A High Level Study Of Mac Jones' Game

We saw Patrick Mahomes make a lot of off-platform throws in the Super Bowl, trying to hit receivers who had broken off their routes and were scrambling to find open spots. Very athletic, very unpredictable, very exciting. Very inefficient.

In that same game we saw his opponent remain in the pocket and hit his receivers in stride while they were running their routes. Simple. Boring. Effective.
It's odd that Mahomes is viewed as a great athlete and Jones is viewed as an immobile QB, when Jones ran faster and jumped higher in his pro-day than Mahomes did at his combine.
 
Mahommes was very effective at running around when they played the Pats last year. The Bucs just had a much better defense than we did, that's all.
 

Cheers
Your numbers are different then mine, I have it at only 2.73. :coffee:
 
For years I have been frustrated by the definition of "athletic" being deconstructed to only mean fast and/or strong.

Hand eye coordination is an athletic skill, so are quickness, determination, know-how, and about a hundred other things that contribute to athletic success.

Larry Bird was a great athlete, so is TFB, and Mac might be one too.
 
I posted a while ago that I watched a segment that they had on Waddle and Smith as to how good receivers they were.

What I came away with was the ball was delivered to them on time and accurately. Long routes, middle routes, short routes, coming out of breaks, being covered, it didn't matter. The ball was delivered on time and only where they could catch it. In any of those clips neither receiver had to make great catches, They didn't have to reach, turn or leap for the ball. It was right on the money every time.

That is what sold me on Mac big time. The segment was not about Mac but that is what impressed me the most.
 
Mike Reiss made an excellent (as usual) point about people who are worried about the system when it relates to the differences between Jones and Newton. He reminded us of the game where Jacoby had to start in place of Brady who was suspended and jimmy G who had been hurt in the Dolphins game. The Patriots ran all kinds of plays for Jacoby that they'd never run for Tom. Reiss said that's because the offensive system in NE is so broad.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkN0gbuWROg
 
For years I have been frustrated by the definition of "athletic" being deconstructed to only mean fast and/or strong.

Hand eye coordination is an athletic skill, so are quickness, determination, know-how, and about a hundred other things that contribute to athletic success.

Larry Bird was a great athlete, so is TFB, and Mac might be one too.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. The idea that Brady, who was drafted by MLB, Jones and others who don't necessarily jump high or run fast aren't great athlete is ridiculous.
 

Mac Jones’ second pro day concluded with some flair, the result of a mere two minutes of planning and execution that drew a smile from Bill Belichick and everyone else in attendance.

Of course, Belichick and the New England Patriots didn’t draft the Alabama quarterback with the No. 15 pick in the NFL Draft last week because of a triple-option touchdown reception. Rather, it was the rest of Jones’ pro day that yielded a snapshot of his true character, competitiveness and passion for the game.

That pro day was a small part of the Jones evaluation and a glimpse into his much larger body of work. He took ownership of his 65-throw script, meticulously combing through every detail in the days leading up to his March 30 audition at Alabama’s Hank Crisp Indoor Facility.

“Mac is a control freak. He likes having the keys and being in the driver’s seat,” said David Morris, one of Jones’ throwing coaches. “I like that. Any of the good ones I’ve been around, they want to be the guy all the time.”

Jones didn’t love his March 23 pro day, so he rewrote the script for the second session. He collaborated with Morris and Joe Dickinson, another throwing coach, who has worked with Jones for about 12 years.

Jones also sought input from Alabama receivers DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle and running back Najee Harris to ensure they were happy with the plan. But because Smith (dislocated finger) and Waddle (broken ankle) were recovering from injuries and weren’t sure if they’d participate in the pro day, Jones added two backup scripts to the workload.

Jones wanted to accomplish three particular goals that day: show off his arm strength that had been heavily questioned during the pre-draft process, spotlight his mobility in the pocket and fulfill requests from teams that hoped to see certain throws.

“Pro day, we always have a blank canvas,” Morris said. “We create it and collaborate what we want to do. We have a plan, show what we need to show. I’ve never quite had a guy completely take over and kind of even destroy the canvas and say, ‘Let’s rethink it a little bit more.’ I like that because he knows what he wants. He likes things a certain way. He’s very intelligent. When he’s thinking about an operation, he’s not only thinking about himself. He’s thinking about everyone else around him. So he wanted to simplify some things but also really dive deep in a way to show what we wanted to show. It was fascinating to me because it was unique.”

