FOXBOROUGH — Talk about a step up in level.
In the first three starts of his NFL career, Mac Jones faced three quarterbacks — Tua Tagovailoa, Zach Wilson (rookie) and Jameis Winston — who have never started a playoff game, let alone won one.
There really wasn't much fanfare around any of those matchups either, for good reason. The Dolphins, Saints and Jets aren't exactly must-see TV in their current forms. Alas, the Patriots enjoyed regional NFL coverage with lesser announcing crews.
In theory, it was the perfect way for Jones to start his NFL career.
But Sunday night is going to be like throwing an ice bucket right in the face of the rookie.
Sunday Night Football. National Television. Al, Cris and Michelle.
Heck, even ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown is going to have a Gameday setup at Gillette.
Oh, and the defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers with some QB named Tom Brady (by the way: 45 playoff starts, 34 victories), who used to be a popular player and will be returning for the first time, are the opponent.
Welcome to the NFL, kid!
"I think it will be a great, great atmosphere," Jones said Wednesday. "You know, you play games and big games and stuff like that, and you want to play in games like this, so it'll be really exciting, and the fans will obviously be great, and I think it will be a great atmosphere."
Gotta hand it to Jones. I've seen a few young quarterbacks in this league leading up to their first NFL prime-time game — and not the Thursday night kiss-your-cousin games — and Jones took it all in stride.
I can remember A.J. Feeley of the Dolphins looking like he was going to swallow his own tongue. Aaron Rodgers' first start was a Monday night win over the Vikings, but it was opposing Tarvaris Jackson. His third start, a 27-16 home loss to Tony Romo and the Cowboys, was on Sunday Night Football and Rodgers took five sacks and posted an 80.1 rating.
"It's disappointing," Rodgers said after the game. "You'd like to win them all, obviously, but Dallas is a very good football team and we unfortunately didn't play our best."
Obviously this is a completely different scenario. Not only is it Tom-aggeddon, but the Patriots are scuffling at 1-2 and Jones' play has regressed along with his protection.
Sure, Jones played in some mighty big games at Alabama, including a national championship (he won), but this is a different world. It's Tom-Frigging-Brady on the other sideline, and Jones hasn't even faced a decent NFL starting QB yet. Has Jones even contemplated what that's going to look like?
"Not really," he said, in his customary Richie Cunningham way. "I mean, it's really just us against the other team, and that's how it always will be, and it's not like one person versus one person. I think that a lot of it is 11 on 11, and that's what goes into it, and that's how they're going to look at it. That's how every team looks at it. It's just you're getting a chance to compete in a primetime game, and it just kind of is what it is."
To this point, zero of Jones' issues — there haven't been many, and most of them have been caused by near-constant pressure — have had to do with the pressure of the moment or the stage being too big for No. 10.
In fact, it's been the opposite. It's like he's been groomed for these spots, and maybe he has been — both his parents played college tennis, and his father played on the pro tour. Maybe Jones has studied up on it, too.
"I think it just goes back to, really, with pressure, you just got to focus on doing what you're supposed do, and people who have jobs in high-pressure situations, that's what they do," Jones said. "They do their job really well, and they prepare really hard, so it's all you can control. And once the hay is in the barn, the hay is in the barn, and you just got to go play. I think everyone will be excited, and we're just going to be ready to play when it happens."
In Jones' first big start of his college career — and it was his first start overall in place of an injured Tagovailoa — Jones displayed some good and bad traits. In the Iron Bowl against Auburn in 2019, Jones was 26 of 39 for 335 yards and four touchdowns. Jones also threw two pick-sixes, but he also threw two go-ahead scores and led his team back on a final drive where he scrambled 18 yards on 4th and 7 to get Alabama in position for a game-tying 30-yard field goal. Auburn won 48-45.
Once Jones had the job to himself last season, he excelled in pressure situations. According to AL.com:
Jones was 28-for-33 (84.4%) with 469 yards (16.8 per completion) when the Tide was behind against Ole Miss and Georgia. Of those 28 completions, 24 went for first downs and 12 gained 15-plus yards.
"Mac’s put in so much hard work over the past few years, whether it’s in the offseason or during the season, and that’s one thing he’s had to learn, like any other quarterback, to stay calm," Nick Saban told reporters. "If you get riled up too easy, it can also affect the team. He’s done a good job of improving on that and I know that’s just his personality. He does a good job of staying calm and poised when times get hard or adversity strikes.”
It seems like Jones has also learned — likely via a teachable moment from Bill Belichick after Sunday's loss to the Saints — that losing in the NFL happens, you're not going to play well in every game.
"It is frustrating sometimes, but we've already flipped a page and it's a new week and a new day, and all you can do is just, what did I do last week that maybe I can improve on and then just go from there," Jones said. "And you can only pout and be sad about it for whatever, 24 hours in my opinion, but some people move on quicker than that even. That's always good. You just turn the page, and most importantly, learn, and then continue to grow in the next week.
"Things aren't always going to go perfect, and they're never going to go perfect, honestly. In the NFL, there's good players on both sides of the ball, and you know, it just goes back to practice, execution and just trying to learn and keep moving forward, and like I said, improve on one thing every day and just go from there."
There's going to be a lot of good players on the other side of the ball come Sunday night, including one in particular.
This is a big moment, but it doesn't seem too big for Jones.