Mac Jones was terrific in his NFL debut Sunday against Miami. Completing over 70% of his passes, not turning the ball over and showing tremendous leadership speaks for itself.
The Patriots should feel good about the quarterback position for the long-term. But, as it relates to the 2021 Patriots team, perhaps some expectations need to be tweaked.
New England lost a one-point game in which it went 1-for-4 in the red zone. More often than not, rookies are going to lose these types of games. It doesn’t matter where they were selected or how good they are/will turn out to be, that’s just how things go in the NFL.
"We did enough things to win the game, but unfortunately we made too many errors and didn’t play well in situational football to win," Bill Belichick said Monday on The Greg Hill Show. “… Against a good sound team like Miami you can’t afford those things (mistakes) and they were able to take advantage of them. … We’ve got to eliminate those.”
New England is a solid team and will certainly be better than it was a year ago, but close games like Sunday are going to happen quite frequently. Unlike for 20 years when the greatest quarterback of all-time was under center and it was able to win these games, having a rookie quarterback means these games will probably trend towards the losing side.
Yes, it’s just one week, but should we really have expected the Patriots to go from a seven-win team in 2020 to a 12 or 13-win team in 2021 — with a rookie quarterback? Is the season really considered a failure if they don’t make the playoffs?
Winning in the NFL is hard and even harder with a rookie at quarterback.
More often than not, rookie quarterbacks that play extensive time in their first year, do not make the postseason. 98 rookie quarterbacks have started 10-plus games and only 12 helped their team to the playoffs.
Some of the recent exceptions to this have been Matt Ryan when he led the Falcons to a 11-5 record in 2008, Russell Wilson in 2012 when Seattle went 11-5 and Dak Prescott in 2016 when the Cowboys went 13-3.
It’s not impossible, but more often than not rookie quarterbacks do not have exceptional success right away.
And this may have led to some unfair expectations for Jones and the Patriots in 2021.
Teams with rookie quarterbacks usually do not make the postseason and the biggest hurdle for them to get over is consistently being able to pull out close games.
Sunday’s 17-16 loss to Miami could be a sign of things to come for the 2021 Patriots and maybe towards the end of the year most games like this will be won. But, it just doesn’t happen right away.
It’s worth pointing out the Patriots are 3-8 in their last 11 one-possession games.
Instead of viewing the season as a failure of the postseason is missed, maybe it should be based on how the team looks from the start of the season compared to the end, and if it’s good the wins will come. While it may not be 12 or 13 wins like some said over the summer, it could be double-digits which would certainly be in the playoff mix.
The future of the Patriots is looking good, it just might be a slower process than many imagined.
