FOXBOROUGH – The first three quarters weren't pretty for Mac Jones on Saturday afternoon. The New England Patriots' second-year quarterback struggled to move the sticks as the team's offense failed to move the ball into their opponents' territory through nearly 45 minutes of play in their 22-18 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.

But Jones bounced back in a big way in the fourth quarter. He nearly led the Patriots to a comeback win after they trailed 22-0, finishing the day by completing 21-of-33 passes for 240 yards with two touchdowns and zero interceptions.

Jones' comeback effort came after he was booed off the field and heard Patriots fans at Gillette Stadium chanting for his backup, Bailey Zappe, to replace him.

While Jones might not have received respect from his fans, he certainly received respect from a pair of key teammates on Saturday. When Patriots receiver Jakobi Meyers was asked about how he thought Jones handled those boos and chants, Meyers said he was impressed by his quarterback's “resiliency.”

“That ain’t the first time that it’s happened this year, honestly,” Meyers said. “He dealt with it all year. Just guys ready to just pass it to the next guy. But he just keeps going on there battling. He takes shots, gets back up. He makes mistakes, he comes back and tries to fix it.

“Shout-out to Mac, man. It’s a tough guy mentally and physically. I can roll with him any day. Because, at the end of the day you know, regardless of what people say, he’s gonna go out there and fight his hardest.”

Meyers made one of the biggest grabs of the day for New England, catching a ball off a Hail Mary-like deflection before scoring a touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Kendrick Bourne was Jones' top target though as the Patriots attempted a comeback. Bourne, who didn't play much in the first half of Saturday's game and has struggled to play much this season, had six receptions for 100 yards and a touchdown. Like Meyers, he was also impressed with how Jones handled himself through adversity on Saturday.

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“Mac is very poised,” Bourne said. “He's been like that his whole career. I'm proud of that guy. He's a warrior. That's what we need. Not the outcome we wanted but I love the fight in all our guys.”

Jones was very appreciative of Bourne following the game.

“KB, he's a great teammate, and he's one of my closest friends,” the Patriots QB said. “Every time I've seen him, he's had a smile on his face, even in a situation like that at the end of the game where we're trying to fight back and there's a lot of pressure, he's in there smiling, like, ‘let's go do that.' When you see that from a guy, and I'm saying the same stuff in the huddle, I want to look for a guy like that, who wants to compete and play and play with effort. He's one of those guys. And we've got all those guys, the receivers did a great job.”

Jones was also happy to hear what Meyers said about his toughness, giving credit to the rest of the team for giving him an example to follow.

“I think we've got a lot of tough players on this team,” Jones said. “I look up to a lot of guys like Jakobi and KB and [Matthew] Slater and Devin [McCourty]. I've been able to watch my first two years here. And the best players on our team are the toughest players and there's times when I need to be more tough and stand in there and rip it and all that stuff.

“We're all out there competing. That's what it's all about. It's just not quitting and keep competing and we'll do that as an offense. We'll do that as a defense. Do it as special teams. I think the guys themselves, we're all going to compete. So that will never change.”

Jones and the Patriots will need to compete hard over the next two weeks if they want to make the playoffs. They fell to 7-8 on the season with their loss on Saturday, making their playoff odds even thinner as they take on the Miami Dolphins and Buffalo Bills to close out the season.