Devin McCourty says Pats locker room was torn between Jones, Zappe

Mac Jones’ tumultuous 2022 season has been well-documented, but former teammate and recently retired cornerback Devin McCourty is spilling the tea on exactly how bad things got in the New England Patriots locker room.

During a recent radio interview on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show,” McCourty disclosed that New England’s offensive performance was so poor during the season that many players began to question if Jones should have been benched in favor of rookie Bailey Zappe.

“Player-wise there was enough trust that we’re going to put the best guy out there,” McCourty said. “But the struggles on offense, I think there were some guys in the locker room that were like ‘Let’s go with Zappe.’ Or ’No, Mac looked good today.’ It was a back and forth, which to me, spoke more about what we had on offense than the quarterback. We never were solidified as an offensive group that guys had full confidence in anything we were doing. There was never true hope.”

The Patriots, who ranked sixth in scoring offense and 14th in total offense in Jones’ rookie year under former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, dropped to 17th in scoring and 26th in total offense under the combination of Matt Patricia and Joe Judge in 2022.