Morris, the founder of QB Country in Mobile, Ala., was Eli Manning’s backup at Ole Miss and trained him during the latter half of his NFL career. Morris has prepared Daniel Jones, Gardner Minshew, Jake Fromm, Paxton Lynch, Nick Mullens, A.J. McCarron and Matt Barkley for previous drafts.

He began working with Mac Jones in January after the Crimson Tide’s national championship run and was instantly impressed with his preparation. One example: Jones has a pen with six colors that he uses to take notes from each of his games and opponents — red ink for the red zone, green ink for the green area, another color for third downs and so on.

The Senior Bowl was another eye-opener for Morris, who attended Jones’ practices and texted him observations after each workout. But after a full day of meetings, Jones retreated to the quarterbacks room in the convention center to study that day’s tape — until Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy’s staff had to ask Jones to leave at midnight in order to lock up the building — then combed through his notes in his hotel room until 2:30 a.m., when he finally returned Morris’ texts.

This happened on back-to-back nights. The players had to wake up by 6:30 each morning.

“You’ve got a guy who understands the opportunity,” Morris said. “His worst nightmare is to just miss something and not be prepared. Whatever it takes to know everything forwards and backwards, that’s going to be what he does. It’s over the top from a preparation standpoint, but there’s a reason he had the best year in NCAA history this year. The kid knows how to prepare.”

Jones completed a record-breaking 77.4 percent of his passes last season for a school record of 4,500 yards along with 41 touchdowns and four interceptions. His strengths were his ability to read the defense before the snap to make the correct checks, process the look after the snap and fly through his progressions and deliver the ball accurately and on time — all a result of that preparation. His footwork and feel in the pocket were other strong attributes.

Morris appreciated that whole package during their work together. While training, they’d run through each play four times — first as a walkthrough, then an ideal rep when everything goes perfectly, then a contested rep when a defender breaks the pocket and finally a worst-case scenario rep to yield off-platform throws or to simply find the right outlet to ensure a bad play doesn’t become a turnover.

Jones planned to spotlight those strengths at his second pro day. And while conducting remote meetings with NFL coaches, Jones asked if they had any requests for his final audition.

Jones, who privately hoped to be drafted by the Patriots, hit it off with offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels during their meeting, and Jones incorporated some New England elements into that workout, including its pass drops.

He also made throws off-platform, rolled out to the left and right and simulated footwork in a broken pocket. Jones ran a 4.82-second 40-yard dash, so he won’t race away from many people, but he wanted to prove there are other ways to display athleticism and mobility.

And with the questions over arm strength, Jones installed 20 deep balls — roughly 30 percent of his throws. One of those passes traveled nearly 70 yards to Smith, who ran a handful of routes while Waddle remained out.

Jones’ first pass of the day, however, remarkably scraped off the roof.

“The whole point was I’m a little tired of hearing ‘arm strength issues’ from people, so he’s like, ‘Let’s throw the heck out of it,'” Morris said. “I’m like, ‘Fine with me; let’s do it.’ The (first) ball hit the ceiling. I’ve never seen that happen. I’ve seen it happen on punts once or twice. He was throwing a go ball to the sideline from the middle of the field. He threw the crap out of it. It would have been a strike. That would have shaken certain people because it’s the first play, and you want a completion. He was like, ‘OK, let’s go; we’re about to nail this thing.'”

Jones had a strong day overall and wanted to stamp it with an exclamation point. During the final walkthrough a day earlier, Jones closed the script with a completion, then spontaneously told tight end Miller Forristall to line up at fullback in front of Harris and instructed the pair on their triple-option responsibilities. Jones faked the handoff to Forristall and pitched to Harris, who threw it high to Jones in the end zone. Jones made a one-handed leaping catch, kicked his legs wide to replicate the Michael Jordan silhouette and excitedly said they’d run it just like that at the pro day.

