Mac Jones is the Starter [Update - Mac is starting vs the Jete, says BB]

[Ian]

What goal posts? I'm just showing his performance compared to the other QBs that played this week. He's at the bottom. That's not an argument, it's just raw data.

Ian, his top receiver was Rhamondre Stevenson for Christ's sake. We have to baby him so he doesn't make mistakes. If it's not for that moron Wilson giving us the ball 3 times, this game would've been a lot closer. Fortunately, he's another bust and he actually has a hell of an arm. I doubt the Jets keep him past this season.

LOL, I meant that we were talking about first down totals and then you moved to QB rating, which I'm not surprised was terrible given his performance which was just good, not great and, I agree, needs to be better

 

[upstater1]

He sure did, and Daniel Jones & Mills.

Look at where the other Bama QBs sit: at the top. I can see why Saban sat Mac behind those guys.

Mac sat behind guys ahead of him in class years. Which happens a lot in college.

Brady sat behind Brian Griese. It doesn't mean anything. You see this all the time.

Tua also looks good, but that's as meaningless a point as there is, especially at Alabama and places like that.

 

[catent]

At least 4 of those failed 3rd downs were runs or kneel downs. And there were a couple more 3rd and very longs that we just did dump offs to get closer. So that 6/19 wasnt as bad as it looks at least on macs end.

On the first fg drive in particular he converted 3rd and 10 to meyers, 3rd and 11 to meyers, then 3rd and 5 scramble. I thought that was pretty impressive. And I remember one of the scoring drives in Pittsburgh being similar. But in both games he was wildly inconsistent.

OK, so 6/15. 40%.

That's still poor (especially when one has removed run plays and kneel-downs from that number).

The offense wasn't good yesterday. When I re-watched the game, the 2nd-half was worse than I recall. It wasn't just the turnovers setting them up with good field position, it was special teams, too. They couldn't do a darn thing with any of those short fields.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

OK, so 6/15. 40%.

That's still poor (especially when one has removed run plays and kneel-downs from that number).

The offense wasn't good yesterday. When I re-watched the game, the 2nd-half was worse than I recall. It wasn't just the turnovers setting them up with good field position, it was special teams, too. They couldn't do a darn thing with any of those short fields.

40% is not too bad a conversion rate against a really good defense. Lets not forget this team was 5-2 going into yesterday and it wasn’t because of their offense. I get that there’s concerns, especially with mac , and yes they should have done more with the short fields. But it wasn’t all terrible either i thought , there are a few positives they can build off of.

 

[203Pat]

40% is not too bad a conversion rate against a really good defense. Lets not forget this team was 5-2 going into yesterday and it wasn’t because of their offense. I get that there’s concerns, especially with mac , and yes they should have done more with the short fields. But it wasn’t all terrible either i thought , there are a few positives they can build off of.

Outside of Stevenson and Meyers there isn't much to like about the offense.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

Outside of Stevenson and Meyers there isn't much to like about the offense.

Thats something at least. Maybe next week more get involved

 

[Tunescribe]

I don't hate him and if I had to pick one of the two QBs to succeed it would be Mac. I would like to not have whiffed on a first round pick but I am starting to get more and more worried. The offensive line was terrible yesterday but Mac's pocket awareness isn't helping. He doesn't seem to feel the pass rushers bearing down on him and holds the ball for far too long. He needs to hit some of his check downs. I think there was that one play before the half where the RB was wide open standing in the flat and Mac never even looked his was and got sacked. He just doesn't seem to be seeing the field well and his new desire to tuck and run is a recipe for disaster as well. He was getting a little too cute yesterday on the run along the sidelines and his going to get himself killed.

What level of perfection do you consider acceptable? The faults you're finding occur with pretty much every starting quarterback in the NFL. "Pocket awareness" is possible only if a pocket exists to be aware in. Did you see Aaron Rodgers "poor pocket awareness/missed check downs/tuck and runs" vs. Buffalo last night? Mac's decisions running the ball were praised by BB, by the way.

