The veteran quarterback did not wear a captain’s patch on his jersey against the Chargers.
When Jacoby Brissett took the field on Saturday against the Los Angeles Chargers to fill in for Drake Maye, the New England Patriots’ backup quarterback was suspiciously missing the captain’s patch on his jersey. Naturally, speculation followed.
Was Brissett demoted for some unknown reason? Was the patch present on all the other captains’ jerseys simply forgotten?
On Monday, during a conference call with the media, Jerod Mayo was asked that question too. The Patriots’ head coach clarified Brissett’s status, and confirmed that he was still serving as a captain.
“He’s still a captain,” Mayo said.
In a follow-up, he confirmed that the patch was simply left off his jersey for unknown reasons.
Minor equipment errors such as this one are nothing new in New England. In the past, players were spotted wearing jerseys with a wrong font, or pants not matching the jerseys; in all of those cases, equipment from before and after the Patriots’ 2021 re-design were mixed up.
What caused this latest mishap is not known. What we do know, however, is that it has nothing to do with Brissett’s status as a captain.