NFL
Former Patriots RB Blames Coaching For Mac Jones’ Struggles in New England
Highlights
- Mac Jones’ struggles were attributed to coaching changes led by inexperienced coordinators.
- Damien Harris blames coaching changes post-McDaniels for Jones’ significant decline in stats.
- Bill Belichick’s need for control is noted as a reason for not coaching in the NFL in 2024.
Roughly half of all first-round quarterbacks fail, but at least one former New England Patriots player doesn’t blame Mac Jones for faltering. Current Buffalo Bills’ running back Damien Harris told Boston.com:
What happened to Mac Jones in New England was not because of Mac Jones. What happened in New England to Mac Jones was because of the fact you took away an offensive coordinator who coached him to be a Pro Bowler and almost coached us to winning our division with a rookie quarterback in his first year.
It’s hard to argue with Harris’ assessment when you consider Jones’ worst years came with Matt Patricia or Joe Judge calling plays like Lloyd and Harry from Dumb and Dumber.
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A Coaching ‘Debacle” in New England
Why Mac Jones struggled and how it affected Bill Belichick’s coaching candidacies
Like children, rookie quarterbacks succeed based on two main factors: nature and nurture. Physical and mental traits represent their nature while coaching, teammates, and the system covers nurture. Jones never came in with Adonis-level genes, but he was saddled with “The Purge” levels of nurturing after Josh McDaniels left.
As Harris detailed:
Whenever Josh McDaniels left — Matt Patricia, who has coached defenses his entire life, and Joe Judge, who has been a special teams coach, coached receivers at some point. And then you just throw them in there and be like, ‘Hey, coach this kid up. He’s a first-round pick, but as long as you teach him what I say, everything will be fine,’ and shit wasn’t fine.
Things definitely weren’t fine. From year one to year three, Jones’ numbers plummeted. He went from 67.6% passing completion to 64.9%. As a rookie, he threw 22 touchdowns to 13 interceptions that flipped to 10 touchdowns against 12 interceptions. His success rate also fell from 49% to 43.3%.
In fairness to Jones, coaching matters in the NFL more than any other major sport. It matters in life, so why should football be any different? Everyone’s had a teacher who made them flat-out hate a subject. Meanwhile, some of us have been lucky enough to have teachers who unearthed skills we never knew we had.
Based on Jones’ sideline demeanor with Patricia or Judge, they seemingly made him hate football, and who can blame him? Most of us would probably be unhappy with the situation if either of them were constantly passing along actively unhelpful information.
Harris also made an interesting observation as to why the G.O.A.T head coach, Bill Belichick, won’t be spending 2024 on an NFL sideline:
He needs full-on control. That’s just the kind of guy Bill Belichick is. But at the same time, can you blame him? Because in the 20 years where he had full control, he had a lot of success. So you can’t blame him.
It was rumored that Belichick never lobbied for full control over football operations during his conversations with the Atlanta Falcons and Washington Commanders. Nevertheless, the franchises involved understood that it would be difficult for him to change his nature after 20 years. They were afraid his “Lord of the Flies” type of nurturing would follow him from New England.
Source: Boston.com
All statistics courtesy of Pro Football Reference unless stated otherwise.
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