The New England Patriots offense was historically bad at points in the 2023 season, which upset members of the defense, such as Jonathan Jones.
In an interview with 98.5 The Sports Hub’s “Zolak and Bertrand,” the Patriots cornerback admitted that players on the defensive side were frustrated with the offense’s performance, particularly when the defense had a three-game stretch when they allowed 10 points or fewer and lost all three games.
“I feel like it’s inevitable,” Jones said of the Patriots’ frustration. ” If you’re in a marriage and you’re the only one putting in work, and that’s how you feel, eventually that’s going to come out as frustration…It’s literally that feeling of like, if you wake up and you feel like consistently week in and week out you’re the only one that’s still showing up that’s going to start to develop some frustration.”
The aforementioned three-game stretch was the first time a team had lost three consecutive games despite allowing 10 or fewer points in each game since 1938. The Patriots lost to the Indianapolis Colts 10-6, the New York Giants 10-7 and the Los Angeles Chargers 6-0 over that stretch in November and early December.
New England’s offense was still mostly lackluster in the final month of the season despite winning two games. It ranked 30th in total offense and tied for last in scoring. The Patriots’ defense, on the flip side, ranked seventh in yards allowed and 15th in scoring, though some of those points came off the backend of offensive mistakes. Either way, if the Patriots got a better performance from their offense in 2023, it’s easy to believe they would’ve won more than four games.
Does Jonathan Jones believe Mac Jones can be fixed?
Arguably the biggest reason why the Patriots’ offense was as bad as it was in 2023 was due to their starting quarterback’s continued regression. Jones threw for 2,120 yards, 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, getting benched in four games before Bailey Zappe became the starting quarterback in Week 13.
Jonathan Jones wasn’t sure how to respond when asked if the quarterback could be fixed, though he believes that young quarterbacks can benefit from sitting on the sideline.
“I don’t know if ‘fix’ is the word,” Jonathan Jones answered. “You can’t just point to him as an individual. I’m always a fan of teams sitting quarterbacks young. I think it’s an important position that you get to sit back and develop as a game. And if you look at the teams, I mean, Green Bay, you look at up like, well, they don’t have a quarterback problem. It’s like, well, they brought a guy in [Jordan Love] that they knew had the caliber, sat him for a couple of years, and by the time it was his turn, he’s made all his mistakes on the practice field so no one got to judge him for it.
“No one got to see the dumb mistakes that he made during practice because you just come in, you correct it, and then he gets better from that. Whereas, when you throw him out there to the wolves, the media is gonna do what the media is supposed to do. That’s your job is to judge your performance. And so, when you throw a guy out there young and the world’s gonna judge his performance, it’s hard for him to keep that consistency.”
It will be a long offseason in New England, and new head coach Jerod Mayo has a tough task ahead of him.
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