Mac's Future
- Thread starter TomRicardo
- Start date
To add to the chorus here, I think this is completely wrong. Mac’s made these comments literally his entire career, the Hail Mary had nothing to do with it
Gotcha. I’m no capologist so I have no clue what the impact is for cutting him now vs. the off-season vs. trading him. I thought someone here said the cap hit would be larger if they cut him now. Perhaps I misunderstood
Yep, and that still annoys me. To be charitable, perhaps Bill thought an off-season of work would help Zappe become a viable backup. But it sure seems that the moment camp opened in July he knew that wasn’t happening.
Any scrap heap vet would have been preferable to Zappe IMHO.
Imagine drawing up a game plan to minimize Macs weaknesses and this is what you are left with.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-xMZYjWQAEUuDc?format=jpg&name=small
https://x.com/michaelFhurley/status/1723836760151478599?s=20
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F-xMZYjWQAEUuDc?format=jpg&name=small
https://x.com/michaelFhurley/status/1723836760151478599?s=20
Can’t throw right at all
Can’t throw long at all
Can’t not hold the ball too long on third down
Must be. Which is batshit since I feel like he chucks up at least 3 or 4 bombs every week that have no chance of being caught (either because of his throw or our receivers who have oven mits for hands).
Yeah, some of the local writers love him because he will ALWAYS give a quote shading everyone around him if given the right prompt, and it's not because he's dumb. It's all part of the same problem which is he's a whiny entitled baby who takes no responsibility for anything.
At this point we should just send him to the colonies. He’s broken. He may enjoy a modicum of success in the NFL but it ain’t gonna happen in New England.
Give him a shot to see if he can justify keeping him around as the backup next year?
I am truly at the point where I feel bad for Mac. And I’ve been one of his biggest doubters for the last two years. It’s just gotten so bad that if he is a halfway decent person off the football field there’s a part of you that hates to see someone that seems otherwise decent as a human have to endure this.
He may be a total asshole, who knows. But nothing seems to indicate that, outside of some brattish behavior here and there. But nothing so bad that I look at the kid and take any joy in seeing his career completely go up in flames like this.
For whatever reason I hope he at least gets a Colt McCoy-like career out of this. Not what he probably envisioned, but an NFL career regardless.
He may be a total asshole, who knows. But nothing seems to indicate that, outside of some brattish behavior here and there. But nothing so bad that I look at the kid and take any joy in seeing his career completely go up in flames like this.
For whatever reason I hope he at least gets a Colt McCoy-like career out of this. Not what he probably envisioned, but an NFL career regardless.
It’s interesting that the Colts were able to get so much pressure on him without blitzing. Another indictment about the awful o-line. This week, however, I don’t think we had the dropped or tipped passes issue. Mac’s failures were clearly his. On the other hand, they did run the ball well at times today, which seems odd because Indy had to know the Pats were running. Impressive to get 8-9 yards on a rush when the defense knows it’s coming.
Once I heard his constant passive-aggressive answers in the press conferences I lost all ability to feel anything but disgust for him.
He’s a shitty player and teammate who acts like he’s being let down by everyone around him. He’s raising his eyebrows at the lack of a Hail Mary today? His noodle arm can’t throw 35 yards, never mind the 65 required for a Hail Mary there.
I take no joy in any of this because it’s horrible to see him burn my football franchise to the ground.
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Yeah, I don’t really feel bad for him. He’s a professional who’s getting paid a lot of money. He’s been given many shots and hasn’t done anything with them. In the end, Mac Jones will be just fine in life. Hopefully, he makes better decisions with his money than he does on the field.
I’m really just surprised at how quickly this unraveled. He did/said all of the right things after getting drafted. He had a solid rookie campaign and then…disaster.
His struggles have overshadowed the fact that he’s also made some really shitty dirty plays on the field as well as all of the petulant stuff we’ve seen. I won’t root against him if/when he leaves Foxboro but I’ll be rooting for him to depart from now until he does. Nothing personal. Just get away from my favorite team.
I’ll be rooting for him when he opens Mac Jones GMC in Jacksonville. “Fall backward into savings!”
Until then I’ll be rooting for his departure from New England and subsequently the NFL.
Until then I’ll be rooting for his departure from New England and subsequently the NFL.
More on the playing side than the attitude side, but…
Remember that Pro Bowl skills competition? Yeah, I was filled with dread watching him botch that egregiously. How could an NFL QB look soooo bad playing a carnival game?
I vividly recall thinking at the time that I know this doesn’t matter, but it feels like it matters.
I remember him doing the griddy dance or whatever after being allowed to score in the pro bowl and thinking “man, that guy is living his best life. Rookie in the pro bowl, he must see the world like one big bra strap waiting to get snapped.”
Didn’t anticipate that that was the peak and it would all go rapidly and violently downhill from there.
edit: I don’t celebrate his downfall. I just want him off my preferred team.
Didn’t anticipate that that was the peak and it would all go rapidly and violently downhill from there.
edit: I don’t celebrate his downfall. I just want him off my preferred team.
He stinks, but this throw makes me think he has to be concealing some shoulder/rib injury or something.
He needs to throw this ball around 30 yards or so, and he throws it 20.
He's been awful this season, but no QB in the league is that awful.
Well he overthrew Henry in the end zone by five yards a few series earlier, so Mac might just be that awful.
A ball sailing on a QB makes sense to me, a ball coming up 10 yards short on a 30 yard throw doesn't.
