It appears Ben Volin isn’t quite done stoking the flames as he appeared on The Greg Hill Show on WEEI Wednesday morning while discussing his previous comments on Mac Jones where he said it was good for Jones to be “humbled” coming off his successful rookie campaign.
However, Volin, who was in New York yesterday covering the NFL owner’s meeting and was sitting in the new Penn Station during the interview on Wednesday, made a significant claim which he said came from a DM coming off how his previous assessment of Jones went.
While Volin wouldn’t reveal who or where the DM came from, he said on Jones that someone agreed and messaged, “Yeah, his attitude problem is obvious in the building, and everyone knows it.”
Greg Hill then tried to get clarification, asking Volin, “so somebody, not just a random, somebody reached out and said that Mac has an attitude problem and everybody knows it? Sounds like nonsense to me, honestly.”
Volin replied, “Why is that nonsense?”
“Why didn’t we hear a single thing about it last season?” asked Hill.
“Because he wasn’t a Pro Bowler then,” said co-host and former Patriots tight end, Jermaine Wiggins.
“Yeah, and he was just like a rookie kid and everyone was loving him up,” said Volin. “But I think a lot of the issues have cropped up this offseason. I think he’s been wondering why he was given the defensive coach and the special teams coordinator as his coach and the offensive scheme, like, that wasn’t working. Just some of the body language stuff … I’m not saying like Mac didn’t put in the work or anything. I’m just saying, it’s good to be humbled.”
“It’s good for a kid who went to a Tony prep school, and then Alabama and won the National Championship, and came to New England and went 10-7, everyone’s calling him the greatest thing since sliced bread, it’s probably O.K. for him to be humbled a little bit and to have to work to get back to his starting job. People need to chill out over this whole thing. There’s definitely a lot of smoke there to the Mac Jones and him not vibing with the coaching staff.”
Show producer Chris Curtis then called Volin out, saying, “this story is going to go big the second we post it,” essentially trying to get Volin to realize the magnitude of what he just said, asking him to clarify if the DM came from someone within the Patriots organization, or if it was from someone who covers the Patriots.
“Not from someone who covers the Patriots,” said Volin. “But I’m not going any further than that.”
Volin then went on to backtrack and said “it wasn’t a report,” but Curtis equated it to a similar situation with Adam Schefter, noting that Volin is a reporter and that his comments are clearly going to be interpreted that way.
“Well, do with it what you want,” said Volin. “Call it a report, do what you want. I’m just telling you it’s not like anything I’m going to go, like, splashing all over the pages of the Boston Globe. I’m just further illuminating stuff that I’ve heard.”
Volin also dropped another tidbit after co-host Courtney Cox asked him about a similar report where Kendrick Bourne was reportedly questioning the offense, saying that people like Albert Breer said something similar had been happening with Jones.
“I didn’t hear exactly what Albert Breer said,” said Volin. “But again, you’re hearing a lot of whispers, and there’s a lot of reports coming out from Mike Florio, from Albert Breer, from other people that everything’s not, like 100% hunky dory between Mac and the coaches and there’s even that one report where Joe Judge even prefers … he’s been advocating for Bailey Zappe.”
“So to think that we know what the dynamic of everything is like just from a couple minutes of open locker room and from practice, and what these guys say on the podium. I mean, that stuff is all sanitized. The stuff going on behind the scenes, I think there’s a lot more friction than what appears initially.”
Curtis again asked for clarification on the Judge comment, saying, “So Joe Judge says he prefers Bailey Zappe, and someone that would know agreed and endorsed your belief that Mac Jones was in serious need of an attitude adjustment?
“Yes. Yes, that’s true,” said Volin.
Needless to say, once again, the damage is done, and the madness continues. As it’s been said here previously, this is certainly one of the joys of being in New England that Jones is going to have to deal with and we’ll certainly find out how mentally tough he is in the coming weeks.
UPDATE 12:59pm ET: It sounds like Volin’s source may have been a bogus one – which obviously changes things.
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Ian Logue is a Seacoast native and owner and senior writer for PatsFans.com, an independent media site covering the New England Patriots and has been running this site in one form or another since 1997.