The play paid homage to his high school coach, the late Corky Rogers, who ran the Wing-T offense at The Bolles School in Jacksonville, Fla., and also to Belichick’s family roots at Navy. Belichick couldn’t help but smile when the plan was put to action.


“He’s a lot of fun,” Morris said of Jones. “He knows how to keep it light. When you have a good day, you can do that kind of stuff. He talked about (Rogers) often. That was a neat thing for him to be able to do that. And he did bring up Navy and Belichick, so I thought it was kind of fascinating.”

Belichick and McDaniels liked what they saw, but they still needed some luck to get Jones in the draft. After he fell past the San Francisco 49ers at No. 3 and the Carolina Panthers at No. 8, the New Orleans Saints began calling teams about trading up from No. 28, according to a source. The Saints couldn’t find anyone who wanted to move back that far, but they had a deal in the works to get No. 16 from the Arizona Cardinals — one pick too late.

The Patriots’ selection capped a mighty year-long rise from Jones, who sat behind Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa for two and a half seasons and then had to beat out five-star freshman Bryce Young for the starting job in 2020.

Now, Jones is the Patriots’ franchise quarterback-in-training.

“The way he understood the moment and the magnitude of each opportunity was very different to me,” Morris said. “I don’t know that anybody necessarily thought he’d have the year he had. But getting to know him, it really makes a lot of sense.”
 
Well, the point is more that the system can adapt. The Patriots have won games doing many different things. In the games against the Colts in like 2014 we just ran it down their throats, whereas other games Brady won with his arm. The Patriots are the most flexible in terms of altering what they do.
 
Well, the point is more that the system can adapt. The Patriots have won games doing many different things. In the games against the Colts in like 2014 we just ran it down their throats, whereas other games Brady won with his arm. The Patriots are the most flexible in terms of altering what they do.
But wait, if you read the game day thread Josh is an awful play caller.😅
 

Mac Jones’ second pro day concluded with some flair, the result of a mere two minutes of planning and execution that drew a smile from Bill Belichick and everyone else in attendance.

Of course, Belichick and the New England Patriots didn’t draft the Alabama quarterback with the No. 15 pick in the NFL Draft last week because of a triple-option touchdown reception. Rather, it was the rest of Jones’ pro day that yielded a snapshot of his true character, competitiveness and passion for the game.

That pro day was a small part of the Jones evaluation and a glimpse into his much larger body of work. He took ownership of his 65-throw script, meticulously combing through every detail in the days leading up to his March 30 audition at Alabama’s Hank Crisp Indoor Facility.

“Mac is a control freak. He likes having the keys and being in the driver’s seat,” said David Morris, one of Jones’ throwing coaches. “I like that. Any of the good ones I’ve been around, they want to be the guy all the time.”

Jones didn’t love his March 23 pro day, so he rewrote the script for the second session. He collaborated with Morris and Joe Dickinson, another throwing coach, who has worked with Jones for about 12 years.

Jones also sought input from Alabama receivers DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle and running back Najee Harris to ensure they were happy with the plan. But because Smith (dislocated finger) and Waddle (broken ankle) were recovering from injuries and weren’t sure if they’d participate in the pro day, Jones added two backup scripts to the workload.

Jones wanted to accomplish three particular goals that day: show off his arm strength that had been heavily questioned during the pre-draft process, spotlight his mobility in the pocket and fulfill requests from teams that hoped to see certain throws.

“Pro day, we always have a blank canvas,” Morris said. “We create it and collaborate what we want to do. We have a plan, show what we need to show. I’ve never quite had a guy completely take over and kind of even destroy the canvas and say, ‘Let’s rethink it a little bit more.’ I like that because he knows what he wants. He likes things a certain way. He’s very intelligent. When he’s thinking about an operation, he’s not only thinking about himself. He’s thinking about everyone else around him. So he wanted to simplify some things but also really dive deep in a way to show what we wanted to show. It was fascinating to me because it was unique.”

Morris, the founder of QB Country in Mobile, Ala., was Eli Manning’s backup at Ole Miss and trained him during the latter half of his NFL career. Morris has prepared Daniel Jones, Gardner Minshew, Jake Fromm, Paxton Lynch, Nick Mullens, A.J. McCarron and Matt Barkley for previous drafts.

