Auburn football: Did Patriots OT Trent Brown take shot at former AU coaching staff?

The New England Patriots are an interesting intersection of former college football greats from the great state of Alabama. Alabama Crimson Tide National Championship winning QB Mac Jones enters the QB room as the #15 pick to compete for the starting job with former Auburn football QBs Cam Newton and Jarrett Stidham.

Truly, it’s a two-horse race between Jones and Newton. Stidham was noted by QB coach Jordan Palmer to have a skill set that’s far from NFL-ready due to the lack of preparedness the offenses of Baylor’s Art Briles and former Auburn football HC Gus Malzahn set him up for.

While there’s certainly an outside shot he can work his way back into the conversation for starting in New England, his bigger concern may be staving off Brian Hoyer from being the third option under center in 2021.

The battle is truly between 2010 National Champion QB Newton and 2020 National Champion QB “Mac-and-cheese”. 

So far, Jones has done an admirable job of seriously being considered to take snaps with the starters in Week 1, though Newton has come on strong as of late after viral videos were circulating of the 2015 NFL MVP badly overthrowing routes in the end zone.

Luckily, though, Newton has turned it around and has been earning plenty of praise for his strong finish to training camp:

Let’s hope the Patriots coaching staff values experience over recent success when they ultimately make the call for who will be leading the offense in Week 1.

Regardless of whether Jones wins the job out of the gate, it’s clear he is the future at the position in New England. Newton was clearly always a stop-gap solution for the Patriots, assuming he doesn’t do the unthinkable and lead them back to the mountaintop.

Jones’ teammates have been extremely complimentary of the 2020 Heisman finalist, including one of his potential protectors, Trent Brown:

"“He’s a young guy, but you can’t really just refer to him as a young guy. You can tell he’s been at a place where’s got some coaching,” Patriots offensive tackle Trent Brown said."

Given that Stidham was the most recent QB taken in the draft by the Patriots before Jones and Palmer’s recent offseason comments, it definitely reads like another shot at former Auburn football HC Gus Malzahn and his staff.

But I truly don’t know the Bastrop brick wall’s intentions. Brown may just be giving more love to the affection-malnourished Alabama coaching staff.

Either way, Jones and Newton (and from a distance, Stidham) are keeping the Roll-Tide War Eagle rivalry alive at the NFL level with this battle to succeed Tom Brady as the franchise QB after he and the Bucs won SB LV without Belicheck.