The Patriots’ Mac Jones is the person of the muddled second

Over Jones’ shoulder, a Patriots worker hollers out as soon as, then twice: “Bailey is on the podium!” And it is a unusual sort of salt within the wound, this public service announcement that Bailey Zappe, the person who has been tasked with placing Jones out of his distress as we speak, and for a lot of this season, is holding court docket on the postgame information convention. In the meantime, Jones — as soon as thought to be the way forward for this franchise — packs up the tokens of one other failed effort into an outsized team-issued duffel. There goes his chest pad he wore for the primary interception he threw, a back-foot toss into triple protection that the Giants’ Deonte Banks become a balletic, toe-tapping catch. There goes the helmet he had on for the second interception he panicked into, when his blocking imploded and so did his decision-making.

A couple of minutes later, that very same Patriots worker escorts Jones to the rostrum. “I actually simply gotta look within the mirror once more and hold going at it,” he says. “I am not going to stop.”

He reaffirms his devotion to this recreation, at the same time as he seems to be overwhelmed down by it. Two weeks earlier, after his third benching towards the Colts — that point throughout the ocean in Germany — he arrived on the podium red-eyed and shaky-voiced. He would not look a lot better tonight, if barely steelier. Much less shocked and extra calloused, maybe.

After an environment friendly three minutes or so behind the microphone, Jones exits by means of a facet door, grabs a black leather-based briefcase in a single hand, a Louis Vuitton briefcase within the different, then makes his approach by means of the bowels of the stadium, grim-faced, like he is strolling out of a job interview he simply bombed spectacularly.

He makes a fast pit cease on the staff’s buffet desk, the place — on the lookout for all of the world like a person who could not abdomen a chunk — he nonetheless surveys the choices; rooster, fruit, cookies. He grabs some for the highway, then he wends his approach by means of the concourse, strolling behind the grey partition that separates gamers from the remainder of the stadium’s staff, who’re busy placing MetLife to mattress. Jones heads towards the storage doorways that wait to open, revealing the regular mist that has left North Jersey uncooked and dank. That is the place the staff bus idles, able to take him again to New England, and a future there that’s as murky as this evening.

Three days later, Mac Jones stands alone and at a slight take away, his fingers tucked into his pockets, the higher to remain considerably heat on this afternoon in late November. A couple of yards in entrance of him, Zappe takes the lion’s share of reps throughout the open portion of observe; Malik Cunningham, who hasn’t even practiced at quarterback in any respect since Week 6, takes a handful; Jones takes none.

His instant future has come into sharper focus: Jones is now not the Patriots’ beginning quarterback, no less than for this week.

By the point Sunday and the Chargers roll round, Jones is virtually a phantom. He would not emerge for pregame warm-ups. Within the waning minutes earlier than kickoff, he takes to midfield and slaps 5 with a column of Patriots passing by, however that is the one time he’ll see the sector that day. And within the open locker room after one more Patriots disaster, one through which he had no hand in making — a 6-0 loss, and the inglorious feat of turning into the primary staff for the reason that 1938 Chicago Cardinals to permit 10 factors or fewer and lose in three straight video games — he is lacking outright. David Andrews stares at his locker, then runs his fingers down over his face. Jabrill Peppers walks by means of the middle of the room and over the Patriots brand, carrying a pair of headphones and an offended snarl. He solely manages to shake his head. For tonight, for now, the one signal of Jones is his open locker and a white Alabama sweatshirt draped over his chair, a lonely reminder of happier, extra affluent occasions.

It was without delay arduous to overlook, and arduous to witness, the second — or no less than the latest second — Mac Jones broke in entrance of the world, two Sundays in the past towards the Giants. Hunched over on the bottom, he bent his elbows by his facet, then buried his face within the MetLife turf. He had simply tackled the Giants’ Bobby Okereke by the cleats, 55 yards into Okereke returning a go Jones threw off his again foot (once more), that missed Jones’ meant goal by a wholesome 5 or so yards (once more), that acquired picked off (once more). In that second, doubled over, he appeared like a person trying to find prayers, possibly for mercy. Not this. Not once more.

And but, there he was, doing it once more — making mind-boggling soccer choices whereas showcasing some actually poor approach — the very factor he appeared so unlikely to do, just some years in the past. If nobody was going to confuse Jones for Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow popping out of school, he had, on the very least, a confirmed observe report at Alabama exhibiting he may make up for an absence of electrical athleticism with unassailable fundamentals. He did not power the ball. He may get to the open receiver. He had no drawback taking the checkdown. He moved safeties along with his eyes to get the ball downfield. He had good anticipation. Attractive it wasn’t, however it was secure and sound.

He did not blow away NFL brass with a Josh Allen cannon or a Jalen Hurts superhuman means to squat 600 kilos; he wowed them, as an alternative, along with his on-field smarts. One former NFL scout who studied Jones intently within the leadup to the 2021 draft says he was far and away probably the most spectacular candidate his staff spoke to that yr, when it got here to his soccer acumen.

They’d grill Jones on what he’d do if he noticed one security rotation, or how he’d alter safety if he noticed a defender stroll up, and every time, Jones would depart them marveling at his grasp on the issue at hand. “I bear in mind after we interviewed him, we had been like, ‘Wow. He was so sharp,'” the scout says.

