Patriots veteran leader relays message for Mac Jones after benching

FOXBORO — The Patriots head into their bye week in a place no team wants to be: without an obvious answer at starting quarterback.

Mac Jones was benched in the final minutes of the Patriots’ Week 10 loss to the Colts after throwing a red-zone interception. Head coach Bill Belichick handed the reins to backup Bailey Zappe in a two-minute drill while trailing 10-6, and he tossed his own pick.

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In the Patriots’ sole practice of the bye week — a fully padded session — Jones took the first snaps at quarterback with the starting offensive line. Zappe took the next snaps with a backup line followed by Will Grier.

Patriots players didn’t have much to say about the quarterback dilemma in the locker room Wednesday.

“Good for me,” left guard Cole Strange quipped. “I don’t have to answer those questions.”

Team captain Matthew Slater passed along the message he would give to Jones in this situation.

“Just remain as positive as possible and ignore the voices and opinions that are not going to impact your day-to-day living,” Slater said. “Because Lord knows, there are a lot of them out there, but most of them don’t really matter. So be positive. Continue to stay true to yourself, your process. That goes for all of us, not just him.”

Zappe has been worse than Jones in mop-up duty this season. Grier is a completely unknown commodity based on his time in New England, where he’s usually been leading the scout-team offense. The team also has quarterback/wide receiver Malik Cunningham on the practice squad. He spent the Patriots’ loss to the Raiders as Jones’ backup.

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