New England Patriots rookie Marcus Jones has been one of the more fascinating playmakers to emerge this season in the NFL, serving as a Swiss Army knife for Bill Belichick as he has made contributions on defense, special teams and offense.
In fact, his pick-six off of Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow on Saturday gave him his third touchdown of the season and becoming the first player in the Super Bowl era to score on a punt return TD, a receiving TD and pick-six.
The only other player to do that in his entire career was Deion Sanders.
While he is listed as a cornerback and primarily playing his snaps on defense, Belichick was asked on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” Monday morning about possibly incorporating Jones more on offense and managing the balance between handling multiple roles on the team.
“The time allotment in practice and meetings is finite — there’s only so much…just can’t get into everything so we pick our spots,” Belichick said. “Defense is a priority. His role in the kicking game is a priority. Offensively, we try to take advantage of some opportunities and openings; teach him a few things and let him practice a few things we feel like could help the explosiveness and diversity of the offense and he’s done a great job of that.”
Jones did not start playing snaps on offense until four weeks ago against the Buffalo Bills in which he had two catches for 51 yards and a touchdown. He’s played just 16 snaps total on offense over the last four weeks, hauling in four catches for 78 yards.
“We can build a little bit more with him [on offense],” Belichick continued. “But it’d be hard to convert him to a full-time receiver in the middle of the season…that would just be too much. Other guys have [been similar] in the past for us. Troy [Brown], Julian [Edelman], Mike Vrabel, guys who played snaps on the other side of the ball — it was somewhat restrictive — but they were used in a way situationally we felt like they could help our team and [Jones] just kind of falls into the same category.”
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