Bill Belichick says Ryan Mallett 'has done a good job for us.' (USATSI)
Hours before the 2014 NFL Draft, there was a report that the Texans might try to swing a trade for Patriots backup quarterback Ryan Mallett. It never happened.
The Texans ended up drafting Tom Savage in the fourth round, and Mallett, who is in the final year of his rookie deal, remains in New England -- even though the Pats used a second-round pick quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
Still, coach Bill Belichick maintained in a recent SiriusXM NFL Radio interview that the team has no interest in trading Mallett, at least for now.
“Well, that's not really something that we're that interested in,” the coach said of a possible trade, via PFT. “Ryan's done a good job for us. Fortunately for our team, maybe unfortunately for Ryan, he hasn't really had any playing time in the last three years but he's improved tremendously as a quarterback and as a football player and we have a lot of confidence in him.
"But at the same time he's in the last year of a contract and Jimmy was a player that we had a high grade on and at that position I just don't think you can afford to pass up a player that you think has that kind of value. We feel like we have a good quarterback situation. I think there's a lot of teams in the league that maybe don't feel good about that position and that's not a good position to not feel good about. We feel very good about the players that we have at that spot.”
If Mallett stays put, the implication is that the Patriots will head into the season with three quarterbacks, something they've done infrequently in recent years.
“I don't think that's a position that you can ever have too much depth at,” Belichick said. “Certainly too much is a lot better than not enough. So, again, we'll put those players out there, let them compete and see how it goes. But I think all three of them are quality players at that position. We'll see how it all plays out.”
Whether Belichick will feel differently about parting ways with Mallett in the coming weeks and months is another matter; the demand for backup quarterbacks goes up when starters from other teams get injured. Plus, it's not like teams haven't previously inquired about Mallett -- and now that he has one year left on his contract, it's reasonable to expect the Patriots to get as much as they can for him before he becomes a free agent next March.
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