FOXBOROUGH – Anfernee Jennings is one of the few players remaining on the Patriots roster who had crossover with Broncos quarterback Jarrett Stidham from his time in New England. His synopsis of the most talked-about man going into this game was short and sweet.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood quarterback,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, someone we have to prepare for and we can\u2019t overlook.\u201d<\/p>\n
Go ahead. Let me know where you get a better scouting report online. I\u2019ll hang up and listen. But seriously, for whatever reason, the Pats are treading lightly around what the veteran backup, now in his third spot, can do and what they remember from past experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a brand new team, a brand new defense I\u2019m a part of,\u201d Robert Spillane said when asked about his experience playing against Stidham. \u201cA brand new offense that we’re going to be going up against. So those past memories are long ago, and we’re just going to focus on what they’ve been doing as an offense and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not too familiar with him,\u201d K\u2019Lavon Chaisson admitted. \u201cI haven\u2019t played him. I played him in college (Chaisson at LSU, Stidham at Auburn). Just watching the film on him and seeing how he played in preseason games. I think he can make any throw he wants with a clean pocket. He\u2019s got great mechanics and a great release time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Preseason is not the real thing. How many times have we seen that in our backyard? The list of players who were August warriors who didn\u2019t even make this, or any other team, is long and easily forgettable. So would you look at Stidham\u2019s 30-of-38 performance this summer and think \u2018He\u2019s got it\u2019?<\/p>\n
The reality is that it\u2019s been 749 days since Stidham threw a pass in a game that anyone cared about. Yes, that\u2019s how long it\u2019s been, and that number will grow by several prior to kickoff. Otherwise, he\u2019s been collecting dust as the #2 in Denver, first behind Russell Wilson, and over the last two years, watching Bo Nix run the show. But with Nix suffering an unfortunate ankle injury late in the Broncos\u2019 Divisional round win over the Bills, Stidham\u2019s time has come.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So who is he and what is he all about? Sean Payton\u2019s actions, like Josh McDaniels\u2019 before, show you that those two smart offensive minds believe there\u2019s something there. One of McDaniels\u2019 first acts as head coach of the Raiders was to trade for Stidham. Once he arrived in the Mile High City, Payton took a similar approach, inking the former 4th-round pick to a healthy 2-year contract worth $12 million (and giving him another deal this offseason). Yet, other than a couple of games with the Raiders (after McDaniels benched Derek Carr), Stidham\u2019s never been given – or earned – the right to be the guy.<\/p>\n
Yet Payton has often said that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FOXBOROUGH – Anfernee Jennings is one of the few players remaining on the Patriots roster who had crossover…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":695064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[88077,7,249,208,88076,88075],"class_list":["post-695063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-bedard-columns","tag-football","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-patriots","tag-sticky","tag-top-patriots"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115935990604741032","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=695063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/695063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/695064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=695063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=695063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=695063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}