Is Mac the guy for the future?

[Triumph]

LOL did you just compare Harris and Stevenson to a prime Curtis Martin? These young fans are funny

The Belichick Patriots have mostly been built with RB by committee.

Same for WR, but you're right, the Pats need to be stocked with 1st round picks like Alabama and then Jones can win.

 

[JMC00]

Is this Mac or the coaching? He sees this easily last year. This year he forces the ball into coverage more. Why?

Well I gotta think if Harris is going out as the checkdown and the LBs didn't bite on play-action and dropped then it's on Jones for either not seeing the LB or seeing them and still thinking it was a good idea when all he has to do is go to his checkdown and he's standing there in the flat open for a positive gain. Might be different if another LB had come up to cover Harris but Harris is open and Parker is in a zone of 4 ravens defenders.

 

[TomPatriot]

Well I gotta think if Harris is going out as the checkdown and the LBs didn't bite on play-action and dropped then it's on Jones for either not seeing the LB or seeing them and still thinking it was a good idea when all he has to do is go to his checkdown and he's standing there in the flat open for a positive gain. Might be different if another LB had come up to cover Harris but Harris is open and Parker is in a zone of 4 ravens defenders.

Maybe he was told to stop checking down so much. Just sayin’.

 

[gitgronked82]

Has it been mentioned that Hunter Henry is not having a good year? That Strip sack and TD in Miami was partly his fault. The kid is clueless this year and is a suspect blocker to boot.

Yeah, the targets I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that it’s not all his fault. But his blocking has not been good.

 

[mike_usagisan]

You're giving up on Jones a little early. I'd look at where he is by the end of this season before I'd make a long-term assessment.

I'm waiting for three seasons. There were a lot of comparisons to Drew Brees when we drafted Mac. Look at Drew's first three years (playing... not counting his rookie season where he played one game):
2002: Chargers go 8-8 and he completed 60.8% with 17 TD and 16 Ints
2003: Chargers go 2-9 (while he played) and he completed 57.6% with 11 TD and 15 Ints
His third season starting is where he turned the corner.
2004: Chargers go 11-4 (while he played) and he completed 65.5% with 27 TD and 7 Ints
Hell, even after that, the Chargers still gave up on Brees.

Josh Allen recently took 3 years to turn the corner.

 

[AQPE]

My 2 cents on this is that Mac can be an effective enough QB but lacks the overall talent to put the team on his back and make plays when the offense is sputtering. He is Chad Pennington 2.0 without the maturity (yet). He seems to be pressing to get the ball downfield too often and getting frustrated too quickly. Last season he seemed more calm and under control. I think McDaniels had a lot to do with that. It will not be pretty watching Hoyer but it may help Mac to sit back, calm down, and process things for a couple or more weeks in other words, I‘m not giving up hope on him just yet.

I’ve concluded (even before Mac’s injury) that this is going to be a “bridge” year. I can’t see them being competitive with the current top level teams, and figure they will let guys like Wynn, Agholar, Smith, Uche, and McCourty walk when the year ends, and hope some of the younger guys emerge. They will be in a better position financially after the season.

With that said, the bigger issue for me is whether BB has an actual plan for the next steps. The coaching on offense wasn’t great last year and is looking even more ineffective this year. Can anyone name a single player on offense this year that they would say is noticeably better than they were last year? The spending spree in 2021 yielded more good players for them than not; Smith and Agholar have disappointed, Judon and Mills have been very good additions, the rest a mixed bag. So I think they will have an opportunity to improve the roster next year which should help Mac a lot, if they can greatly improve the coaching staff on offense.

 

[Ollie]

I think it's really hard to judge mac right now. Fisrt year we got what was advertised. A rookie qb who doesn't have the best arm but was great pre snap and made good reads. It was reasonable to expect that to continue. What we have this year is a qb who is missing plays i don't think he would last year and is pushing the ball rather than taking what the defence gives you. It's hard to know if this is on mac or coaching in terms of the change in philosophy but you can't excuse some of the decision making from mac as it hasn't been great at times. If he can clean up the brain farts and be consistent i think you can win with mac.