He began working with Mac Jones in January after the Crimson Tide’s national championship run and was instantly impressed with his preparation. One example: Jones has a pen with six colors that he uses to take notes from each of his games and opponents — red ink for the red zone, green ink for the green area, another color for third downs and so on.

The Senior Bowl was another eye-opener for Morris, who attended Jones’ practices and texted him observations after each workout. But after a full day of meetings, Jones retreated to the quarterbacks room in the convention center to study that day’s tape — until Senior Bowl director Jim Nagy’s staff had to ask Jones to leave at midnight in order to lock up the building — then combed through his notes in his hotel room until 2:30 a.m., when he finally returned Morris’ texts.

This happened on back-to-back nights. The players had to wake up by 6:30 each morning.


Great find. Thank you.

Not that I was worried about it, but it was nice to read somebody who trains Quarterbacks for a living say "“The whole point was I’m a little tired of hearing ‘arm strength issues’ ".

It's simply not an accurate criticism. Anybody with a clicker could see the same thing that I, and many others, do if they simply watched him play in football games. The kid has an excellent arm and is quite accurate at distance. Or medium. Or short. He's a fucking sniper is what he is, but if somebody wants to get worked up over him throwing an off-target pass after running backwards or sideways under pressure then I'll suggest that you never watched Tom Brady or anybody else play Quarterback. Every one of them will throw a few weak passes under that situation.

I know all of this will be forgotten in time, but let the kid have a rough game and all the people that criticized him will bray like donkeys. I got a feeling that, given a chance to be in the building for a few months and getting a few snaps under his belt --- Mac Jones will show everybody who he is.

This kid is going to make the rest of the NFL shit a collective brick before long and will be wildly popular here. I look forward to watching it play out.

I'm all in on Mac Jones and look forward to the day when Mike Felger opines that Belichick took a foolish risk by not trading up to get Jones higher and simply got lucky.
 
Great find. Thank you.

Not that I was worried about it, but it was nice to read somebody who trains Quarterbacks for a living say "“The whole point was I’m a little tired of hearing ‘arm strength issues’ ".

It's simply not an accurate criticism. Anybody with a clicker could see the same thing that I, and many others, do if they simply watched him play in football games. The kid has an excellent arm and is quite accurate at distance. Or medium. Or short. He's a fucking sniper is what he is, but if somebody wants to get worked up over him throwing an off-target pass after running backwards or sideways under pressure then I'll suggest that you never watched Tom Brady or anybody else play Quarterback. Every one of them will throw a few weak passes under that situation.

I know all of this will be forgotten in time, but let the kid have a rough game and all the people that criticized him will bray like donkeys. I got a feeling that, given a chance to be in the building for a few months and getting a few snaps under his belt --- Mac Jones will show everybody who he is.

This kid is going to make the rest of the NFL shit a collective brick before long and will be wildly popular here. I look forward to watching it play out.

I'm all in on Mac Jones and look forward to the day when Mike Felger opines that Belichick took a foolish risk by not trading up to get Jones higher and simply got lucky.
The more I read about him, the more excited I get, and wonder about the weak arm complaints. I heard it in this forum often enough and dismissed it as less important than reading defenses (Rohan Davey/Tom Brady) but now I wonder where this weak arm thing came from initially.

That said, after hearing that NO tried to tade up in front of the Pats, I do wonder why BB didn't move up to prevent some team from jumping him.
 
That said, after hearing that NO tried to tade up in front of the Pats, I do wonder why BB didn't move up to prevent some team from jumping him.
Good Q. I assume that Bill weighed the price of moving up against his assessment of his back up plan (he had one of course) and decided staying where he was was "best for the team". That said of course, I have no idea what that plan might have been and for sure no idea of how Bill's mind led him to his decision.

Cheers
 
Good Q. I assume that Bill weighed the price of moving up against his assessment of his back up plan (he had one of course) and decided staying where he was was "best for the team". That said of course, I have no idea what that plan might have been and for sure no idea of how Bill's mind led him to his decision.

Cheers
I wondered if Barmore was the back up plan for #15 and when BB saw him at 38 had to jump. Maybe he even tried trading up earlier in the second and was rebuffed.
 
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