If you were hoping for definitive answers on Mac Jones' future here in New England, both short and long-term, Bill Belichick wasn't ready to play that game Tuesday morning.
"We have a lot of things to work on this week as a team," he said. "We'll work through those. That is what we are going to do this week."
Jones was ingloriously benched in the final two minutes of Sunday's four-point loss in Germany, even as his team had one last gasp left. Belichick had seen enough, as had Bill O'Brien, who excoriated his signal caller a quarter earlier for not seeing two easy options down in the red zone.
Take the profit, Mac. Douglas on the crosser. Stevenson in the flat. Take the sack even. But this? No. No. No. pic.twitter.com/IGMwAjyNfL
— Mike Giardi (@MikeGiardi) November 14, 2023
Jones had three inexcusable red zone decisions that resulted in the world's worst interception (at least it felt that way at the time), another end zone throw that could have resulted in a turnover (the miss to Hunter Henry), and that underhanded two-handed push that was the latest of Mac not playing smart football, not remaining calm in the heat of the moment. No, he turns into a puddle when the pressure gets turned up on the QB. The pocket PTSD is real, and it has become entirely predictable and difficult to watch.
The latest addition to the "Skittish Tales of Alabama Mac" has given the locker room even more evidence that this isn't working and that the quarterback isn't the player everyone had hoped for. Forget about being a poor, poor, poor man's Tom Brady. He's just poor. Jones' footwork has been a mess for much of the season, falling to pieces as his eyes catch a flash of color from an opposing pass rusher. The interception was a prime example. Yes, Vederian Lowe is getting beat, but Jones had time to stand and deliver. Instead, he chose option B: throwing off the back foot. He can't do that. His arm isn't good enough, not even in short spaces. At that moment, the sagging shoulders of teammates mimicked what happened in Dallas, New Orleans, and Miami - they'd seen this movie before. I reported Mac had lost a good bit of the huddle after that Saints loss. It hasn't improved, even after getting that Buffalo win on his resume. The room knows Jones isn't the answer, and in talking to a couple sources, the players think it's time for a change. Of course, they don't make that decision.
Given the way Sunday unfolded, Belichick was asked if he felt it was essential to convey whatever decision he's making at the position to the team today. Again, the head coach wasn't willing to engage.
"The first thing we'll do today is talk about the Colts game, talk about some of the corrections and things we need to do for that," he said. "So, that will be the emphasis today. Like it always is the day after the game or two days after the game."
Belichick added that he has confidence in all the players on the roster when explicitly asked about how he was feeling about Mac. I don't expect the 71-year-old to nuke the third-year pro publicly. There's nothing to gain from that. But the report last week about Jones infuriating the coaches wasn't some one-off. That feeling has been building this fall. As I had one team source express to me Monday, it's almost like they were sold a bill of goods about who Mac was, which has unraveled.
As I've written before, there are plenty of reasons why it's gotten to this point (the organization is on the hook, too), but this is as bad as Jones has played, and now he has a real offensive coordinator and a system that plays to his strengths. Yet, he's thrown interceptions in eight of 10 games this year (he's 2nd in the league with 10 picks). If there have been improvements, they've been slight, and even then, those gains end up resetting after a wrong decision, a bad throw, or an inability to see the field the way he did as a rookie. This leads me to the one real nugget Belichick gave us this morning. It came from an entirely different line of questioning. It focused on giving young players opportunities to play going forward, just to see what you've got.
"I play players that deserve to play, let’s put it that way," said Belichick. "If they deserve to play, then I’ll play them. I’m not going to play somebody that I don’t think deserves to play or will hurt the team or isn’t ready to play. ... It’s up to them to earn that, and if they do, that’s what they can look forward to. If they don’t, somebody else will have earned it instead of them, and they’ll be out there."
Jones has earned his playing time during the week. He tirelessly works and studies. But the gameday experience shows this odd disconnect and an inability to carry that work over. Running him back out there would be doing a disservice to his teammates, the coaching staff, and anyone else who still gives a damn about the Patriots. Pull the plug. It's the humane thing to do.