Over a weekend that gave us plenty of shocking moments, the Patriots not drafting a quarterback may have been the most shocking of them all. As things currently stand, either Jarrett Stidham, who is unproven, or Brian Hoyer, who is proven but bad, will be under center when the 2020 NFL season (if there is one) kicks off in September (or maybe later).

That can’t be the vision Bill Belichick has for the first season of the post-Tom Brady era, can it? Unless the greatest coach in the history of organized sports is comfortable tanking the 2020 season (which is possible!), he has to have another play.

While there is a significant portion of Patriots fans ready to swap their Brady Twitter avatars in for a Stidham one, after having watched every throw he made during the 2019 preseason, that’s not going to go as well as the more optimistic fans in New England may think.

Stidham’s performance in the preseason was flattered by his stat line. His traditional stat line, at least. He threw four touchdowns and only one interception while completing 67.8% of his passes and averaging 8.1 yards-per-attempt. Those are impressive numbers, for sure, but they don’t include the three interceptions dropped by defenders or the 10 sacks he took, many of which were the direct result of him holding onto the ball for too long. There were some protection busts in there, but those can also be pinned on the quarterback, who plays a role in setting the protections in New England’s system.

When Stidham wasn’t throwing to open receivers over the middle off play-action, he was hesitant to make throws and mostly inaccurate, which is what we saw during his time at Auburn. Pro Football Focus’ grading backs up my assessment. PFF gave Stidham a middling grade for his preseason performance (72.2 out of 100) and had him marked down for six turnover-worthy plays on just 123 dropbacks for a rate of 4.8%. To put that in perspective, Jameis Winston was marked down for 40 turnover-worthy plays on 705 dropbacks during the 2019 season for a rate of 5.6%.

Last August, Stidham looked an awful lot like the quarterback we saw at Auburn: Indecisive, inaccurate and reckless.

https://youtu.be/p0bmlyDHDS4

The defense for Stidham’s underwhelming tape and production in college has been his fit in Gus Malzahn’s offensive scheme. Here’s an NFL scout making that very argument to Bleacher Report:

“[Stidham] is playing in a phone booth between the hashes, and he has multiple play fakes to get through, and then he’s supposed to look up, go through progressions and find the safeties—in the SEC, against those defensive linemen? Come on, man,” another scout says. “What did they expect from him? “That stuff is a lot easier to pull off if you have a quarterback who is a legitimate threat to beat you running the ball. Everyone is crowding the box to slow down the QB run, and the first [passing] read off the play fakes is usually the throw to make—and the receiver usually has separation.”

There’s some merit to that, but even when filtering out all of the “college-style” plays and just focusing on straight dropback passes, Stidham’s production was not what you’d expect from an NFL starter. On those straight dropbacks in 2018, his completion percentage was exactly 50% and his turnover-worthy play percentage was … wait for it … 4.8%. What we saw out of Stidham during the 2019 preseason is EXACTLY what we saw out of him at Auburn.

Now, if Brady struggled to move the ball in this offense with this same supporting cast, things are going to look a lot worse with Stidham back there. In other words, schematic changes to the offense are a must.

The Patriots’ draft might give us some insight into the post-Brady offense they are building. The two picks they used on tight ends might be the most telling. With the 91st pick, they took Devin Asisi out of UCLA. They followed that up by picking Virginia Tech’s Dalton Keene with the 101st pick.

Asiasi is your typical in-line tight end. He’s big, he can block a little and he makes a lot his plays on vertical routes in the seams. In other words, he’s an ideal target in a play-action-heavy attack. The Keene picks is far more interesting from a schematic perspective. He wasn’t utilized nearly enough in the Hokies offense but he’s a good blocker who has ability after the catch. At his size, Keene looks more like an H-back than a tight end, and I would not be surprised if he ends up playing a role similar to the one Kyle Jusyzchyk plays in Kyle Shanahan’s offense.

Weeks before the draft, the Patriots also signed fullback Danny Vitale to replace the retiring James Develin. Vitale and Develin play the same position but their skillsets are quite different. Develin is more of a classic, neckroll-wearing fullback while Vitale is a legitimate athlete who can be more of a threat in the passing game.

Expect Josh McDaniels, who already used James Develin a fair amount in the passing game, to draw up some creative stuff for Danny Vitale. pic.twitter.com/q1gHafhiUB — Zack Cox (@ZackCoxNESN) March 20, 2020

With Belichick not signing any receivers in free agency and then passing on a historically deep class of receivers in the draft, logic tells us that the Pats plan on leaning into the power run/play-action offense stuff they’ve been doing the last two seasons, which might look similar to the offense we saw in Baltimore last season with multiple backs and tight ends on the field at all times … and that is awfully similar to the Auburn offense described in the scout’s quote from earlier in this post.

(Maybe Stidham isn’t the best fit for what New England seems to be building.)

Of course, Baltimore could make it work because Lamar Jackson’s presence forced defenses to play 11-on-11 in the run game in a way that Stidham or Hoyer won’t. Building a run-first offense works when you can average 5.5 yards-per-carry, and that’s not going to happen with the Pats just handing the ball off and not forcing the defense to account for the quarterback.

Unfortunately, Lamar Jackson isn’t freely available … but Cam Newton is and, after declining to draft a quarterback over the weekend, the Patriots just so happen to be the betting favorites to land him before the 2020 season.

Based on what we’ve seen from Stidham thus far and the moves New England has made this offseason, that marriage would make a lot more sense than the one we’re currently headed for.