Mac's Future
- Thread starter TomRicardo
- Start date
Further to your point, a few teams had similar gambles blow up in their faces in the 2021 draft.
There's the 49ers who traded 3 firsts and a 3rd to move up 9 spots to 3rd overall to pick Trey Lance, who they ended up dumping for a 4th this year.
And the Bears, who traded 2 firsts, a 4th and a 5th to move up 9 spots to 11th overall to pick Justin Fields, who they're probably going to replace in this next draft with Carolina's pick.
I'm guessing it would take a bit more than a 2nd. Tyreek hill went for a 1st, 2nd, two 4ths and a 6th the next season.
For all of the hand wringing about Mac's supporting cast, Young's is probably worse all across the board. Their pass catching corps is vomitous....the OL was supposed to be a strength but really hasn't yet.
I'm not giving up on Young, although the trade looks really bad right now.
I know this has been talked about but I don't think it's been talked about enough.
It's one thing if a QB looks overmatched but the team rallies around him and talk glowingly about him as a teammate. I've witnessed it with Baker Mayfield.
It's entirely another when your mediocre QB seems like a whiny child who is looking for any opportunity possible to subtly, or not so subtly, throw his teammates and coaching under the bus at every turn. That has to play a part in the evaluation (in addition to the play on the field)
Agree. Brees is an all-time top 10 QB. Wilson and Murray are dramatically better athletes than Young. None are encouraging comps.
If you’re a below-average athlete for the position (and at the NFL level, Young is), you need some other preternatural trait or skill — Rodgers’s arm, Burrow’s pocket presence, Tua’s accuracy. I suppose the Panthers thought Young’s processing and decisionmaking were that special trait. The early returns aren’t great.
I know this post was made with tongue firmly planted in cheek, but I’m perfectly fine rolling with a one-year bridge guy if BB doesn’t think anyone who’s available is the right long-term solution. The Pats’ offensive woes extend well beyond the QB position; if they have a path to relevance in 2024, it involves pairing a near-elite D with a good-enough offense. They can do that with a game manager at QB. (Of course, if BB thinks the QB of future is available in the draft, I’ll gladly forgo the glory of a 10-7 season and take some lumps next year to set the Pats up for the future.)
I think he has that, it's just that if he were 6'3 those traits would show up consistently, at his height it's just hard. Everyone is tall and fast, if you have to find ways to actually see what's going on particularly to the middle of the field, that window closes fast. He'll have to throw blind half the time. I still think his anticipation is good enough that he could eventually do it, but early on as a rookie while he's still learning the speed of the game, no way.
He's too small. I am absolutely giving up. But you are right, Tepper is doing things in Carolina and ALL of it was bad.
And drafting is tough but picking Young after trading up and watching Stroud dominate the NFL has to sting.
It doesn't make any sense to cut him now but to bring him back next year would be incomprehensible. We will have QB options at the top of the draft along with bringing in a veteran stopgap who knows what he's there for. Bill can coach the team but I don't want him within 3 miles of that grocery store!
what veteran options are a better bet than Mac next year?
I don’t see any benefit in cutting Mac and nobody is trading for him. If they draft someone and that guy is ready day 1, sure, cut Mac but I’m skeptical the Pats go QB in the 1st unless one of the big 2 is there and the next tier of guys might not be week 1 ready
It's about the rookie option who won't have Mac in the way with another veteran there to help guide him...not the veteran being a better option.
Would have been more easy to tell if his snap counts for the first 6 games weren't 41%, 8%, 24%, 33%, 7%, inactive. He's still at only 41% on offensive snaps on the season. Genius offensive mind, Bill Belichick.
Dude can definitely get open, and can make guys miss in the open field, but at his size, he'll just never be a red zone threat or be able to make plays in traffic regularly. He's a smaller, slower poor mans version of Tyreek Hill. Can do a lot of good things for a team, but I don't see him ever being a true #1 for anyone at 5'8.
I don't think folks should get too fired up about Aiyuk's openness either. You have to take your medicine with San Fran's offense. You have to commit to stopping the run, or CMC will bury you. You have to protect the middle of the field or Kittle will go off. Deebo can do anything at any time. I like Aiyuk a lot, but I also think he's the perfect example of a #2/#3 receiver on a team having his game elevated by the gravity other guys are creating on the field.
Mac's present:
View: https://twitter.com/michaelFhurley/status/1723737338147123331?s=20
Bill O’Brien PISSED at Mac Jones
View: https://twitter.com/michaelFhurley/status/1723737338147123331?s=20
Bill O’Brien PISSED at Mac Jones
I am a firm believer that this team would be in contention for the playoffs (maybe the division with a healthy D) with average QB play and instead half this forum wants to fire the best coach of all time and his assistants. I would be yelling like that as well if I was BOB.
God Mac sucks so much.
The best coach of all time put this entire shitshow together. You don't get to extract bits and piecs of BB. The QB, the coaches, everything. He owns every single bit of this. ENOUGH.
Get Grier ready to go during the bye, then, because Zappe is Mac with even greater physical limitations.
I thought the one thing everyone agreed on was that Mac was the correct pick.
Not sure what people expected of BB here.
His future isn’t in Foxboro. We’ve leaned all we need to. He ain’t it.
