Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels says the team is trying to put rookie QB Mac Jones (10)in a variety of situations to advance his progression. (AP photo)

When will the New England Patriots decide between veteran Cam Newton and rookie Mac Jones as their starting quarterback?

“I haven’t really worried about it,” Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels said Sunday as most if not all Patriots assistants were made available for Zoom interviews. “That decision from Bill(head coach Belichick) will be made when the time is right to make it.”

Right now, McDaniels said, what you see is the way it is. Newton has started, gotten his reps in two preseason games, with Jones to follow.

“Cam is certainly is the starter now,” McDaniels said. “He’s gone in there, he played well the other night, he’s practiced well, but you know I know those guys are really competing hard, and we’re giving them an opportunity to compete, playing a lot of football.

“My focus is really just on our offense improving. That position to me is extremely valuable to our team, we need to be able to play consistently well, communicate well, we need to make good decisions, throw the ball accurately, we need to protect the football and not give it away. I look at those guys in The same light with regards to what we’re trying to accomplish.”

the Patriots have joint practices with the New York Giants later this week, a preseason game at New York on Sunday, then after that two weeks before the season opener at Miami on Sept. 12. Those Giant joint practices in Foxborough will be the last time fans can watch practices this season.

“Those decisions will be made when the time is right,” McDaniels said. “I’m very pleased with the effort we’re putting in at the quarterback position, the improvements we’ve made, and that we’re attempting to run the offense. We still have a ways to go, we’ve got things we can improve on and make better, but the desire to do it the way we want to do it, the standard we want to hold them to, I think is right where we want it to be.”

McDaniels said the work shared by all the QBs is impressive.

“I’m excited about our room,” McDaniels said. “Brian Hoyer is trying to do the same thing. He’s improving, trying to make himself better and make the other guys better. … What I told them is they need to compete within themselves to play the best that they can play.”

Does McDaniels envision a scenario where both QBs could play in the same game as part of the game plan, not because of poor play by one or the other?

“I haven’t thought about it at all,” he said with a chuckle. “Our focus is trying to get them to do everything that they’re practicing or doing in the games to the best of their ability and seeing them improve, and focusing on the things where ‘this is an area where we need to get better at.’

“I have not stopped to think about how to utilize multiple (QBs) in the same game. I’m encouraged by all our quarterbacks. … But we have a lot of work ahead of us this week.”

Meanwhile, McDaniels admitted the fast tempo seen by Jones is partly by design.

“Mac’s improving, he’s improving in a lot of areas weekly,” McDaniels said. “One of the things we’ve tried to do is we’ve tried to get a two-minute situation at the end of the second quarter, and unfortunately the way the game kind of fell the last couple of weeks we didn’t get a chance to do that.”

So in other game moments the Patriots have tried to simulate two-minute drills.

“He’s improving in his game situations, he’s improving in his tempo, getting into a decent rhythm,” McDaniels said. “There are still a few little things we have to fix and tweak moving forward. Generally speaking, there were very few if any pre-snap errors.”

That’s important, McDaniels said, because the goal is “Let’s get out there and set the table, and do it as quickly as we can, so we can get the other 10 guys an opportunity a chance to play fast and be aggressive. He’s improving at that skill weekly.”

And the other night, Jones faced a variety of situations, with a long drive, and also being backed up in his own end zone.

“I thought we did do that with some solid football, we made some big plays on third down, I thought he stood in there and made a good throw,” McDaniels said, referring to a first down on an inside rout. “It’s hard to complete eight first downs in this league. … Mac for his part, we’re throwing everything we can at him in those situations, I was glad those came up, first time throwing from your end zone in the NFL, and have to stand there, continue to read the coverage out and distribute the ball.”

It’s called the Education of a Quarterback. When Jones gets his degree, we’ll know it.