game.
It’s a big reason why there wasn’t much play-action from the offense.
“Well, with what the Giants were doing, there’s a lot of reasons for some of the things that we did just to try to manage the game. So, just leave it at that,” said Belichick, via NESN’s Zach Cox.
Blitzes Patriots QBs faced in Week 1 of the preseason, per @PFF:
2017: 6
2018: 9
2019: 8
2021: 5
2022: 21 https://t.co/YudlF6Qkh0— Zack Cox (@ZackCoxNESN) August 12, 2022
The biggest plot twist is the fact that the Giants are coached by Brian Daboll, a former longtime Belichick disciple.
Players are obviously competing to secure roster spots, but the preseason is typically approached as a chance to try out new things and put players in different situations that could possibly arise during the regular season.
At least Zappe will know what it feels like to get blitzed over and over again at the NFL level. It isn’t the lesson the 23-year-old quarterback and 70-year-old head coach expected, but it’s the one the Giants gave them.
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