Where will Patriots QB Jacoby Brissett land on the Chung-Butler Scale?

The Patriots reacquired their former third-round draft pick earlier this offseason.

One of the biggest parts of the New England Patriots’ rebuilding project is restocking a quarterback room that was among the NFL’s worst the last two seasons. In order to do so, the club made some big moves.

Besides trading former starter Mac Jones to the Jacksonville Jaguars, two draft picks — a first- and a sixth-rounder — were invested in quarterbacks Drake Maye and Joe Milton. The Patriots made their intentions clear about Maye being the future of their franchise, but whether or not he will start any games in 2024 is up for debate.

Another offseason pickup, after all, still appears to be ahead of him on the depth chart: free agency signing Jacoby Brissett, who joined the club on a one-year, $8 million contract in March.

Brissett starting games for the Patriots would actually not be a new concept. Back in 2016, he already served as QB1 for a pair of games: a third-round draft pick by the club earlier that year, he moved up the depth chart after both Tom Brady (suspension) and Jimmy Garoppolo (injury) briefly became unavailable.

Brissett added 46 more starts to his career résumé since then, although none of them came in New England. Now, he is back where his NFL journey began and will have an opportunity to add to that number.

What will his second stint as a Patriot look like, though? In order to try to answer this question, let’s pull out the ol’ Chung-Butler scale.

Named after former Patriots defenders Patrick Chung and Malcolm Butler, the idea behind the scale is to project how a player’s second (or third) go-around with the club will go. Will he be closer to Chung, who developed from solid but unspectacular contributor to franchise cornerstone? Or will he be closer to Butler, who went from multi-year starter to not seeing the field at all?

Before finding an answer, it is best to revisit Brissett’s first time as a Patriot. As noted above, he joined the club in 2016 as a third-round draft selection and immediately found himself behind two high-profile quarterbacks.

Under normal circumstances, Brissett would not have been asked to take the field as a rookie. Circumstances were anything but normal in early 2016, however, and he saw his first game action late in Week 2 versus the Miami Dolphins after Jimmy Garoppolo went down with a shoulder injury.

Brissett then went on to start the next two games, leading the team to a 1-1 record before Tom Brady’s highly-anticipated return in Week 5. Along the way, he completed 34 of 55 pass attempts (61.8%) for 400 yards and also carried the ball 16 times for 83 yards and a touchdown. A thumb injury sustained in his first start — a 27-0 win over the Houston Texans — limited him in his second game, which ended in a 16-0 defeat to the Buffalo Bills.

Brissett went on to spend the remainder of the 2016 season on the bench, earning a Super Bowl ring as the Patriots’ No. 3 quarterback. The following summer, he was traded to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for wide receiver Phillip Dorsett.

If Brissett begins the 2024 season as New England’s starting QB, it is not hard to envision him surpassing the impact he had as a rookie. Accordingly, his projection places him to the left of the Brian Hoyer Meridian of Mediocrity on the Chung-Butler Scale:

Brissett has shown he can be a serviceable NFL quarterback throughout his career, and he is capable of holding down a starting position if asked to do so. He will likely not suddenly develop into an upper-echelon passer at age 31, but his experience both overall and working with offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt in particular could prove valuable in 2024.

Fact is, after all, that Brissett had possibly his best season to date under Van Pelt. Back in 2022, when he held down the fort for a suspended Deshaun Watson with the Cleveland Browns, he completed 236 of 369 pass attempts (64.0%) for 2,608 yards with 12 touchdowns and six interceptions in 11 starts.

Brissett’s numbers do not jump off the page, but they do reflect that he was not in over his head when seeing extended action in Van Pelt’s offense. The Patriots hope for more of the same this upcoming season, even if his long-term status can best be described as a “placeholder QB” before Maye ultimately takes the reins either later in 2024 or heading into the subsequent season.

Still, as far as the Chung-Butler Scale is concerned, there is some optimism regarding the veteran in the Patriots’ quarterback room.