Mac played OK yesterday under the circumstances -- not great, not terrible. He was rusty and understandably had trouble with timing under pressure. The nullified pick-6 was a bad pass on miscommunication with Meyers that should not have been thrown, but even the GOAT has committed that cardinal sin multiple times.

Here is how Mac should be evaluated going forward: (1) does the team win and (2) does the quarterback commit avoidable errors contributing directly to any losses. The latter has set a clock ticking in East Rutherford, N.J.

 

[PatsFan2]

Outside of Stevenson and Meyers there isn't much to like about the offense.

Mac haven't shown the ability to progress past two players that's quite obvious.

 

[203Pat]

Thats something at least. Maybe next week more get involved

I like the fact Thornton is playing as much as he is as well. A minor positive but I will take what I can get right now.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

I like the fact Thornton is playing as much as he is as well. A minor positive but I will take what I can get right now.

Same with bourne, he actually played alot of snaps which suprised me because I literally didn’t see him yesterday. Toe might still be an issue though. Bottom line is at least one has to become regular contributors along with henry. So far it’s been all myers and parker in the passing game.

 

[PatsFan2]

I don't hate him and if I had to pick one of the two QBs to succeed it would be Mac. I would like to not have whiffed on a first round pick but I am starting to get more and more worried. The offensive line was terrible yesterday but Mac's pocket awareness isn't helping. He doesn't seem to feel the pass rushers bearing down on him and holds the ball for far too long. He needs to hit some of his check downs. I think there was that one play before the half where the RB was wide open standing in the flat and Mac never even looked his was and got sacked. He just doesn't seem to be seeing the field well and his new desire to tuck and run is a recipe for disaster as well. He was getting a little too cute yesterday on the run along the sidelines and his going to get himself killed.

Let running Mac keep it up Zapppe will be playing soon enough and probably onward Mac was almost concussed yesterday. And I agree though his supporters would deny it the 6'3 Mac doesn't see the field well at all.

 

[203Pat]

What level of perfection do you consider acceptable? The faults you're finding occur with pretty much every starting quarterback in the NFL. "Pocket awareness" is possible only if a pocket exists to be aware in. Did you see Aaron Rodgers "poor pocket awareness/missed check downs/tuck and runs" vs. Buffalo last night? Mac's decisions running the ball were praised by BB, by the way.

Mac played OK yesterday under the circumstances -- not great, not terrible. He was rusty and understandably had trouble with timing under pressure. The nullified pick-6 was a bad pass on miscommunication with Meyers that should not have been thrown, but even the GOAT has committed that cardinal sin multiple times.

Here is how Mac should be evaluated going forward: (1) does the team win and (2) does the quarterback commit avoidable errors contributing directly to any losses. The latter has set a clock ticking in East Rutherford, N.J.

Level of perfection? At this point I would settle for average QB play. Mac doesn't seen the pass rushers coming and he also isn't taking the checkdowns when the rush is coming. The play after Stevenson had the nice run in the 1st quarter the pocket was starting to collapse and Mac and a receiver running a drag route open and held the ball for a second too long and got sacked. Also in the 1st Harris motioned out of the backfield into the flat where he stood wide open and Mac didn't even look in his direction and took a bad sack because he held onto the ball forever. The pick 6 that was called back he had a clean pocket initially then as soon as a rusher came free he threw the ball to no one in particular and was an easy pick 6 we got bailed out on. That may have been even worse than the pick the threw against Chicago.

As far as Bill praising Mac all I have to say to that is "lol". What else is Bill going to say? They desperately need to rebuild Mac's confidence and Bill isn't going to throw Mac under the bus. I am hoping Mac turns it around but we have seen the O-line have issues it didnt really seem to have with Zappe. I think the offensive line issues are a mix of bad play on the part of the linemen but also poor decisions by Mac.

