Despite Playoff Elimination, Bill Belichick Refuses to Name New England Patriots Starting QB

Seems everyone - except Bill Belichick - realizes that Bailey Zappe's performance in the upset win over the Steelers earned him the New England Patriots' starting quarterback job.

Even three touchdown passes in a half, a rousing Saturday spent with his favorite college team and the earliest playoff elimination of his New England Patriots coaching career won't budge Bill Belichick off his curmudgeon, covert DNA.

Despite quarterback Bailey Zappe's surprisingly productive performance in last Thursday's upset win over the Steelers, Belichick on Monday morning was in no mood to name him the starter ... either for Sunday's home game against the Kansas City Chiefs nor the remainder of the Pats' meaningless four games.

“I’m not announcing who’s doing what,” Belichick said during his weekly radio appearance on WEEI's Greg Hill Show. "That's ... I'm just not doing that."

Pressed on if there was still an open competition between Zappe and the demoted Mac Jones, he also refused to bite.

"We’ll talk about that,” Belichick said. “We don’t practice until Wednesday, so we’ll talk about that over the next couple days, how we’ll do that. Try to make sure everybody’s ready to go, and hopefully everybody will be ready to go.”

While Belichick continues to flatter himself by protecting his starting quarterback's identity as it were nuclear codes everyone was breathlessly trying to attain, the significance is now officially irrelevant. The 3-10 Patriots were eliminated from the playoffs on Sunday. There remaining four games amount to nothing more than jockeying for position among the worst teams in next April's NFL draft.

'Tom Brady Was Only Reason You Won!' Rex Ryan Rips Belichick, Patriots

It's the earliest the Patriots have been ousted from the playoff picture since 2000, Belichick's first year in Foxboro. It's also only the sixth time in 24 years New England hasn't made the postseason under him, but the third time in four years since Tom Brady left. Under Belichick, this is the first time the Pats have missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.

Barring an inexplicable benching, Zappe will start against the Chiefs at Gillette Stadium in a game that was kicked off of Monday Night Football because of the Pats' woeful season. He completed 19 of 28 for 240 yards and three scores in the win over Pittsburgh and is now 3-1 as a starter over his two-year career.

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