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After a strong rookie year, New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones took a step back in 2022. Jones finished second in AP Offensive Rookie of the Year voting in 2021 behind only the 1,455 receiving yards of Cincinnati Bengals wideout Ja'Marr Chase. The Patriots passer led all rookie quarterbacks with 22 touchdowns and a passer rating of 92.5. He also took the 10-win Patriots to the playoffs for the first time since Tom Brady's departure.
Last year, Jones struggled with injuries and the team even benched him briefly in favor of Bailey Zappe. New England finished 8-9 and missed the playoffs. Patriots fans and fantasy football managers alike will hope that Jones can rediscover his magic and return to the performances that made him a Pro Bowler as a rookie. Here is Mac Jones' fantasy football outlook in 2023.
Mac Jones' Fantasy Football Outlook for the 2023 Season
Sophomore slump
After a strong rookie campaign, Jones took a step back in his second season. The Alabama product finished with 2,997 yards in the air to go with 14 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, and a passer rating of 84.8. Jones did miss three games early in the season through injury, but he experienced declines in each of these categories, most notably touchdown percentage and quarterback rating.
Even more concerning was just how disorganized the New England offense looked at times, leading many to question whether Mac Jones can lead this team. The Patriots were 6-8 with Jones at the helm in 2022 versus 10-7 during his rookie year in 2021, and his QBR was 30th among 33 eligible quarterbacks. Jones will need to bounce back in a big way in 2023 if he wants to obtain fantasy relevance.
New OC in NE
The saving grace for Jones' poor performance last year might be the fact that he did not have a true offensive coordinator. The duo of Joe Judge (offensive assistant and quarterbacks coach) and Matt Patricia (senior football advisor & offensive line coach) shared offensive duties, with Patricia calling plays for the first time in 2022. Head coach Bill Belichick also occasionally stepped in as the play-caller. The result was an offensive that was unorganized and out of sync.
The franchise addressed this issue by returning former assistant Bill O'Brien. O'Brien was an offensive assistant from 2007 to 2011, operating as the offensive coordinator of the 2011 Pats team that scored 32.1 points/game and reached the Super Bowl. More recently, O'Brien was the head coach of the Houston Texans, leading the team to four AFC South titles in seven years, before spending two years at Alabama as the offensive coordinator & quarterbacks coach for the Rolling Tide.
This addition brings much-need stability and leadership to the New England Patriots offense, providing a better platform for Mac Jones to succeed. Whether Jones is able to take that step forward is still to be seen, but there is much more reason to believe in him in 2023.
Overall outlook
Jones finished 23rd in fantasy points among quarterbacks in 2023, below such passers as Andy Dalton and Davis Mills. On a per-game basis, the Pats signal-caller was even worse, as his 12.1 fantasy points per contest were 26th among qualified fantasy QBs. Jones finished 20th or worse among quarterbacks in scoring in nine of the 14 weeks he played. New England even benched Jones briefly in favor of Bailey Zappe, and he will need to fight off the the second-year challenger in training camp.
Jones should win that battle, but his fantasy outlook for 2023 is just as dismal. ESPN places Mac Jones 29th among fantasy quarterbacks, projecting him at just 11.4 fantasy points per contest and outside the top 200 players in the overall rankings. A new offensive coordinator raises his ceiling this year, but Mac Jones should not be targeted by fantasy managers early in the draft and should be avoided altogether until he can prove to be a reliable passer. Consider him to be a mid-season waiver wire pickup worth monitoring in the first half of the campaign.
