I'm a Mac Jones fan. Love his brains, leadership and toughness. The physical skills are good enough, especially with development.
Not sure he's ever going to be elite or win a Super Bowl, but he certainly has a chance if his general manager realizes what he can and can't do, and helps him with personnel to make Jones a well-rounded, capable quarterback. You know, sort of what Bill Belichick does with his defense but refuses to do with his offense and QB (don't feel bad, Mac, he did this Tom Brady too).
Case in point: if the Patriots had DeAndre Hopkins on the left boundary and Jakobi Meyers in the slot against the Eagles instead of a sixth-round rookie (DeVante Parker was predictably injured again) and physically compromised Juju Smith-Schuster (same injury virtually all of last season), the Patriots win that game.
Jones, after a tightly stage-managed rookie season by Josh McDaniels, was on his way to being that guy. McDaniels knew exactly how Jones had to built up, brick by brick, to become a franchise quarterback, and he was executing that plan. It wasn't quick enough for the people who adhere to the elite quarterback sniff test, but those people have blinders on. They think there's only one way to win a Super Bowl in this league - either the QB has it, or he doesn't. We'll agree to disagree.
Jones was on his way ... and then we know what happened last season. There's no need to rehash. Jones didn't do himself any favors with some his play and antics in 2022. But what some people missed was Jones played his best ball at the end of year: Week 14 at Arizona, Week 17 vs. Miami and Week 16 vs. Cincinnati were his three best games of the year, according to my film ratings. And last Sunday against the Eagles was right behind those games. (For reference, Jones' seven best-rated games continue to be from his rookie season.)
The point is, Jones is on the upswing. With Bill O'Brien at his side, Jones is getting close to an inflection point.
But the bottom line is this: Jones has to start winning the bigger games. He's 16-17 to this point as a starter. You can chop up those games any way you want to in order to say Jones is not the issue, that he did X, Y and Z but A, B and C happened to rob him of those victories.
You can say Kayshon Boutte didn't keep his feet in bounds. Or Kendrick Bourne dropped 3rd and 12 over the middle. All are true.
But you can also say Jones could have been picked off on the final drive in the flat to Demario Douglas. Or that Jones passed up a potential game-winning touchdown to Boutte when he elected to throw 5 yards out of bounds when Boutte had a step on the cornerback. Or Jones shouldn't contribute to putting his team in a 16-0 hole against the Eagles. Or 20-0 at Indy in '21. Or 22-0 vs. the Bengals. Or 17-3 at Vegas.
We can do this all day.
The micro-diagnosis really doesn't matter. It's pointless. Wins and losses are the only things that matter. While I do not believe QB wins are a stat, if he continues to be a .500 QB for the next year-plus, he's going to be playing QB somewhere else. That's just a fact.
At some point, Jones needs to win one of these games, and then they'll start happening more. Sunday night against the Dolphins represents the next great opportunity. The Patriots are 0-1. While 0-2 after two home games is not a death knell, it would be very difficult hole for New England. With a dangerous offense and Bizzaro Mac on the other sidelines (Tua Tagovailoa is 24-13 as a starter despite two head coaches and three different systems - and questionable defenses), Jones and the Patriots offense may need to win this game with their matchup against a struggling Miami defense in a new system.
That Jones is in this position, where his ability to be a winning quarterback is in question this early in his career, is not unusual. It's all very familiar to me.
This is NOT to compare the two quarterbacks, but Aaron Rodgers was virtually in the same spot when I covered him after succeeding Brett Favre. Rodgers took over a team that was one play from a Super Bowl in 2007 and went 6-10 in '08. Then they started 4-4 in 2009, making him 10-14 to that point. The sky was falling after they lost to a Tampa Bay team that was 0-7 and had lost 11 straight games dating back to the previous season.
At 4-4, Packers fans wanted everyone fired: GM Ted Thompson, coach Mike McCarthy and, yes, Rodgers.
With their season and perhaps his career hanging in the balance, Rodgers and the Packers beat the Cowboys (6-2 coming in) 17-7.
The headline from my story from that game: 'Rodgers' shining moment'.
If you read some of the story, you could easily substitute Jones for Rodgers:
Let's just get this out of the way: Aaron Rodgers has done a lot more right than wrong in his 25 games as starting quarterback of the Green Bay Packers.
His statistics are gaudy. He's fourth in the National Football League with a 101.8 passer rating. Rodgers' 134.9 rating on third downs is far and away the best in the league. He has thrown 17 touchdowns against just five interceptions.
And he certainly has the smarts and the physical tools needed at the position.
But has Rodgers really made the throws or the plays when the team needed him to? You know what we're referring to: tough throws into impossible spots in gotta-have-it moments? The kinds of plays that separate the good quarterbacks from the elite?
It's a small sample in a such a young career, to be sure, but perhaps not. It might be part of the reason, despite the stats and talent, that Rodgers owned just a 10-14 record as a starter heading into Sunday's game against the Dallas Cowboys.
Sounds familiar, right?
This came next:
And then "The Drive" happened against the Cowboys. And it might have changed everything.
Fifteen plays. Eighty yards. Eight minutes, 36 seconds off the clock. And two throws (and catches) that were described by Rodgers' coaches and teammates as "big-time."
And now as a result, maybe Rodgers' time has truly arrived.
"The two big third-down throws, you talk about your quarterback making three or four plays a game, those two right there are huge plays," Packers coach Mike McCarthy said Wednesday in a Lambeau Field office right off the media auditorium. "And those kind of plays win games. Those plays can change a game. And that's when you talk about prime-time players. Your prime-time players win big games because they make those one or two plays. Those definitely fit in that category."
Up to that point, Rodgers had made two clutch throws that were in the same ballpark: the late third-quarter, thread-the-needle touchdown pass to Greg Jennings last year at Tampa Bay and the game-winning throw to Jennings in the season opener against Chicago.
But the Packers lost to the Buccaneers, and Jennings was wide open when the Bears busted a coverage.
There's no denying what happened against the Cowboys, however.
On third-and-11 from the Packers' 34-yard-line, Rodgers made a route adjustment at the line and then threw a bullet to Jennings, who was tightly covered by nickel back Orlando Scandrick on the inside. Cornerback Terrence Newman sagged on the outside as he looked to come off his man and jump the route.
Three plays later, on third-and-13 from the Green Bay 45, Rodgers somehow completed a pass down the middle to tight end Donald Lee with linebacker Keith Brooking underneath and safety Patrick Watkins charging hard from the top.
The receivers were, for all intents and purposes, covered on each play. But Rodgers gunned passes in there anyway, something he was reticent to do not only earlier in the game, but for much of his young career.
(Adam Richins for BSJ)
The '09 Packers won seven of their final eight games to capture a playoff spot before losing a 51-45 overtime thriller to the Cardinals.
The 2010 Packers would be Super Bowl champions.
Jones is not going to have the same career as Rodgers, that we can be virtually sure of. Jones might not become a Super Bowl champion.
But he can become a darn good NFL quarterback and give the Patriots a chance at postseason success.
That won't happen until he has his own Dallas moment and that kind of drive where none of the circumstances matter, only the bottom line: a big Patriots victory against a good opponent.
It might not happen on Sunday night against the Dolphins, given some of the injury issues for the Patriots - they might not have the horses. They could come up short against the Cowboys in two weeks.
But at some point this season, Jones needs to have his Dallas moment. He needs to take the next step. Sunday night would be a great time for him to do it.