Getty New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.
Don’t look for a ton of optimism on the New England Patriots‘ future from Fox Sports personality Colin Cowherd.
The popular host of The Herd went in on the Patriots, their lack of weapons and their rookie quarterback Mac Jones.
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Cowherd: Jones Has ‘Incredibly Low Ceiling’ With Current Patriots Offense
Cowherd slammed the Patriots — and by association their rookie signal-caller — in an October 5 episode of The Herd, just two days after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers pulled out a 19-17 victory in Tom Brady’s much-anticipated return to Gillette Stadium.
“Tom Brady goes into that stadium, doesn’t play well, his warm-weather team doesn’t play well, he’s on the road, he probably has the second-best coach in the game, and Brady wins as Mac Jones plays brilliantly. That is why Brady left. Mac Jones is great. He’s an operator. He’ll be as good as his parts.
“I can’t think of another player ever, a quarterback, who had significantly better weapons in his last year in college than his first year in the NFL, and it, my friends, is not close. He had better college offensive teammates than New England.”
While Cowherd did acknowledge that the Patriots played “really, really well” against the defending Super Bowl champions outside of a lost fumble and last-minute missed field goal, he also described the performance as “the future of New England.”
“The games, the quarterback [and] the wide receiver talent has never been more dynamic, and New England for the third or fourth year in a row has no deep threat, no playmakers, not dynamic and now a quarterback — who they’re going to ride with for probably 10 years — with an incredibly low ceiling.”
“They’re trying to figure it out and they can’t. They just don’t have any playmakers,” Cowherd concluded.
While the Patriots did improve their pass-catching options in the offseason by dishing out a collective $124.5 million in contracts to Hunter Henry, Jonnu Smith, Nelson Agholor and Kendrick Bourne, they still don’t have anyone that is going to keep defensive coordinators awake at night.
Jones’ Mentality Has to Change
Cowherd didn’t take a shot at Jones’ much-discussed propensity to play, perhaps, a little too safe. However, Jones’ unwillingness to take chances for the sake of trying to secure a chunk play contributes to what Cowherd described as a “low ceiling.”
Without dynamic playmakers or an aggressive-minded quarterback, the Patriots’ offense does project as a vanilla attack, ranking in the bottom third of the league with an average of 319.8 yards per game through five weeks, per ESPN.
The question is: Can this be changed?
The 15th overall draft pick doesn’t want to be the reason his team loses, which is understandable. However, that safe approach is also preventing him from being the reason his team wins, with three of New England’s first five games having been decided by three points or fewer.
Throughout this season, Jones has had a few opportunities to throw the ball downfield. He has mostly missed the chances or he simply didn’t complete the pass. After all, Jones has only completed an undesirable 33.3% (7 of 21) of his deep passes through Week 5. At some point, the rookie is going to have to get better at taking chances and shaking off inevitable mistakes.