Entering his second season with the New England Patriots, a lot of NFL analysts thought Kendrick Bourne was primed to breakout following his career year in 2021. So far, things don't look too promising for the Patriots' 27-year-old wide receiver.

In terms of performance, Bourne's mostly finished each practice with no more than one reception during team drills on very few targets. Bourne didn't help his case during the Patriots' joint practices with the Carolina Panthers. He escalated a fight by appearing to throw at least a punch and had an equipment issue during one team drill before missing Friday's game against Carolina for unknown reasons.

While the start of the 2022 season hasn't been too pretty for Bourne, his quarterback is throwing water on any concerns someone might have about his start in training camp. Appearing on WEEI's “Merloni, Fauria & Mego” on Tuesday, Mac Jones recalled how Bourne performed in last year's training camp before his career year.

“I love Kendrick and he’s working hard,” Jones said. “The plays will come. Even last year during camp a little bit he was trying to learn everything and find his role and he didn’t get as many balls. Then the season came and he got a lot of throws. So you never know when your time is going to come. So you’ve just gotta keep working, line up right, and do your route. And eventually, they’ll come. You can’t chase plays, like I always say.”

Jones is correct that things eventually worked out between him and Bourne last season. The receiver caught 55 passes from him for 800 yards and five touchdowns.

That was under offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, though. McDaniels left the Patriots to become the Raiders' head coach this offseason, leaving a new offensive system to be put in place.

Several players, including Bourne, have raved about how the Patriots' new offense is tailor-made toward the receivers' strengths, especially speedy players. Theoretically, the shifty Bourne would be a beneficiary of that. In his first season in New England, Bourne lined up in the slot and on the outside as a receiver, making plays with the ball as a receiver and a rusher.

Even though Bourne got himself in trouble on top of the lack of notable production in camp prior to missing the game against the Panthers, Jones believes Bourne's spirits are in a good place. “KB is still positive and we’re just really happy to have him on our team,” he said.

Bourne's struggles aren't exclusive to him. The entire offensive unit's struggled through much of training camp, with Tuesday reportedly being one of the Patriots' worst practices yet. In their first joint practice with the Raiders, Jones reportedly completed roughly just half of his passes in team drills, tossing a touchdown and an interception.

Jones believes that the Patriots have the talent to make things work on offense, they've just got to get the reps in under their new offensive system.

“I think we have really good players, really good skill players I can spread the ball around to. But every system’s different, right?” Jones said. “So it’s kind of getting a feel for what you want to do, what your m.o. is as an offense. The big thing right now is figuring that out.”

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Bill Belichick has stated many times throughout camp and the preseason that the offense is going through a “process.” Jones refused to call it a “failure” when asked if it felt like one when the offense didn't have successful plays because “failure is putting a label on something that’s a process.”

The Patriots' installation of a new offense comes while they don't have a designated offensive coordinator. Offensive line coach Matt Patricia appeared to call all the offensive plays against the Panthers last week, but Joe Judge is the quarterbacks coach and Belichick said Monday that he makes the final call on everything.

Jones didn't blame the unusual setup with the Patriots' coaching staff for the offense's struggles to this point.

“It always goes back to the players and listening to the coaches, and doing the scheme correctly,” Jones said. “We have to do better at that. It doesn’t matter if it’s one person in your helmet, or you’re listening to different people. I enjoy getting coached in general. Sometimes on the practice field, I get really competitive. And I want it to go better. But it’s more about the process, just watching the film, and getting better with still a young offense.

“Sometimes you have to realize, that’s what we are right now.”