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FOXBOROUGH – Mac Jones has been under duress a lot in the unofficial start to his second season.
Yet, he remains confident. The New England Patriots quarterback dealt with a major coaching change this offseason. Josh McDaniels, who was the Patriots' offensive coordinator for the previous 10 seasons, left New England to become the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
Bill Belichick never officially named a replacement, with Matt Patricia presumably calling plays on offense and Joe Judge becoming the quarterbacks coach.
Mac Jones Live Press Conference 8/9: https://t.co/AoSxbLFQSo
— New England Patriots (@Patriots) August 9, 2022
The early returns on Jones' first practices with the new coaches haven't been good. He was noticeably frustrated at the end of the team's fourth practice, in which he threw a pick-six to safety Kyle Dugger on the penultimate throw. He was noticeably irritated when speaking to reporters following last Tuesday's practice. Jones has been forced to scramble a lot through practice with a new blocking scheme implemented.
While Jones and the rest of the unit has had to learn the new “streamlined” offense, the quarterback all but guaranteed that he's going to be just fine.
“I’m going to figure it out. I always have, and I always will,” Jones said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, you’re going to have your ups and downs with anything new. But, I’ve learned a lot of different systems, and the guys around me have, too.
“We know what football looks like. We know what a good play looks like, and the schematics behind it. It’s not just the result, it’s the process of how it looks. Run play, hat-on-a-hat, pass protection, hat-on-a-hat, and then the guys getting you open, which they’ve done.
“It just needs to be more consistent, and we all trust in each other at the end of the day. When I walk onto the field and there’s 10 people that look into my eyes, I know that they’re going to trust me to do the right thing on game day.”
Monday's practice might have been the worst yet for the offense. Jones would've been sacked multiple times if the defense was allowed to tackle. The run game was practically non-existent, with the defense getting several stuffs.
Tuesday saw some improvement. Jones went 10-for-15 in the full speed 11-on-11 sessions. The ground game saw some runs for decent or big gains. Jones said that he feels the offense is “close on a lot of things” iterating multiple times that “it's just that two percent that we need to fix.”
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“I think we have good offensive linemen, good players up front,” Mac Jones said. “A lot of it’s just figuring out the scheme and making sure that there’s no free guys. That’s the biggest thing for me: as long as there’s no one free, I should be able to make the throws, like any quarterback can. And I know my offensive line can do that. It’s just getting the communication down.
“It’s different than what we’ve done in the past, so, just figuring that out and trying to watch it together and all that. It is a little frustrating sometimes, but our offensive line – the actual players and coaches – are trying the best they can. It’s practice, and you can’t really tell until you get into a game. But I have all the trust in the world in those guys. Like I said, the communication needs to improve, and we did a good job of that today. It’s the two percent we’re trying to get to.”
Jones has been relatively clean when he's thrown the ball. Despite a handful of interceptions, he's completed at least 60 percent of his passes in nearly every practice so far.
Like many of the other padded practices so far, Jones didn't really air it out much on Tuesday. But he consistently found success on short passes and quick strikes, which is how he defined the two percent that needs to be fixed.
“It has to be more consistent,” Jones said. “But, when you’re out there and you know what exactly is supposed to happen on the play, you can actually see the play and how it’s supposed to work. And that might be perceived as one thing, but really we’re trying to do something and we know what we’re trying to do. So, it might not look pretty, maybe, to you guys, but it could be exactly what we’re supposed to be doing. It’s football, and completions are completions, and we need more of those.”
Mac Jones admitted to some frustration so far in practice when asked. “I care a lot about the guys around me and when I don’t produce, or we don't produce together, it’s a little frustrating.” That's also because he sets a high bar for himself in practice to be prepared for the real thing.
“I think it all goes back to the games and how you respond in the games,” Jones said. “In practice, it’s practice. I’ll always try to be perfect in practice, but, when I get to the game, I know what I can do. I’m confident in myself and the people around me.”
The Patriots will get their first unofficial test on Thursday when they host the Giants in their preseason opener. It's unclear if Jones will actually play in that game.
