It was Alabama’s Rose Bowl press conference, and Mac Jones was asked about how much it meant for him to be part of the upcoming Heisman Trophy Ceremony. The inquiry probably caused Nick Saban to quiver. The Crimson Tide were preparing to play their biggest game of the season. There was no room for individual boasting.
Unsurprisingly, Jones refused to answer the query, but he did it with attitude. “That’s a rat poison question,” he said, eliciting laughter from his teammates, and cracking a sly smile himself. “I don’t know what to tell you. We’re really focused on this game.”
After the Patriots drafted Jones, I spoke with several Crimson Tide reporters about what it was like to cover him in college. Alabama players are notoriously bad interviews. They undergo hours of intensive media training, only to reemerge as football cyborgs.
Does that kind of thing sound familiar?
Though Jones seldom veered from talking points — just like his teammates — everybody told me the QB was an engaging interview. During one press briefing last year, Jones ran down Missouri’s entire defense, even providing a brief scouting report on the defensive coordinator.
“You hear a lot of the same answers, and it’s not even worth going out to Tuscaloosa, because you’ll just get the same BS cardboard answer,” Drew Carter, a sports anchor for CBS 42 in Birmingham, Ala., told me. “Mac Jones will actually give you decent stuff. He was a joy to cover.”
Now, he won’t even acknowledge being excited after throwing his first NFL touchdown pass. “Just being early in the game, I just told them, ‘take it back,’ because I knew we had to score more points,” he said on Merloni and Fauria. “We can definitely do a better job of that. It was good to throw my first touchdown and all, but at the end of the day, you’ve just got to keep getting better.”
This is not the same kid who cracked up on the podium telling reporters about how would stuff baby powder into his teammates’ lockers. That’s for sure.
So what happened? As a rookie, it’s apparent Jones doesn’t want to make any waves. That’s understandable. He was one of the best quarterbacks in the country last year — the biggest man on the best team. Even under Saban, Jones probably felt more free to speak extemporaneously. After all, he threw 41 touchdowns last season.
It’s a different situation here. Everybody knows Bill Belichick won’t tolerate players who say stupid things, says Christian Fauria, who won two Super Bowls with the Patriots, and interviews Jones every Monday. Jones is just getting acclimated to the NFL. He’s not in a position to take unnecessary risks, especially in media interviews.
Fauria did the same thing. He can’t even watch his old interviews.
“I’m like, ‘Who the f— is this guy?,’” Fauria said. “I’m like, ‘Who is this guy talking? That’s not me. I don’t talk like that.’”
In 10 years’ time, Jones may rewatch his old press conferences and say the same thing. Fauria says he would advise Jones to relax.
“He’s got to lighten up a little bit,” Fauria said. “I think he’s trying really hard just to be the perfect draft pick: say all the right things, not get himself into any trouble with anything he says at any point in time, deflect all the praise from himself and focus it on the guys who ‘actually doing the heavy lifting.’ Real robotic-type stuff.”
Jones was not a robot in Tuscaloosa. He seemingly enjoyed breaking down defenses, going far beyond banalities and offering real insight. During one exchange with longtime Crimson Tide reporter Michael Casagrande at the 2020 Iron Bowl presser, Jones explained how defense were playing them differently, and then got in a couple little cocky digs.
“Michael, that’s a really good question. People are kind of playing us different, maybe a little more conservative, and rightfully so,” he said. “A lot of teams have been backing up more and more. … The past couple of games, maybe we’ve gotten a little greedy, but when you have the people we have on our team, if it’s 1-on-1, I’m going to take a shot. Nine times it will work, one time it won’t. But I’ll take those percentages.”
Later in the media availability, Jones said having fun is the most important thing to him.
Now that sounds like a guy who would take the ball to celebrate his first touchdown pass.
“He's sharp and he's smart and he's funny,” Casagrande said. “He understands the whole dynamic of reporter-player interviews. That’s the most you can ask for.”
Jones is just two weeks into his NFL career, so we’ll almost certainly see more glimpses of his personality over time. Even in Foxboro, lightheartedness is crucial to surviving the grueling NFL season.
“I was telling him, ‘Dude, you’ve got 16 more games. I’m fearful that you’re going to burn out,’” Fauria said. “I actually believe an older guy will talk to him. If they care about him and want to teach him about how to get through a season, there’s just not enough touchdowns to be thrown to ignore the accomplishment.”
Fortunately, there will be more touchdowns. We’ll see if Jones keeps the ball next time, or at least pumps his fist.
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The true answer to the age-old Red Sox popularity question: We do three things every summer: sit in traffic on the way to the Cape; sit in traffic on the way back from the Cape; and ask why the Red Sox aren’t as popular as they used to be. Is it likability? Are the players too boring?
Dan Shaughnessy posed the question Thursday, and came up with a few reasons why the region doesn’t appear to be embracing these Red Sox: sloppy play, bad record against winning teams, and for him, the inexcusable number of unvaccinated players.
But for me, the number one reason why we ask this question every year has nothing to do with the Red Sox. It’s baseball. Baseball teams just don’t captivate cities like they once did.
The Red Sox are still popular. Ratings were up 84% through the first half of the season, indicating fans are interested in watching this team. But there aren’t as many of them now. That’s the answer.
NFL remains strongest force on TV: The NFL experienced a ratings increase for kick-off weekend, finishing with a 7% increase in viewers. The opening matchup between the Buccaneers and Cowboys was the most-watched first game since 2015.
You never see those kinds of numbers in the age of cord-cutting.
With a new $113 billion media rights deal, the NFL is going to become more ubiquitous than it already is. Expect the schedule to increase to 18 games any year now, given the success of last week. The product can’t be diluted, at least not yet.
Sorry, Cam, but people weren’t interested: Cam Newton got a lot wrong in his 45-minute video Friday about his departure from the Patriots. One of his biggest errors was repeating that people are interested in him wherever he plays.
That wasn’t the case here.
Patriots ratings fell 26% last season, because, well, they were mediocre. Winning draws people to the TV. Not Newton.