 

[cmasspatsfan]

You guys have to give Mac more time to develop, we see some good and some bad, we saw some bad from the GOAT in the beginning, but I guess most people don't remember that.

 

[PP2]

You guys have to give Mac more time to develop, we see some good and some bad, we saw some bad from the GOAT in the beginning, but I guess most people don't remember that.

I'm willing to bet that most posters on this board, at this point, weren't old enough to have seen early era Brady.

 

[Ian]

I'm willing to bet that most posters on this board, at this point, weren't old enough to have seen early era Brady.

The guy we saw on Thanksgiving in 2000 looked nothing like the guy we saw in 2001. Just like the guy we saw in 2002 looked nothing like the one we saw in 2003. In fact, the guy in 2002 had some wondering if maybe he had regressed, which is probably why they drafted Kliff Kingsbury just one year after drafting Rohan Davey. Although to be fair, Brady suffered a pretty horrific shoulder injury that we later found out may have seen him sidelined in the playoffs had they gotten that far.

It takes time to find out who you have as a player. Without that Super Bowl season in 2001, who knows how much patience people around here might have had for him. But I recall that being a relatively contentious year for him and I'm sure most were glad that patience paid off. The same is going to need to be said for Zappe if Jones doesn't pan out. Both are young and cost them little, so they'll need to see things through with each guy before turning the page if that's ultimately what happens.

 

[PatsFan2]

I'm willing to bet that most posters on this board, at this point, weren't old enough to have seen early era Brady.

The old fart excuse me is not guilty.

 

[PATSYLICIOUS]

You guys have to give Mac more time to develop, we see some good and some bad, we saw some bad from the GOAT in the beginning, but I guess most people don't remember that.

I agree we should give him time, the thing that worries me though is his pocket awareness is really poor at times. We definitely saw brady making some bad decisions early on or not seeing the whole field / missing open guys like with all qbs. But I honestly don’t remember the deer in headlights moments and if so they were quite scarce, which yesterday mac had several of. And its strange because in my recollection of last year these were few and far between with him as well. So i don’t know if this particular drawback is attributable to the new oc / new system but i think right now this is a legit concern.

 

[catent]

40% is not too bad a conversion rate against a really good defense. Lets not forget this team was 5-2 going into yesterday and it wasn’t because of their offense. I get that there’s concerns, especially with mac , and yes they should have done more with the short fields. But it wasn’t all terrible either i thought , there are a few positives they can build off of.

Except it's not 40% because we pulled out runs and kneel-downs. We'd have to adjust for that in every other game played this season, involving all other teams, to actually get a fair comparison looking at league averages.

That's why pulling out runs and kneel-downs isn't right, because those are things that happen to other teams in other games, too. Either adjust for them all, or none of them.

Artificially pumping up 3rd-down conversion percentage and then pointing to that artificially inflated number as a positive statistic against a good defense isn't an accurate way to measure their success.

 

[venecol]

LOL, I meant that we were talking about first down totals and then you moved to QB rating, which I'm not surprised was terrible given his performance which was just good, not great and, I agree, needs to be better

Oh OK. I missed that I guess. I just thought that ratings are a better number when comparing since it takes into account sacks, ints, etc.

 

[Ian]

Oh OK. I missed that I guess. I just thought that ratings are a better number when comparing since it takes into account sacks, ints, etc.

It definitely is a better metric, no question. I was just chiming in on the first down stat because I still had it up on the screen. I would have left it alone if we were talking about that because there wasn't much to argue.

Let's not kid anyone, Mac played at best a C game yesterday and it could have been lower had other circumstances played out differently. But he put together a good second half and finished relatively strong, which he needed to do but he's only going to get one game with a benefit of the doubt from the people who are willing and patient enough to give him a chance.

That being said, he'll need to be better Sunday. Plus, he might as well get used to the fact every single game is going to be a road game for him through the rest of the year. I'm sure last Monday night has him aware of that. Whether or not he's truly mentally prepared it for might be another story.