The Michael McCorkle "Mac" Jones Thread
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That parabola to Stevenson down the sideline yesterday was one of the most inexplicable throws I've ever seen.
Maybe he could be more diplomatic but that question is being asked by someone that knows the answer and is looking to get a juicy quote. Mac not answering would be bad too. They should ask BoB and BB the same question.
Exactly, that play really stood out to me- instead of "throwing a receiver open" he threw him covered. The lob pass allowed the defender to make up ground and breakup the play. If the coverage wasn't as bad as it was it would have been an easy pick. It was unbelievable... except he does it all the time, so it is completely believable.
This is the kind of stuff we need to see more of from BB and the coaching staff. It has become ridiculous to pretend that this is a potential playoff team or something, but that doesn't mean you just play out the string without adjusting expectations and goals for the season. People will be much more supportive of the team if they come out with some kind of plan for the franchise going forward. I think they just didn't expect to be so bad this year and have been caught flatfooted and BB doesn't really know what to do in this situation since it's not something he's used to.
Think of the two TDs in this Washington game, one was a short field, the other was a long run by Stevenson. The offense is just putrid. My wife was joking that every time Mac throws a pass, I wince because I expect something bad to happen. Sure, the weapons are bad but are they this bad?
No, they are not this bad. I am absolutely convinced that with a decent QB no one would be talking about bad weapons.
Mac doesn't even elevate his teammates, he actively drags them down.
I have no idea what is going on in his head, but sometimes I think we have to just accept that the doctrine he expresses in press conferences is really what he believes. Specifically, it’s his job to look at the next game on the schedule and to try to win it. So, his brain is probably 95 percent “how do we beat the Colts,” leaving little room for “how do I season Pop.”
That’s just me guessing, obviously. I’m sure on some level he gets it is a lost season. Like I hope he would not spend any cap money on trying to improve the 2023 team. But sometimes I guess I just assume that with Bill what you see is what you get.
I know he's the gold standard, but Tom Brady with this group of skill position players would be doing just fine, thank you. As long as the OL held up, anyway.
They don't even need a Brady. A competent QB would be OK. I'm serious, Dalton would be just fine, and he's nothing special at all.
It's also harder for the receiver to locate the ball I think when it comes from above.
Stevenson definitely had a step and a half and had to hold up for the ball. Depending on if he could outrun the safety or break a tackle he might have had a TD. Mac throws off his back foot way up in the air and gives him no real chance, even if he had caught it he can't get a big gain.
It goes to show that unless you are a generational athlete like Mahomes, trying to play like Mahomes merely makes one look very silly.
Question for people who study this stuff more than me - was stuff like footwork, hospital balls, etc as big of a concern his rookie year? Aka was the poor footwork and those types of throws as frequent or has there been an actual regression?
I mean it can be both, right? I mean Mac is awful and the skill players are bad. It is much more on Mac, but I don't understand the pretending that the Pats have a super solid group of skill players. I mean they are giving meaningful snaps to Jalen Reagor. JuJu is definitely not worth his contract (at least it does not look like it). I am not really sure what Mike Gesicki is doing on most plays.
I think Bourne is good, but he is hurt. Henry is solid. I am really excited for Pop. Even with all of that, this is still one of the lesser collections of pass-catching options that the Pats have had over the last 20 plus years.
I think the skill players are not great but their suckiness has been VASTLY overstated. They look much worse than they really are because they have an incompetent QB attempting to get them the ball.
Look at Jonnu in ATL this year, for goodness' sake.
EVERY malady this team has ultimately stems from the horrible QB play. The offense can't do anything and their TOP is absolutely terrible. They can't run much because defenses don't fear Mac so they put 8 in the box and dare Mac to beat them in the air, which he can't do. The defense is on the field much more time due to the offenses' impotence and so they get worn down; they've been playing pretty well in the face of all the injuries but are simply on the field too much. The idiotic return attempts on special teams likely stem from players knowing they need to help out the offense in any possible way so they are trying to do too much.
Replace Mac with a decent QB and I would bet a great deal of money the other aspects of the team improve immediately and dramatically.
I get the Jonnu example, but I also watched Reagor drop a pass that most receivers in the league catch. What stinks the most about this entire situation is that Mac throws the ball over 30 times a game and at best he makes like a handful of NFL caliber throws, and unfortunately, those don't tend to work out either.
Again, I am super bullish on Pop and Henry is a solid TE. I think the offensive weapons will get better and most likely with a new QB. I just don't think it is accurate to think that Parker (no idea why he was extended), JuJu, Thornton, Reagor would be helping some "average" QB lead a top 5 offense.
