After a week where Bailey Zappe could have potentially ended up on someone else’s roster, the former fourth-round pick is right back where he started.
According to NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport, Zappe, who was waived last week following roster cutdowns, is back on the club’s active roster.
After spending time on the Patriots’ practice squad over the last week, the team signed Zappe back to their 53-man roster on Friday ahead of Sunday’s game against the Eagles, which now puts Zappe back behind Mac Jones as the Patriots’ backup quarterback.
As a result, the team reportedly cut Matt Corral, who they had just claimed off of waivers one week earlier.
The change by the NFL when it came to the emergency quarterback rule likely played a factor, which made it difficult for the Patriots being able to safely carry and keep both players while getting Corral up to speed. Instead, they went with the safer option, which was to keep the player who has been in their system for over a year and also has NFL game experience.
Whether or not Corral will return to their practice squad is unclear. The former Panthers quarterback wasn’t spotted at practice on Friday, and it’s tough to say whether or not he’d want to make a lateral move here, or go back to a more familiar spot in Carolina.
After trading up to draft him the previous year, an injury last year against the Patriots in preseason sidelined him in Carolina during his rookie season, and head coach Frank Reich had already praised him for the progress he made over the last year.
Reich also said at the time he hoped to bring Corral back had he passed through waivers. Instead, while that didn’t happen initially, it’s still possible Corral could head back there, which would leave just Zappe and Malik Cunningham as the remaining names behind Jones moving forward.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
