FOXBORO — Get ready to see Patriots quarterback Bailey Zappe start his second game of the season Thursday night against the Steelers.
Zappe said Tuesday that head coach Bill Belichick has “made it pretty clear” that he’s starting.
“But I’ll let him announce it to everybody,” Zappe continued. “It’s private right now. Whenever he announces it, that’s with him.”
The Patriots were shut out in Zappe’s first start of the season, a 6-0 loss to the Chargers on Sunday afternoon. Overall, there were a lot of things that Zappe would like to fix this week, though he acknowledged the difficulty a short week presents without any actual practices.
“There were some misreads by me, some misthrows by me,” Zappe said. “There were some things I can — ball placement, things like that. So, I’m going to work on that stuff as much as possible today and tomorrow before we head off and get ready for Thursday.”
Zappe said he plans to throw to his pass-catchers as much as possible before and after walk-throughs Tuesday and Wednesdays to get extra work in.
The second-year pro didn’t think it was all bad in Sunday’s loss.
“I would say like the operation as a whole was pretty well by the offense,” Zappe said. “We never really had any questions about the plays or anything like that. We got in the huddle, we got to the line, and we were rolling. So, I think the operation — of course I think there were two or three instances where we can fix and move it on to the next game, but I think it was pretty solid.”
The Patriots’ goal is obviously to win Thursday against the Steelers, but the starts Zappe receives over the final five weeks of the season also could have repercussions on his future as an NFL player. He went 2-0 as a starter as rookie last year but has struggled in training camp, the preseason, four relief appearances and one start this season, ranking among the least efficient quarterbacks in the NFL.
So, there’s a lot pressure to perform.
“Control what you can control,” Zappe said. “That’s what we say around here. I’m not really big into those things. I’m really cool, calm and collected. That’s kind of how my dad brought me up, my mom brought me up. i don’t really try to dive into trying to overload myself or anything like that. I try to control what I can control and wherever my read is, try to do my read and if something happens and I make a mistake, I try to go back and learn from it. I try to not dive into it and ride the rollercoaster ride. I try to stay level.”