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This makes zero sense.
1. If you were going to start Mac all along, why take reps away from him.
2. If you were considering Zappe, why not give him 80% of the reps to prepare him.
The only sensible answer is that they just didn’t know. Bill told BOB “I might start either guy, get them both ready” so BOB’s only logical course of action was to split reps evenly. Bill evaluated them as they went. The tip to Howe was apparently that there wasn’t much discernible difference, which to me means that there’s not really much downside to playing Zappe if you aren’t seeing a big difference in practice when they’re both running with the first team.
Bill may even continue to ride that evaluation period all the way into the game itself and rotate the QBs every couple drives. Obviously that’s unconventional, but at this point in his tenure in NE I doubt he cares.
Anointing Zappe early on and giving him the most reps possible obviously would’ve been much more beneficial but I think he did want to give Mac a real chance to prove he’s the better player, which we all believe he did in the summer by all reports. Unfortunately he has regressed since then, and it sounds like Zappe may have improved a little in the BOB scheme, and we are back where we started. The result might have been different this time.