After starting the season with a pretty strong outing against the Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones has arguably taken a step back each week since, bottoming out with a three-turnover performance in Sunday’s blowout loss to the Dallas Cowboys that saw him get pulled in the third quarter. He now ranks 25th in the NFL in passer rating (80.8) and 24th in QBR (45.3).
Making his weekly appearance on Jones & Mego on Wednesday (listen to the full interview above), former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky was asked to evaluate Mac Jones’ play so far. While noting that the Patriots’ offensive line and weapons aren’t helping Jones, Orlovsky pinpointed one area of Jones’ play that he considers “alarming.”
“I think the most disappointing or concerning or alarming thing with Mac is just his feet right now are so unstructured, so undisciplined, so sloppy,” Orlovsky said. “He’s not a physically talented enough player to get away with that. That’s the thing that is starting to get worse and worse and worse. They have to get that nipped in the bud and fixed really quick.”
Meghan Ottolini followed up by asking Orlovsky what he thinks is causing Jones’ footwork to fall apart.
“That’s always going back to a lack of trust in the protection, a lack of pockets, being so untrusting of those guys in front of you to keep you clean that your feet start to move in anticipation that you’re going to have to either scramble or create movement in the pocket,” Orlovsky said.
“And that’s why they’re kind of frantic and all over the place. … Are there plays where you sit there and think, I wouldn’t [trust the protection] either? Yeah, of course. That’s always one of the hard things about playing quarterback, is it’s a very easy-to-say, hard-thing-to-do to trust your pocket. To do it when there’s consistent moments that present themselves when you shouldn’t, it’s hard.”
So, the vicious cycle continues. The Patriots’ offensive line struggles, so Jones doesn’t trust his protection, gets happy feet, and makes bad throws without setting his feet, even when he actually does have a pocket to step up into. As Orlovsky said, it’s something the Patriots have to find a way to fix “really quick” or this season is going to devolve even more for them and Jones.