The New England Patriots added a quarterback to the depth chart on Sunday, but perhaps they didn’t add a starting quarterback. It’s fitting that in free agency, Bill Belichick allowed Tom Brady, the greatest quarterback of all time, to leave. And in exchange, Belichick welcomed Brian Hoyer on a one-year, $1 million deal.
Belichick is the king of anticlimax in the offseason, with a habit of signing unexciting or unknown players in free agency and then trading back in the draft. But he also converts boring offseasons into exciting regular seasons, which is why it’s hard to be a skeptic, even in an offseason when Belichick seems OK with swapping Brady for Hoyer, a journeyman whose career has included two stays in New England (2009-2011, 2017-2018).
The reasoning for signing Hoyer is simple: He’s an established veteran who knows how to run New England’s system. Maybe he’s not the most physically gifted or clutch quarterback. But he’s a serviceable backup, who has the potential to be a full-season starter in a pinch. From a salary cap standpoint, the Patriots are, indeed, in a bind. They were running out of cap space even before free agency started when they decided to re-sign Matthew Slater, Devin McCourty and Joe Thuney (franchise tag) while retaining Jason McCourty on a contract option. That left little money to spend on quarterback. So the Patriots are sticking with what they know: Jarrett Stidham, Hoyer and Cody Kessler. At least for now.
That’s likely to be the pecking order during training camp (if we have one during this COVID-19 pandemic). Hoyer may push Stidham for the starting job, but considering the Patriots preferred Stidham in 2019 — with Hoyer getting cut — it’s easy to imagine Stidham winning the job. Kessler may be able to push Hoyer in the role — Kessler’s starting statistics are arguably on par with Hoyer, and perhaps Kessler has dealt with more adverse conditions with the Jaguars and Browns.
Surely, the Patriots will open competition for the three quarterbacks. Hoyer is, most likely, an insurance plan against an injury to or a regression from Stidham. There is a chance the Patriots can land a veteran cap casualty like Andy Dalton and Cam Newton, who would save their teams big money, if cut. Maybe once they hit a saturated quarterback market, the Patriots could swoop on one of them. For now, however, the Patritos are probably content with the mix of experience and talent they have.
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