Inside Jones’ lifelong journey to succeeding the quarterback he idolized as a kid in Jacksonville and one of the best college quarterbacks to ever play at Alabama.
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Andrew CallahanMay 10, 2021 at 12:11 p.m.
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FOXBORO, MA. APRIL 30, 2021: New England Patriots first-round draft pick, Mac Jones, takes questions from the press at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts. (Staff photo by Nicolaus Czarnecki/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald)
Six years ago, all Mac Jones had was a picture.
You’ve seen it before.
A tall, shirtless quarterback stands in light gray shorts against a dark backdrop at the NFL combine. He wears no socks, no shoes, only a glare fixed between his messy brown hair and unmistakable chin dimple. To his right, a white sign rests on an easel, listing his name, height and weight.
It’s a portrait of average, no muscle definition or hint of physical ability in sight. A superstar laid bare before he was born.
Tom Brady still hasn’t lived it down.
As an overlooked high school recruit from Jacksonville, Jones kept Brady’s combine photo with him at all times. He didn’t see himself in Brady so much as a path to a dream. So when college coaches would side eye Jones in person, trying to reconcile the skinny passer before them with the supposed 6-foot-2 gunslinger they’d come to recruit, he showed them the way.
Flashing the famous photo, Jones would point and say: “If this is the greatest quarterback ever, I’ve still got four or five years to get there.”
Over time, Brady’s ascent from kid at the combine to greatest ever has been overplayed as an all-time underdog story.
Before he became a sixth-round rookie in 2000, Brady was an athlete worthy of being selected in the 1995 Major League Baseball draft and starting for a top-5 college football team. He hailed from a supportive, athletic family. Jones likewise comes from a sports family, his parents both tennis players turned partners in their own law firm. He was worthy of 24 FBS scholarship offers out of high school, after which he graduated with a 4.0 GPA and two degrees from Alabama, all while speaking parts of three languages.
Without football, Jones would be just fine. Yet through the power of Brady’s example, and an internal drive to match, Jones has earned the chance to follow him in New England. This is no coincidence.
“That picture to Mac meant he doesn’t need to be the biggest, fastest or strongest,” said Jack Lundgren, a confidant and high school teammate. “He just needs to be the smartest, and throw the ball well.”
In college, Jones modeled his footwork after Brady’s. He stole elements of Brady’s game preparation. He studied every piece of Brady’s passing mechanics, down to how he contorts his off-hand.
Like Brady, Jones fought off a 5-star recruit to start his final collegiate season. Then he won a national title in the same stadium Brady ended his Michigan career with an Orange Bowl victory. Brady is his hero, so much that on his fourth day as a pro, Jones tweeted a sponsored video of himself playing the Madden NFL video game at 1:42 a.m.
His Patriots against Brady’s Bucs.
“It’s unfair to Mac comparing the two, but there are definitely similarities on and off the field,” said Senior Bowl director and former Patriots scout Jim Nagy. “Having been around both guys, they’re wired very much the same. … Calling Mac smart does not do him justice. He’s on a totally different level mentally.”
To be clear, Jones is not Brady. He does not want to be Brady. And he will never approach the seven-time champion’s legacy, no matter how hard he strives or how much avocado ice cream he devours. Yet he is nonetheless tracking to replace Brady, a development that surprises no one close to the affable 22-year-old whose aw-shucks exterior belies a fiery competitiveness and preternatural self-assurance.
Because the power of being Mac Jones does not lie in the obvious physical or the hidden mental. It lives at their intersection, within his striking ability to make belief materialize on a football field; from completing passes he’s released before receivers snap off their routes to vaulting himself into college football lore after three years of waiting, working and dreaming.
Still, now at the height of his power, concerns over Jones’ limitations and potential in the modern NFL are legitimate. He was viewed as the fifth-best quarterback in the draft, a judgment affirmed by his status as the fifth quarterback taken. He said he secretly hoped to fall to New England, despite widespread speculation he would go third to San Francisco.
Once the 49ers passed, Jones waited. So did Bill Belichick. Eventually, Brady’s old coach and successor met at the 15th pick, the kind of occurrence that might encourage one to believe in fate.
Except there’s no fate in football, right? Otherwise Brady’s legend would be void of all meaning and inspiration.
But if somehow it does exist, last Thursday night, Jones would have become a Patriot all the same.
