National Football League

Belichick laughs off question of evaluating QB position

Published Sep. 30, 2014 9:06 a.m. ET

Brett Smiley

At a postgame press conference after the Kansas City Chiefs' surprising 41-14 beatdown of the New England Patriots, one reporter boldly asked Patriots head coach Bill Belichick "if the quarterback position would be evaluated this week."

Characteristically wry and surly at these conferences, Bill Belichick offered a mostly nonverbal response.

The reporter had to know he wouldn't get much more than that, but it's a milestone that someone raised the question at all about the performance of 37-year-old Patriots mainstay Tom Brady. Brady didn't look very sharp, forced the ball at times and threw two interceptions, completing only 14 of 23 attempts for 159 yards.

Belichick will be evaluating the offensive line, because the play up front was poor, at best.

"Confidence, I'm not worried about whether it goes up and down," Brady said after the loss that dropped the Patriots to 2-2. "There's going to be a lot of negativity. Everyone's going to tell us how terrible we are. It's just the way it goes in the NFL."

Late in the game, rookie backup QB Jimmy Garoppolo got his feet wet, completing six of seven passes and throwing his first touchdown pass to tight end Rob Gronkowski.

Asked why he put Garoppolo in the game, Belichick said, “We played everybody tonight.”

At the start of the 2014 season, asked about how long he'd like to play, Brady half-jokingly said, "When I suck, I'll retire."

It will probably take a lot more stinking before Brady or Patriots fans arrive at that evaluation. Don't bother asking Belichick about his feelings on the stink-suck spectrum, because he won't tell you.