It would be a major shock if Bailey Zappe was not the Patriots’ starting quarterback next Sunday against the Chiefs.

But Bill Belichick still won’t announce that decision.

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“I’m not gonna get into the future plans right now,” Belichick said Friday morning. “We have a little bit of extra time this weekend. We’ll kind of recalibrate things a little bit. But certainly Bailey’s done a good job. He’s earned playing time. But how exactly that’ll go, we’ll talk about that. I’m not going to announce anything.”

Zappe led the Patriots to their first win on Thursday night since Week 7 when a Mac Jones-led team toppled the Bills. Jones had been benched in two consecutive games and four contests overall before Zappe started his first game of the season last Sunday in a 6-0 loss to the Chargers.

“Everybody will be ready to play. When the players get a chance to play, then they’ll have an opportunity to show they deserve more playing time or maybe somebody moves ahead of them,” Belichick continued.

“We’ll see how it goes. But certainly, he’s done a good job in the two opportunities he’s had to execute the offense. As I said earlier, I don’t think you can put it all on one guy, good or bad. It’s a unit performance and consistency. Certainly, the quarterback’s a big part of that. I’m not saying that. But other people have to perform well, in addition to that. So our our job and our goal is to get the offensive unit performing well. That includes each player. But getting the entire unit performing well and that’s when we’ll have success.”

Zappe, a 2022 fourth-round pick, went 19-of-28 for 240 yards with three touchdowns and one interception in the 21-18 win over the Steelers. He had thrown for 198 yards with three touchdowns in the first half before the Patriots simply held on to win in the second half.

It was easily his best performance of the season out of six appearances he’s made.

“Zappe did some good things,” offensive coordinator Bill O’Brien said Friday morning. “He was disciplined. He had good fundamentals. Zap plays the game calmy. He plays the game one play at a time. Overall he just did a nice job.”

The second-year pro was 2-0 as a starter in his rookie season. He’s now 3-1 in his career. The Patriots are likely to be eliminated from playoff contention soon as they stand with a 3-10 record, but Zappe’s performance over the final four weeks of the season could dictate whether the Patriots want to continue working with him. He was released out of training camp and preseason but certainly showed that he made strides on Thursday night.