 

[Rob0729]

I recall the days of the Drew Bledsoe debate.

Drew needs _______________________________ and he will be great. It was never Bledsoe's fault for coming up short. Then Brady took over and began winning big games with the exact same people that were not good enough for Bledsoe. Today, this NE team has plenty of talent on it to make the post season with the right QB.

The Pats wont be going anywhere this year because of 1 player and not because of the other 52 players

Bledsoe was great for a number of years and did bring this team to a Super Bowl. His problem wasn't his skills. It was the game changed and he was a product of a game that was going the way of the dodo. Bledsoe was a classic five to seven step drop, wait for the play to develop and huck the ball down field type QB. But defenses got faster and faster and that style of play no longer worked even with an elite o-line. QBs needed to get the ball away quickly. That has nothing to do with this year.

But this team is not a QB away from being a Super Bowl contender. If you had an elite QB, it might be a wild card team. I still don't think they win the division. There is still a lot of issues with the o-line and sections of the defense along with a lot of decent but no really good WRs.

And even with Jones' regression, he is still arguably the second best QB to come out of the 2021 draft. And the Pats had no shot at the #1 pick.

 

[Rob0729]

Rumor has it BOB isn’t the OC because Bill doesn’t want to poach from Saban. Idk.

Supposedly, Saban and Belichick have a rule to not poach each other's staff.

But people might be sleeping on a possibility that BOB just didn't want to come back to the NFL as an OC. I think he still wants to be a head coach. He probably feels that spending another year in Bama with an explosive offense will make him a more attractive head coaching candidate than going to the NFL for a year as an OC. Other than against Texas, the Crimson Tide is scoring 55 points a game or more.

 

[203Pat]

I am no Patrica fan by any means but blaming Patricia for some of these interceptions is a major stretch. Mac is making bad decisions more often this season. Maybe it is because they loosened the reins maybe it is partially play calling but either way 90% of the blame falls on Mac. The INTs where he feels the pressure and gets happy feet are understandable for a young QB but the few he has had a clean pocket and just throws it straight to a guy worry me.

 

[Rob0729]

Harris is averaging 4.6 YPC. Stevenson is averaging 5.0 YPC. Agahlor is catching 78% of his targets and Bourne is catching 77%. Jonnu Smith and Henry are post season caliber TEs. This team has plenty of talent.

The Pats have turned the ball over 8 times in 3 games and the QB is responsible for 6 turnovers.

First of all, you cannot win today with a strong running game. The Colts had the best RB in the game last year and didn't make the playoffs. The Titans did win the conference, but Derrick Henry missed much of the season.

Efficient receiver are not dynamic receivers. As of right now, the Pats have no receiver that teams have to gameplan for. And Bourne is only getting like 15-25 snaps a game. That isn't on Jones. And Henry and Smith are used to block a lot. Again, that isn't on Jones.

And I don't blame him for the blind side sack turnover. That was on Trent Brown. And I don't think all the other turnovers are 100% on him. The turnover on Sunday in the end zone was at least partially on Davante Parker for running the wrong route.

 

[sb1]

Looking back yeah Mac made those errors but I think he did a lot better than we thought. He showed that maybe he really can push the ball downfield and teams should be wary about flooding the short stuff. I hope the team noticed and get him some help on offense moving forward.

Saw someone on Twitter compare him to Eli Manning. He has his great moments and then he has his moments where he's way off, no in between. Never thought of that before. I'd sign up for Mac to be our Eli if it comes with the two Super Bowls. Lol

 

[Wozzy]

We rank 11th in passing yards, 10th in total yards in the entire NFL... Mac hasn't been that bad outside of the turnovers.

The turnovers are the biggest problem though, that and his lapses in pre-snap determining where pressure is coming from.

I think Patriot's fans who spent the last decade watching a 30-41 year old QB forget that just because Mac was good for a rookie doesn't change the fact that he is still young and prone to mistakes.

