Mac Jones has taken an early seat on the bench for the past two Sundays. And it’s not because his Patriots are building huge leads.
Rather, the Patriots have suffered two humiliating losses to the Cowboys and Saints, with the offense generating all of one field goal in eight quarters of play.
“The biggest things is trying to figure out the root cause to each of the issues,” Mac Jones told Boston station WEEI. “That’s playing better as a team, that’s playing better for me as the quarterback. We just didn’t have the answers to the test yesterday. You just gotta move forward in this league. That’s what it is. You can’t look back, you’ve got to move forward. I’m not happy with anything. Nobody is, and it starts with me as the quarterback.”
It does start with Mac Jones. The quarterback has six turnovers in two games, with half of them returned immediately for touchdowns. Meanwhile, the Patriots offense, statistically, is one of the worst in the NFL. They are at the bottom in points scored per game and they’re 31st in turnovers.
These two games are the worst in Bill Belicheck’s head coaching career. The 38-3 loss to the Cowboys was the worst of his career. So the Pats followed it up by losing 34-0.
“Like I said, you just want to find the root cause of why it’s happening,” Mac Jones said. “And then from there, you have to problem solve. Figure out ‘hey, what can we do better, what can I do better?’. Obviously it’s been a trend for a few years around here and it just has to be an improvement. That will really help us get off to a better start in the games.”
Belicheck says he’s stick with Mac Jones as starter
Belicheck has benched Jones, the former Alabama star and 2021 first-round pick, in the second half of each of the last two games. Bailey Zappe then comes in. Last week, Belicheck said he wanted Jones to show his mental toughness and how well he rebounded from the Dallas game. Instead, he gave a repeat performance.
Belicheck told reporters, Monday, that he took Jones out of the game because he didn’t want to risk him getting hurt in a blowout. He’s indicated that Jones still is the starter.
Maybe Belicheck will shake up the two deep or make other changes. They’ve got a road game coming up against the Raiders,
“All good plays come with good fundamentals, so we need to be a better fundamental team in every area,” Belichick said. “Again, between schemes, coaches, players’ awareness, situational awareness, we need to do a better job than what we’re doing. I mean I don’t think there’s any one thing that’s going to change it, or one player. We just all have to do a better job.”
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