If you meant an average QB would have them not be a bottom 3 offense in the league, like maybe one ranked around 20 give or take a spot, then I wholeheartedly agree.
With an average QB I am utterly convinced this is a .500 team at worst and perhaps a little above.
They have two good-to-decent TEs in Henry and Gesicki. JJSS was decent in KC last year (obviously with world class QB play). Douglas is a good player. Even Pharoh Brown has done some good things. While Stevenson isn't a great pass-catching RB, Zeke is supposed to be.
There are plays to be had out there and Mac simply can't make them. Obviously we have seen the receivers make mistakes and drops but the vast majority of the time the fault lies with Mac. He does not have an NFL arm in the slightest. He actually got good OL play yesterday and still threw off his back foot or unbalanced 80% of the time. You can't win with a QB like that.
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I think they'll fix the QB for 2024 with either a corrected Mac (IMHO very unlikely), a draft pick (probably) and/or a stop-gap veteran FA (most likely). Acknowledging that "fix" really try to improve.
I'm guessing they stick with Mac this year to confirm beliefs (is he salvageable?) and because, yes, it could get worse. They could sign and play Johnny Foxboro with no harm to their draft position....but you have a roster of highly motivated and competitive athletes who probably don't want to be associated with losing - especially the guys who haven't made money. There's nothing worse than being a loser.
I'm guessing they stick with Mac this year to confirm beliefs (is he salvageable?) and because, yes, it could get worse. They could sign and play Johnny Foxboro with no harm to their draft position....but you have a roster of highly motivated and competitive athletes who probably don't want to be associated with losing - especially the guys who haven't made money. There's nothing worse than being a loser.
And while I don't want to delve too deeply into character discussion, I do believe there's something to be said about Mac being a massive front runner. The guy played on a stacked college team that always had a massive talent and perhaps coaching advantage over its opponents, and he was largely throwing to wide open receivers.
In the NFL, we have mostly seen him unable to recover if his team falls behind at any point in the game. When he finally led the GW drive against the Bills, it was the first time in a dozen chances he had actually converted the attempt, and while not every single failure has been his fault, most of them have been, and he's never been able to climb back out of a hole.
His signature NFL win came in a game where he threw thrice.
Yesterday was particularly egregious: the Commanders (who for the record, suck) took a 3 point lead in the 3rd quarter and Mac never even came remotely close to getting the game tied or won after that.
He can't overcome adversity. In a sports bar he'd be labeled a "loser" and while that's likely unfair, the upshot of it all it that he leads his team to a LOT of losses.
In the NFL, we have mostly seen him unable to recover if his team falls behind at any point in the game. When he finally led the GW drive against the Bills, it was the first time in a dozen chances he had actually converted the attempt, and while not every single failure has been his fault, most of them have been, and he's never been able to climb back out of a hole.
His signature NFL win came in a game where he threw thrice.
Yesterday was particularly egregious: the Commanders (who for the record, suck) took a 3 point lead in the 3rd quarter and Mac never even came remotely close to getting the game tied or won after that.
He can't overcome adversity. In a sports bar he'd be labeled a "loser" and while that's likely unfair, the upshot of it all it that he leads his team to a LOT of losses.
Does anyone have an NFL arm when/if they throw the ball like they are taking a fall away jump shot?
That's the entire point, innit? Part of having an arm is having proper mechanics. Mac's mechanics resemble a Rube Goldberg machine.
It was yesterday that I lost what remaining hope I had of Mac's mediocrity being mostly a receivers/o-line issue. To be clear, neither group is anything to write home about, but if there was one upside from yesterday's abortion of a football game, it was finally coming to the realization that Mac isn't going to be the answer, even if surrounded by Canton-worthy teammates.
Yes he did. He was pretty bad, but to say a pass off the hands of your #1 WR that turns into an interception, when a catch means a makeable FG isn't "remotely close to getting the game tied" is kinda odd.
And to head off the retort: Nothing I said there means I think Mac should be our QB or is even an NFL QB. But if we're not honest about what we're talking about the discussion is meaningless.
It was a stupid decision but technically Howell threw off his back foot and across the field yesterday and managed to get a good amount on the throw to an uncovered receiver.
It was an issue, as he had a bunch of dart-style throws where his feet were close together and he kind of flicked the ball with this wrist. However, it was nowhere near this egregious or common during his rookie year so I think it's fairly safe to say that the atrocious coaching staff during his second year, coupled with the inept line play early during the last two seasons have helped cause a serious regression. He's someone who needs confidence in the guys around him (he clearly has zero - fair or not), and he needs to be fundamentally sound in order to maximize his limited physical skills. Instead, he's broken and panic-stricken. He needs to sit and practice throwing fundamentals with a real quarterback coach or he's just going to further cement these godawful habits.