Like if a golfer hits a 30 foot putt 5 feet past the hole, OK, if they left it 10 feet short, uh what the hell just happened?
I think they cannot cut him right now without making a move. His contract is guaranteed, and they would have to accelerate the signing bonus. Plus, whichever player replaces him has to get paid. They only have $2m in space right now.
There was a rusher coming through the hole, Mac saw this and didn’t step into his throw which led the ball to sail and come up short….
Also, if Mac was hurt, we would know. There’s a running joke on The Fantasy Footballers podcast because when Mac was injured last year, it was leaked (by Mac’s people) that this was an injury that anyone else would get surgery for but Mac was so tough that he played the next week.
Yeah he's a really shitty putter! But I take the point. It stood out. Maybe he is injured. But he didn't seem to be showing anything like that the rest of the game. And BB didn't mention anything, which would have taken some heat off.
Golfer could top the ball with his putter and leave it way short, or he could have a case of the yips. Maybe Mac gets the yips. Still, his panicking and going down when one or two NFL rushers get even just close to him is as bad a fault as his panicky passes.
To be fair, it was the Pro Bowl, the most boring "sporting" event ever concocted. And it may have been the most memorable Pro Bowl "highlight" in history, which isn't saying much.
Since his ankle injury last year, Mac is 7-14 as a starter with 22 TD, 16 INT, 50 sacks, and a AY/A of 5.92.
Prior to the injury his AY/A was 6.89, he had a ratio of 24/18 and his W-L record was 11-9.
Prior to the injury his AY/A was 6.89, he had a ratio of 24/18 and his W-L record was 11-9.
Is the thought here that Mac is more afraid to get hit now, post-injury? Hence the happy feet which lead to his myriad of issues brought on by poor fundamentals?
I'm leaning that way for sure, but there's no real way to know. His happy feet and the insistence on leaning backwards on every throw would indicate some deep seated problem or fear of getting hit, but that's a lot of psychology to delve into.
His fundamentals were never good though. That was an issue at Alabama too. He simply doesn't have the base to be an effective NFL QB.
Decided to quote these in the Mac thread instead of the BB thread, as the topic seemed more relevant here.
Any comparison is obviously imperfect, especially as there is some subjectivity involved. There are certainly Patriots QB's that have had objectively worse stints than Mac Jones has had. While some of them were backups or developmental players that did not work out, some of them, such as Mike Talieferro, were brought in to be actual starters. Talieferro even got named to the Pro Bowl for the 1969 season, one year before he and Joe Kapp combined to author one of the worst seasons of Patriots ineptitude. That 1970 team finished dead last in both offense and defense, and it wasn't particularly close either.
Mac is 7th among starting Patriots QBs in terms of games started at 41. Of those 7, Mac does have the 2nd best traditional passer rating. However, it's impossible to compare Mac's stats to those of Babe Parilli's from a defunct league with different rules. Still, of the remaining QB's above Mac, leaving out the obvious one:
- Bledsoe remains the 2nd best QB in New England history.
- Steve Grogan gets overrated among Pats fans; there were many seasons where he was just bad. But he brought a level of excitement seldom seen in New England and in his brief peak he could sling it while also converting first downs with his feet.
- Tony Eason was ominously picked the same draft slot as Mac Jones. Eason's peak in 1986 was actually quite good. But leading the league in sacks several years in a row early in his career led to back problems that derailed his career quickly.
- Jim Plunkett was the #1 overall pick, awarded to the Patriots thanks to the Talieferro/Kapp fiasco. He never came close to living up to the hype that went along with being the #1 pick fresh off a Heisman Trophy and Rose Bowl victory. I was too young to truly remember those days, but he was probably by far the most disappointing QB, a disappointment compounded by his winning 2 Lombardi's with the Raiders later on.
So, IMO, a tossup between Plunkett and Mac Jones in terms of biggest disappointments, and Mac doesn't have Plunkett's post-Patriots accomplishments to fall back on. So I think it's fair to say that Mac could be the worst among longer tenured Patriots QBs.
If Tony Eason was the current Pats' QB, holy god he would be getting absolutely shredded on this board.
Man, this is actually kind of an interesting point.
Look at these two highlight videos from maybe his best two games as a rookie:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK11WZskp8k&ab_channel=NFL
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5UMAw2YPp0&ab_channel=NFL
Even when the pocket is collapsing, he steps into his throws (or at least, doesn't bail out and throw off his back foot).
His reaction to that injury was...weird. He reacted like it was his first time ever being hurt. That ankle injury could have psychologically damaged him/his reaction to potential injury.
TSC, thank you for those clips. I think you are right, his reaction to the injury has been extreme and damaging. All football players know they could get hurt at any time, it's part of the risk. If Mac has the yips now because he can't shake the fear of getting hit, then he can't play in the league.
Of course he would. But Eason has at least 2 seasons that have been better than anything Mac has ever done.
Eason got a lot of criticism that was completely unrelated to his play. The local writers never forgave him for being from California so he was continually labeled as not being tough enough.
That’s my thinking. Someone posted a video awhile back of Mac screaming going into a tunnel after an injury. I don’t want to get into some old fashioned toxic masculinity toughness test, but I can’t recall hardly any other examples of an athlete in a contact sport having that kind of reaction to pain. Perhaps him having a lower pain tolerance explains while he seems to break down under pressure while other QBs stand tall till the last second.