Zappe: I thought that by his play last year he earned a legit shot at the starting position, by which I meant more reps in practice w/ the starters, maybe some time in games if it made sense, and so forth. I said at the time that I thought Mac would very probably win that competition, but that that projection did not mean Zappe had not earned a shot. Mutatis mutandis Zappe has now had his shot, and he lost. Fair enough. I have no apology to offer for my views back then. Heck, it was hard to figure out what was going on last year with Belichick's dumb appointment of his aging know-nothing pals as offensive whiz kids.
Mac: I think he's a middle-of-the-road, dead-average QB. He's smart and accurate, but his long throws are iffy, and he offers very little by way of the sort of athleticism which enhances the value and expands the options of many qb's these day. He's maybe 85% of the way toward being a "good enough" "franchise quarterback," but I think it's a real question whether he can traverse that final 15%. He too, of course, gets a pass behind last year's irresponsibly incompetent coaching. but it would have been nice to have seen at least a little light coming through between the cracks last year. The tantrums? Meh, he had his reasons to be p----d.
Malik: I find him interesting. I have seen little, maybe nothing, to suggest that he can be a worthwhile NFL receiver. I doubt his value as a special teamer, though real, is anything like enough to get him a roster spot on that basis. I see him as an intriguing QB prospect who might play a little New Age Odd Ball from time to time for our hidebound Patriots, who always look as if they might relapse at any moment into leather helmet era football. I think he could mimic in practice the zippy sorts of qb's the D will increasingly face. I don't think we know enough to say that "he can't throw" (One hears this fairly often, in the form of an unsupported assertion). I think he has enough skill in enough areas to become as good a back up as the reliably mediocre (at best) Zappe. And I think it's not out of the realm of possibility he could become some sort of starter. The prospect of Zappe's becoming a starter is zero, I think, so I would give Malik the nod in this respect. So I'd like to hold onto him. I think the Pats are floating propaganda and keeping him under wraps as a way of enhancing the likelihood he would pass through wavers, but I think teams see through that. One hears that teams will not want to part with "players they have worked with" in order to take him on, but there are players on most initial rosters with whom teams have "worked" only to discover the player isn't really worth as much as they had hoped. Such players do find their ways onto initial rosters and are very much subject to being tossed overboard in favor of such a bright bauble as Malik. So I don't think he'd get through wavers.
All this considered, I'm going to stick with my geeked out, breathless fanboy twit suggestion of two weeks ago. QB1: Mac. QB2: Malik. Run Zappe through wavers. If he makes it, keep him. If he doesn't, find some crusty old practice squad vet with a little gas still sloshing around in his tank, in case Malik turns out to be what you all are about to tell me he is.
And you're probably right.