A very instructive moment for me was when I described how rare "good arms" were to a an elite baseball coach. He correctly predicted that my small city (Saskatoon) would have an entire league of high school age players throwing 80+ with good coaching.
No he did not.
Punt
Punt
Punt
INT
INT was at the 33. That's a 50 yard FG with a rookie kicker. That's not remotely close enough for my tastes. On the other 3 drives he never got the ball across midfield.
He never came close to getting the game tied or won.
A 50 yarder in an open stadium in November with a rookie kicker is not close to tying the game. Not even remotely.
Maybe I'd say a 40 yarder would be close. But not from 50.
Hey--I get it. Agree to disagree. Mac's not the answer, we are both at the same point.
To me, it's so obvious at this point that I don't even consider Mac the issue any longer. It's coaching.
It's coaching in that the decision to have Mac continue to start is coaching malfeasance.
But to me there are plays to be had and Mac isn't taking them. Coaching is setting him up to succeed in some ways and he keeps stepping on his dick.
Awesome thanks. Appreciate the insight.
Those last 3 drives all started deep within pats territory because of ST mistakes. Mac sucks. I wouldnt have trusted him to lead a 20 yard drive for a game tying field goal. But this is why I view the issue as systemic/team wide. Throwing ST screwups at the feet of Mac because they try to make special plays because they dont trust their QB is asinine IMO in the world of professional sports. Lets hold Mac accountable, and lets hold the other players screwing up and the coaches screwing up accountable as well.
If a QB can't ever dig themselves out of a field position hole, then he's a shitty QB.
Seeing players try to do too much to compensate for a shitty QB is something we have seen over and over and over again in the NFL. It's hardly asinine, it's human nature. Nothing could be more understandable or natural. No, they shouldn't be doing that, but when you can't trust the QB to do anything, sometimes the temptation to take matters into your own hands becomes too much to resist.
For what it's worth that penalty on Schooler was total nonsense. Terrible call.
100% agree on both. And I'm honestly not trying to deflect blame off of Mac so much as pile on additional blame elsewhere. Being a fan of a bad football team is uber fun.
I think he had footwork problems in college. I'm still not an expert, but this is what I said in Feb. 2021, a few months before the Pats drafted Mac:
I was in college in Boston during the Rust-McPherson years. I've wanted wanted to feel 19 years old again, but not like this.
The team sucks. Mac is a major contributing factor. I don't think it really matters how much, since it's a marginal difference one way or the other. He's not good enough and they need to address the position. He's physically limited, his mechanics are broken and his processing and decision-making are poor. The causation conversation that happens ad nauseum is kind of pointless, since the solution involves him being replaced and a series of other steps also being taken. They can and should do both. It's a tear down, not a renovation.
To be fair, JuJu would have been down near the 30 if he makes the catch. That's a makeable field goal. Far from a gimme but makeable.
lol, ok. Again, they weren‘t set in your pic. Look at Geisicki’s feet placement in your pic and mine.
I thought the worst play of the game was the opening drive. 4th and 3 from the WAS 39. It looked like Mac had Thornton WIDE open for a big gain and possible TD. The throw wasn’t close. I don’t recall whether Fox showed a replay, so I’m not sure if Thornton is to blame (and that would of course not surprise anyone here). But in real time it looked like a bad miss on a very easy throw.
Yeah that play wasn’t an example of Mac sucking IMO. WAS had it lined up before the Pats were close to ready.
The question was phrased that way (an assumption without much evidence that Mac's guys are open less) because they knew Mac would give a shitty answer that they could spin. He should reject the premise of the question. A smart QB who isn't an asshole says "I'm not sure I have less guys open than anywhere else, we all need to do a better job executing and that starts with me as the QB". Same way his teammates keep propping him up despite him sucking, that's part of the job. And it's another area where Mac comes across like a spoiled child who never had any adversity and whines and pouts every time he faces any.
Bullshit. Geisicki doesn't need to be rocking back and forth like that. He's set enough to try it. Plus getting set is paced by the QB. Mac had zero urgency because he never even noticed.
Here's the video. Looks like that one was on Jones. Thornton was benched later though.
https://www.nfl.com/videos/jones-misfires-on-fourth-down-pass-to-an-open-tyquan-thornton
This kind of thing happens at times across the NFL if you watch enough games, and rarely does the offense identify it AND execute a snap and pass to the uncovered player with a wide open lane before the defense recovers. You are wasting your time focusing on this.
yeah I think Thornton got benched after the out where he did like 10 stuttersteps at the top before making the break. Bill has been coaching that up a ton with Thornton since he was drafted and he still does it.