If nobody else was going to confuse Jones for Mahomes or Burrow, he wasn’t going to confuse himself for them both. Jones knew precisely who he was — and who he wasn’t. Oh, you thought his lack of burst was comical? So did he, which is why he laughed at himself and his resolution to dive headfirst into the grass as an alternative of making an attempt to bounce exterior of a defender again in his Tuscaloosa days. So you were not blown away by his bodily prowess? Neither was he, which is how he wound up dressing himself down three years in the past, a lifetime in the past, even in the midst of a Heisman-finalist run.

“You simply should know your limits,” he stated in 2020. “I am not gonna roll out to my left and attempt to throw it 80 yards down the sector like [other] guys most likely can do.”

Then he laughed.

He figured he may giggle at himself, as a result of he knew that even when he appeared like a jester on the market, he was critical in ways in which mattered: obsessing over playbooks, poring over each angle of tape like recreation movie was the Zapruder movie. (It is an method a number of of his Patriots teammates say lives on. “He grinds tape. He watched extra tape than actually anyone I’ve ever been round,” says Will Grier, who, for a lot of the season, has shared the New England quarterbacks room with Jones.)

So he was brash sufficient to needle Nick Saban. He was goofy sufficient to trouble defensive linemen whose legs had been thicker than each of his mixed. He was certain sufficient of himself to take soccer actually significantly, however with out the dour gravitas. That brashness, that goofiness, that surety of self? It won’t have vanished utterly, however it has been punctured, popped like a balloon beneath the stress of what he’s making an attempt to repair about himself, and about his play, in New England.

Witness one other day, one other unraveling: Within the waning minutes towards the Colts, Jones heaved a ball in desperation. He threw off his again foot, solely to observe the ball land some 10 yards in need of his receiver, who was streaking vast open into the tip zone, and into the ready arms of a defender.

“He could make that throw 99 occasions out of a 100,” says one supply near the scenario, “Together with his eyes closed.”

He may as soon as; this model of Jones didn’t. Maybe extra alarmingly, he can’t — no less than proper now.

“He is nonetheless Mac. However you possibly can inform he is taken a couple of bullets,” says the supply. “You’ll be able to see it in his face. You’ll be able to see it in his eyes. You’ll be able to see how he is been deflated.”

For only a flash on the Sunday towards the Giants, that deflation morphs into defensiveness. Or a faint whiff of it.

Jones stands on the postgame microphone, fielding questions on what’s mistaken (is it psychological or mechanical?) and what it looks like when it goes this mistaken (how do you retain going again to work when each week yields the identical outcomes?). Then a reporter asks Jones, who has discovered success close to not possible to come back by these final two years in New England, if he looks like he has been put in the very best place to succeed.

He factors the finger at himself — “It is my job to go on the market and play properly whatever the circumstances” — if not precisely answering the query as posed. When a second reporter repeats the road of inquiry, Jones, for only a second, cracks.

“I’ve simply answered it. Thanks,” he says. He lets out amusing, quick and fast, sufficient to make plain he would not really discover any of this humorous. “I do not know what you need me to say.”

It is quite a bit, in spite of everything, to ask somebody in freefall to pinpoint the second they stumbled over the cliff.

Is Mac Jones damaged? Or did the Patriots break him?

In ways in which appear to defy the gravity of the twenty first century, the Patriots, as a staff, are a holy mess. The offensive line in entrance of Jones is patchwork, and it exhibits: New England has a league-worst go block win fee of 44.3% — that’s to say, the road is ready to maintain their blocks for two.5 seconds on lower than half of their dropbacks. And the weapons he is throwing to comprise one of many NFL’s most uninspiring items: the Patriots’ receivers are lifeless final in yards of separation (3.06) and second-worst in wide-open share (18.3%).

That is a heaping pile of obstacles to beat, to say nothing of a slew of staff misfires which have left Jones teetering. Take, as an example, the rapport Jones had constructed with Jakobi Meyers, one in every of final yr’s lone brilliant spots among the many receivers — solely to have the staff let Meyers depart for Las Vegas within the offseason. The Patriots then introduced in JuJu Smith Schuster, a equally located slot receiver for roughly the identical monetary hit, minus all that established chemistry. An offensive coordinator carousel featured three totally different coaches in Jones’ three-year tenure in New England. Then there was the totally failed experiment handy the keys to the quarterback and offense final yr to a pair of coaches — Joe Choose and Matt Patricia — with treasured little quarterback or offensive expertise to their names.

If the Patriots have achieved Jones few favors, although, Jones has achieved even fewer favors for himself. He was afforded a uncommon NFL mulligan final yr, due to Belichick’s odd promotion of Choose, a longtime particular groups coach, to quarterbacks coach, and Patricia, a longtime defensive coach, to offensive coordinator. However then Belichick introduced again Invoice O’Brien — a credentialed offensive thoughts — for the 2023 season, and Jones managed to … play worse.

Behold a research in bleakness: He has the third-worst QBR this season (36.4; forward of solely Bryce Younger and Zach Wilson). He has the worst QBR, interval, when not pressured (49.2). He is 4-for-29 on passes thrown 20-plus yards, and he is off course on 48.3% of these throws (solely Baker Mayfield and Aidan O’Connell are worse). His footwork is poor. He is skittish. He is making baffling choices.