FOXBORO — There’s been a reason for Jarrett Stidham’s underwhelming performance over the last four days of training camp.
According to multiple reports, the second-year quarterback is dealing with an injury that’s forced the Patriots to scale back his workload. That was seen on Thursday when he attempted just six passes in practice. On Friday, Stidham was limited and didn’t attempt a single pass in team drills.
According to the NFL Network, Stidham suffered a hip injury that will take several weeks to fully heal. According to ESPN, the 24-year-old “was taken to a local hospital on Thursday for precautionary tests on his upper leg that came back negative.” After Friday’s practice, Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said he expects Stidham to be back at practice when the Patriots return to the field.
“Coach held him today, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be out there ready to roll the next time we practice,” McDaniels said.
Stidham returned to the field on Friday, but it was clear that something was wrong. He warmed up with the team — like always. Stidham even threw the ball in position drills. However, once team drills started, the quarterback was just a spectator. The Patriots practice pace was half speed throughout Friday’s session, but Stidham still didn’t practice. At the end of the day, only Cam Newton and Brian Hoyer took reps in full team drills that operated at a walk-through-like pace.
The young quarterback’s play has been off this week. On the first day of camp, Stidham looked like the best quarterback on the field, completing 7-of-7 passes in team drills. Over the next three days, however, Stidham threw seven total interceptions — three on Day 2 and two in each of the next two sessions. On Wednesday, Stidham’s workload was clearly scaled back and his performance looked off as he completed just 2-of-6 passes with two interceptions.
On Friday, Bill Belichick was asked about Stidham’s interceptions and how he evaluates the mistakes in practice.
“I don’t think it’s really good for us as a coaching staff to over-evaluate an individual play when we have so many plays to work with,” Belichick said. “Every player makes mistakes out there, every player gets corrected, every player gets coaching points on things that they can do better, differently. I would say ultimately we’re going to reach a point where we have to really evaluate what the performance is. I think in the early stages, there’s definitely timing, confidence, anticipation issues that are different from player to player, depending on who they’re in there with, and what the play was and how things unfolded and so forth.
“Sometimes those are mistakes, sometimes they’re learning experiences, sometimes it could be mistakes by multiple people involved with a specific part of the play that have to be ironed out. Again, our job is to evaluate the overall performance and progress of the players. I think as we get a little bit further into camp that’s easier to do when everybody has done their assignment multiple times in multiple looks and they’re confident and they know what they’re doing and all that.”
Patriots quarterbacks coach Jedd Fisch said that repeat mistakes from quarterbacks are the things that are concerning, but added there are moments in practice when these players are instructed to challenge a certain player or throw a ball differently to see what the outcome is like. He added that he’s seen Stidham grow this offseason and it’s been a pleasure for the first-year Patriots coach to get to know the young quarterback.
“As for Jarrett, I think he’s done a really nice job. He’s worked extremely hard, exceptionally hard since I’ve arrived,” Fisch said. “As we’ve gone into the development, come June and then July and August, I think he’s continuing to build. Really enjoy working with him and watching his knowledge grow.”
With Stidham losing reps, it’ll be interesting to see if Newton takes advantage of the situation. Of course, a player can’t win a starting job if he’s injured. As of right now, the Patriots coaches say they haven’t made a decision on who will start under center come Week 1.
We’ll see if Stidham’s health status changes that in the near future.
mdaniel