Bears Week Patriots Notebook: Where do things stand at quarterback?

A little bit of a different rhythm to this game week with the Monday night football matchup. Patriots will hit the practice field Thursday through Saturday, giving Mac Jones a little more time to heal up.

What do the Patriots need to see this week for Jones to be the starter on Monday night?

"Well, I'm not the doctors, I'm not the head coach, so those decisions are above my head," QB coach Joe Judge told reporters on Tuesday. "My job is to prepare Mac every day as if he is playing. He does a terrific job of coming in every day, staying up to date on the information, really getting ahead on the opponents and he prepares every day as if he's taking every snap and I think that's a tribute to how he works, the mentality and competitiveness he has and he's doing everything he can to get himself out back as fast as possible.

"When you look at players come back from injury, I think, generally speaking, there are two things you're concerned with as a coach. Number one, can they hurt it any worse? You never want to put a player in a position to be worse off and then number two would be you know, can they protect themselves? And again, these are things that come up through practice and what you see, that's an evaluation you have to make with any player, you know, obviously healthy players, you know, a little bit easier to evaluate and guys coming off injuries you have to see where they're at within their rehab and how they're moving. But again, I deflect those decisions are made, you know, people above me, and the head coach and the medical staff."

Belichick's update today:

"I have total trust in Mac [Jones] and our conversations over the last couple of years (relative to the injury and his status), but we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know. We’re not practicing today, we’re going to get a jump on the Bears on some meetings and film work and things like that. Then we’ll practice tomorrow, so we’ll give you the injury report tomorrow, let you know how things are then, but really there’s nothing to talk about today."

Pending how Jones looks on Thursday, here are the things we know about Jones' health:

• He's looked better on the practice field with each week;
• He traveled to the game, and Bailey Zappe said he was told he was starting on Saturday;
• Several reporters in Cleveland said Jones looked much worse tossing the ball around on the field before the game.

How do those things square up?