Postgame Transcript – PS1 NYG – Patriots QB Bailey Zappe

POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE

August 11, 2022

Q: Bailey, one of the things that young players talk about when they have their debut against another team as you did tonight is the difference in the speed of the game between college and professional, even in the preseason. This is your first action tonight against other players. Did that factor in tonight to you? Did you say, God, this is a little faster than I’m used to? How did you go about that?

BZ: Yeah, no, I want to say something real fast before I answer that question. I want to congratulate James White on an amazing career and his retirement. I’ve only been here for four or five months and I’ve only known him for that long, and just to be able to be in the facility with him, be able to see how he carried himself and kind of learned many things from him and how he prepared. It’s really something I’m going to try to carry on.

Back to your question, my coaches, my teammates helped me a lot throughout, we all helped each other out throughout this last week of practice trying to get us rookies used to the speed of the game, get us ready for the preseason game. We had a bunch of good things happen this evening and a bunch of bad things or mistakes that we made, and we’re going to correct those tomorrow and this next week.

Q: Bailey, Brian Hoyer was talking earlier about how he was really just focusing on the plays coming in on the headset, but as someone coming in from the outside, was it explained to you guys that Matt was going to be focusing on the play calling when Brian was under center and Joe was going to be calling the plays for you? How was that communicated to you guys?

BZ: Yeah, I mean, to be quite honest with you, it really doesn’t matter to me. I’m more focused on the play that’s coming in, focused on communicating to my teammates what the play is, and then going forward looking at what the defense is giving us, and that’s my main focus.

Q: Bailey, that last touchdown to Lil’Jordan Humphrey, what did you see on that play?

BZ: Yeah, we prepared all week for multiple pressures that the Giants were going to give us, and that was one of the occasions that we practiced for. It came to fruition. We were able to score a touchdown, and he made a great play, and the O-line blocked really well and was able to let me get the ball off, and it was an overall good play.

Q: Bailey, no pressure, he’s not watching or anything, but what have you noticed about your fellow rookie Tyquan Thornton, the receiver, in terms of what he brings to the team?

BZ: Yeah, I mean, I’ll just direct it to the whole receiving corps that we have, top to bottom. We have a bunch of great guys that can make great plays, that can do everything that you really dream of for having a receiver. He’s one of those guys, and like I said, we have many of them on our roster. Honestly, all of them can do many things, and we have a great receiving corps.

Q: I wanted to ask about your confidence and comfort level as the game went along. It’s kind of related to the first question. Coming back out of the half and then late in the game being able to run the hurry-up offense no-huddle, how much more comfortable did you feel in that series and each succeeding series, and how important, too, preceding that was the time you had last week when Brian was out and you got all those reps in practice?

BZ: Yeah, kind of just as the game went on, like you said, you just get more and more comfortable. The more times I come to the sideline, talk to my coaches, talk to my teammates about what they saw, what they’re seeing, and just going back on a drive and just having that next-play mentality, and that’s kind of what my coaches, my teammates, we all try to communicate to everybody is having that next-play mentality and moving on from what happened prior and moving on to the next one and trying to do our best, do our job.

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