Take away the mistakes and this is a top ten offense (and defense). Fans have a hard time separating the two, or imagining a world without what averages out to be about 2 fatal mistakes a game that changed the entire outcome.

 

[upstater1]

Maybe he was told to stop checking down so much. Just sayin’.

I just can't believe anyone would say that to him.

He wasn't checking down last year either.

And the Patriots used to use check downs more than most teams in the NFL.

The #1 check down team right now is the Bills, and they have the best offense.

 

[Betterthanmost]

I have my doubts if this is gonna continue

This was the 1st INT.

He is not seeing the field, he acts like he scans, but issues like these are not because of coaching. These quotes from Lombardi says a lot about how he was playing, after all, Mac was supposed to be cerebral. This is just plain stupidity.

“New England is not doing anything they stand for,” Lombardi said on the latest show of his podcast, as transcribed by ESPN’s Mike Reiss. “They want to avoid losing before they win. As much as I like Mac Jones, I thought Mac Jones would protect the ball and play smarter than he’s played. Now he’s hurt with the high ankle (sprain). To me, he was in danger of either changing what he did, or he is going to lose his job. You’re not going to play in the NFL if you keep turning the ball over the way he was.”

 

[venecol]

Is this Mac or the coaching? He sees this easily last year. This year he forces the ball into coverage more. Why?

@Joker put out a post (don't recall the source), that Patricia is telling Mac: we like this play, just run it. IOW don't change it. Don't know if that's true but I sure as hell hope not.

 

[203Pat]

I just can't believe anyone would say that to him.

He wasn't checking down last year either.

And the Patriots used to use check downs more than most teams in the NFL.

The #1 check down team right now is the Bills, and they have the best offense.

Checking down to a TE underneath or an RB in the flat does wonders for an offense and can deflate a defense when they give up "cheap" first downs on those types of passes.

 

[upstater1]

Checking down to a TE underneath or an RB in the flat does wonders for an offense and can deflate a defense when they give up "cheap" first downs on those types of passes.

Like the Ravens did to us this past weekend. Contrary to what Moose Johnston was yapping about (the Patriots are methodical, the Ravens are a home run type team) the Ravens gashed us with dozens of throws underneath

 

[Triumph]

First of all, you cannot win today with a strong running game.

Derrick Henry

The Colts had the best RB in the game last year and didn't make the playoffs.

Indy beat the 2021 post season Cardinals, Bills, 49ers and your Mac Jones Patriots.

The Titans did win the conference, but Derrick Henry missed much of the season.

But you cant win with a strong run game. The Jets went to back to back AFC Championships with Mac Sanchez and a top 5 run game both seasons. The Patriots won last year with a stout run game and defense.

Efficient receiver are not dynamic receivers. As of right now, the Pats have no receiver that teams have to gameplan for.

A dynamic WR cant throw himself the football.

Jones long passes are never over thrown with too much arm out of reach for the WR. The throws are like geese landing on a pond. Word travels fast in the NFL so look for more INTs when he tries to go long.

And Bourne is only getting like 15-25 snaps a game. That isn't on Jones. And Henry and Smith are used to block a lot. Again, that isn't on Jones.

Jones job is to find the open guy and safest throw. Harris was all alone on one of the INTs, but Jones thought that gambling down field was better. 5 INTs and a fumble return for a TD through only 3 games.

Its gone back to blame others for the QBs poor play.

And I don't blame him for the blind side sack turnover. That was on Trent Brown. And I don't think all the other turnovers are 100% on him. The turnover on Sunday in the end zone was at least partially on Davante Parker for running the wrong route.

So far this board is blaming - Patricia, Andrews, Wynn, Parker, New offense, Bourne not playing, The draft and no playmakers, BB.

 

[mike_usagisan]

So far this board is blaming - Patricia, Andrews, Wynn, Parker, New offense, Bourne not playing, The draft and no playmakers, BB.

Um, I'm seeing a lot of posts blaming Mac, including yours.