Getty Mac Jones
Tom Brady has “Let’s F###### Go!”
Perhaps New England Patriots rookie quarterback Mac Jones already has his signature line. During a meeting with the media on Wednesday, Jones spoke a little about the team’s 19-17 loss to Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday night and the upcoming battle against the Houston Texans. As Jones fielded questions about the loss and doing his best to keep the team from slipping to 1-4, the rookie let us know how he feels about losing.
Mac Jones: “Losing Sucks”
The pressure and spotlight on Jones has only gotten more intense as the season progresses. Losing doesn’t help and the Patriots are a worrisome 1-3 after the first four weeks of the season.
During the presser at Gillette Stadium, Jones said this when he was asked about his processing of last week’s loss and the upcoming game:
Losing sucks. You just have to take it for what it’s worth and more so in the beginning of the season as a learning experience. Nobody on our team likes to lose. You can play well or play not well, but you just need to score one more point than the other team. When we do that I think we’ll all feel good about it and feel good about the progress. Obviously we’ve made progress, but you also can’t outcome-think and focus so much on winning or losing and then you are not focusing on what your job is. There are two parts to this story and you just have to focus on the next team we’re playing. And we’re excited and we just have to attack each day with that mindset. It’s all about the operation. You have to have all 11 guys ready to roll. It starts with me, whatever you do the more reps you get at it the more comfortable you get at it. I think we have a lot of room to grow there. The progress has been pretty good, but we want to get in the win column more here and just try and grind it out and eliminate those bad plays that we have identified.
This is the mentality you’d want your quarterback to have, but the question a critic of Jones might have after hearing this spiel is, ‘when are you going to step outside of your comfort zone and attempt to elevate your team?
Does Mac Jones Need to Look to Make Some Big Plays With His Arm?
On Sunday night, it appeared the Buccaneers were content with forcing Jones to beat them with his arm. Tampa Bay’s run defense is among the best–if not tops in the league. Even wit ha hobbled secondary, Jones couldn’t find a way to make some of the sort of chunk plays that change the way a defense is defending an offense. At some point, Jones is probably going to have to come to a conclusion: interceptions are bad, but falling to 1-4 really sucks.