I’m sure he’ll be the starter the rest of the season, but he’ll be gone in the off-season.
I’m sure he’ll be the starter the rest of the season, but he’ll be gone in the off-season.
I hope Mac never starts another game for the Pats, but I would probably rather see Grier than Zappe, but I think if BB keeps playing Zappe and/or Mac, the only win I see remaining on the schedule is against the NYG.
That'll do her.
I'm not sure it could have ended here for him on a more fitting play. Didn't stand tall and make an easy throw, instead threw off his back foot and made one of the worst throws you'll ever see an NFL QB make.
I'm not sure it could have ended here for him on a more fitting play. Didn't stand tall and make an easy throw, instead threw off his back foot and made one of the worst throws you'll ever see an NFL QB make.
The team would be good if the QB did not suck. Got it.
Poor BB, stuck with all of this poor QB play. Let's let him pick again and everything will be fine.
Having a plan B?
Edit: I mean, are there other examples of a team riding with its terrible QB solely because their backup is so bad as to be nearly unplayable?
Usually a team that is relying on a bad QB will try to find a backup capable of stepping in.
Mac's future is ovah. I'm sure he can stay in the NFL as a backup but this was the final nail in the coffin for him as a starter, at least with this team. And it's hard to see another team wanting him to be THEIR starting QB.
I wanted Fields. I think Bill and McDaniels could’ve done some interesting stuff with him.
Like I said the other day: his play gets people fired. BoB has every right to be livid.
He won't even be a backup. He can't throw the ball.
Get ready to learn Canadian, kid I hear Winnipeg is lovely this time of year.
How many teams have Plan B backups who are capable of stepping in and taking over a team for the future? Not many, unless maybe one is sitting behind a HoF QB aging out.
The Blue Bombers are 14-4 and lead the CFL in points for. They don't want Mac.
I agree with this actually, but can't blame them for not trading up for a guy who I still have hope for but might also be a bust.
He's mentally broken right now, so it's possible he could step in and be a backup somewhere else with a fresh start. He'll get 1-2 more chances probably.
Not that I'm betting on him, but I wouldn't say his career is over just yet.
The Pats football operation, once the class of the league, looks to me like a Potemkin village.
They were unable to properly fill out a coaching staff one year.
Bailey Zappe was drafted last year, a few picks before Sam Howell, and he turned out to be so bad that the team was able to cut and resign him. But, bad as he was, the Pats did not draft or sign an alternative. Zappe's uselessness is now contributing to Mac having more job secutiry than he deserves.
By all accounts, the Pats went into this year believing that they could compete for the division.
None of this screams out "competent organization."
They need to cut him. Now. He has no place on this team and his mere presence is a distraction they do not need. He is a net negative in all ways.
I mean it depends what the goal is - but the Patriots aren't a borderline playoff team trying to eke out another win or two to get to the postseason. If you're going to suck, why not suck your way to a better draft pick? Is getting to 4 wins really the priority? If there was a young QB waiting in the wings that you wanted to give a shot to, sure... but that doesn't seem to be the case
There's a bit of pinball here where folks don't want to be stuck as a mediocre 500 team, but also don't want to do what teams that want to suck their way to a top draft pick do
I'm not an expert or anything but even I can see that his footwork is awful and he doesn't have the crazy arm strength to make up for it. I can see why he skips through his reads when they're open and I can't blame him -- he knows he can't make the throw.
Fields would have been even worse, he is a slower processor than Mac. They would have needed to implement an entire new offensive system for Fields, who I was also a fan of coming out. Honestly the 2021 QB class will likely go down as the most disappointing in decades.
I was both pissed – putrid throw, awful awful awful in a "big" spot (not really, but you know what I mean) – and what I'll call "late April relieved," but I have a little space in my heart and soul for Mac. What a big bad moment for him. What a long flight into a long lay-off. Just brutal.
He takes no accountability in press conferences and has repeatedly made odd little snarky comments about his teammates.
Fuck him. He should feel awful. He played awful. He's the worst player in the league. He never improves. I don't feel bad for him, and I never want to see him on my television again. He's not a good guy. He's not a leader. He's a tennis player-type snotty prick who never gets better.
It is not remotely unusual to see backup QBs step in and contribute in the NFL. Even BB's Patriots saw it with Cassel and Jimmy G.
It is only in this "BB is God and everything he does must be right" frame that we think it is somehow unreasonable to expect a team with a shaky QB to find a better backup than a guy, Zappe, who doesn't even belong in the league.
Hell, Gardner Minshew is better than Mac and could have been signed for cheap a few months ago. Indy brought him in to be a backup. But, no, we can't fault the sainted Bill Belichick for not being able to do any better than Zappe.
Honestly, I was a little surprised they threw Zappe in there for the final drive. You don't usually see that. But, to me, that means Mac isn't starting next week.
Which teammate made him short-arm a throw that failed to even reach his wide open in the endzone receiver?
BOB tore into him on the sidelines for his idiotic toss-it-up play and he proceeded to make an even more egregiously stupid play with the interception.
I wasn't surprised. The coaching staff had finally seen enough. They knew that they had zero shot of winning the game with Mac continuing to play.
I was thrilled with that benching because is was so well earned and richly deserved .