BB signed Cam this off season not knowing he'd have Mac. If the cards came out differently, we could have ended up with the offensive lineman the Gints moved up to take, and needed to have Cam ready to go against MIA today, handing off the ball behind that new offensive lineman.
Cam was hired for window dressing, to have a name and a face that FAs use to could talk themselves into coming to NE.
That's why Bill praised him all off season: knocking Cam down would have made those FAs feel they got bamboozled. Best for all involved to let that play out.
Personally I could see either side of the covid take: either (a) the Pats set Cam up by knowing he'd break protocol or (b) the Pats genuinely didn't know that the testing firm they chose to use would break protocol. I tend to think it's (b), but don't know for sure.
What we do know for sure is if Cam got himself jabbed twice then he wouldn't be in the protocol, so Cam bamboozled himself, or let himself get bamboozled by anti-vaxxers.
There's no doubt in my mind his bad decision making with regard to covid made it easier for him to lose the starting QB job to Mac and to then not even be asked to be a backup: who wants a backup that's one dinner date away from missing games? The virus doesn't care about a person's aura.
We don't know how things would have turned out if Cam was available those five days. We now know Mac got all the reps and shined. It should be obvious that this made it easier for the coaches to decide to go with Mac. If Cam was around to soak up some of the reps so Mac didn't have the chance to show prolonged excellence, who knows how the decision making would have gone. We very well could have seen the team go with the original plan: let Cam start the season, let Mac sit and watch, and see how things play out.