Huh? I don't think there is any doubt he would change starters if he felt the team would benefit. He benched Bledsoe for Brady and won a Super Bowl; he's not leery of media-created QB controversies.
I ate crow immediately on my response to your emotions, because Wilson looked better last night than Mac ever has. I was also emotional so sorry for the dickish response
He had to make it clear after the one week both guys were active in 2001 that Brady was the starter no matter what.
I'm sympathetic to this argument - I think Bill has made some really awful moves in the draft and FA in recent years, but contextually it's not a blank slate, you have to maneuver with what's out there and the draft has been pretty poor for QBs they could have had and FA weak for skill players they could have had. That said, for sure need to throw Hurts on the list with Purdy, and with hindsight making it look like Brady leaving was a fairly foregone conclusion for Bill, Lamar is probably worth pointing out too. (And it's a separate topic, but as far as receivers, the AJB trade was pretty reasonable in hindsight for Philly.)
I would’ve moved heaven and earth to get Lamar. I watched him play a lot in college and he was just so damn dynamic. You could see how the right coach could make him an NFL QB. But what’s done is done.
And yet interestingly he's 1-3 in the playoffs with a 3/5 TD/INT ratio, and the last two years he's had 17/7 and 16/13 TD/INT ratios.
I think it is this simple. There are a lot of levels of suck. Mac Jones isn’t the franchise qb we hoped for, but Zappe is worse. Grier is probably worse than Zappe. These guys are such world class athletes, even the bad NFL players, that it’s easy to think anyone on the roster could do better, but a quality quarterback is insanely rare. Idk if anyone perceives me as a Mac defender (I don’t intend to be, I just push back on negativity because I like rooting for my team and hate when people take victory laps for being right when the team sucks), but he’s 100% the best quarterback on the roster. It’s as simple as that
Agreed. Or, put another way, BB won't go away from Mac until he's ready to cut bait. There's no going back, at this point, once BB expresses anything other than full confidence in him.
I don’t think this is fair to BB. He dealt with QB controversy when he benched Bledsoe. Brady made any controversy impossible for 20 years. Mac was the right choice to draft, the right guy to run with last year, and the right guy to run with this year. I see no evidence to suggest anything in your post is accurate with the caveat that I know nothing about Kosar or what you’re referencing with him
Sure. But that's not the same thing as coming to a conclusion that you need to make a change.
Right. And he benched Kosar for Testaverde which as I recall, was a pretty big deal..
Maybe. I think if Chad were playing today, he'd have similar results. Their QB ratings are pretty similar. I think the Jets had better skill players, with HOF Curtis Martin for a lot of it, and Laveranues Coles and Santana Moss.
I think the issue in 2001 was not the media circus of a controversy it was that he split reps between Brady and Bledsoe that week and in the aftermath decided that splitting the reps was detrimental to the team. So picked one and went with it.
He didn't just bench him. He cut Kosar.
Pre injury Chad Pennington is in another stratosphere of QB play when compared to Mac and I'd honestly take noodle arm Pennington over him too. His era adjusted stats from 2006-2008 blow Mac's out of the water.
What do mean by it getting him fired? He coached another two plus years there after the switch.
It planted the seeds of his dismissal. He made the playoffs after he made this move but it left ownership pissed. Bernie was a treasure. And the next year the team was bad and they had a chance to fire him. And they did.
Maybe, but honestly I think unless they had a great year Modell was always going to bring in a new coach after he moved the team.
He cut Kosar in 1993, and wasn’t fired until after the 1995 season. In the interim, they made the playoffs in ‘94, and beat the Patriots in the first round. It definitely alienated much of the fan base, but it was the on field collapse of ‘95, caused largely by the chaos of Modell announcing in season the team was going to Baltimore after that the season, that caused his firing.
Unless you can somehow tie the Kosar benching to the move of the team, I don’t really see it. Most of my info only comes from the Cleveland 95 doc so by no means am I an expert.
Modell didn’t sell the team until 2004. 8 years after having moved them to Baltimore, and having won a Super Bowl there.
I meant move, not sell. My apologies. The team fell apart after the move was announced.
The saying before the draft was that his floor was Chad Pennington (in a changed league) but now it feels like absolute best case his ceiling would be poor mans Chad Pennington (in a changed league).
with a differential of -42. The crazy part is, their defense has only let up seven offensive touchdowns on the season.
Probably not the coaching staff; more likely a lower level assistant that's noting a lot of disgruntled people in the building.
They also have the highest percentage of drives ending in a punt or turnover: 71%https://x.com/NestPgs/status/1708922203155095642?s=20
The #Patriots currently have the 5th worst point differential in the #NFL
Pennington had really good anticipation and ball security. Mac is not really succeeding at either. I had hopes Mac could be Andy Dalton and he's nowhere close.
They’re definitely in the bottom quartile of teams. I do think it is tough to distinguish between/among Washington, NE, Pittsburgh, Denver, Atlanta, Chicago, and Arizona, and the only purpose of trying to make those distinctions is rhetorical. In any case they’re in a bad spot.
Yup. The crazy thing is he made the same throw earlier in the game and it nearly got picked off too. No one should be making that throw, but certainty not Mac with his arm strength. The ball just floats and hangs in the air for an extra beat. That play is a visual that can’t be unseen.
What made that worse was he got away with an across the field throw early where Olson or whoever said “you’re not supposed to do that”. Then he did it again and Dallas scored. It’s one thing if your John Elway.
Eric Mangini was on the show just last week ripping Mac. Michael Lombardi has been doing it for months. It’s this network of coaches from the BB tree and other loyalists who don’t like Mac and are being told things.
I thought Eric was persona non grata with your club. Has that changed?
I'm actually going to quibble about the arm strength thing. I actually think it's perfectly average and it's his mechanics and delivery that's the problem. It's been pointed out ad nauseum here, but he's consistently throwing off his back foot or off balance. Watch the video of the pick and he's got nobody even near him and he's throwing flat footed, even if the read was right, it had no chance. You can't fix the stuff mid-season and it's been 3 seasons of that now. I don't know what the staff is coaching him on, but I would be surprised if that wasn't one of them.
He might actually be more "completely fucked" than Wilson after yesterday's games, which really is an accomplishment. I completely agree that his footwork hurts him. When he lines up and steps into his throws, his velocity is still weak compared to his peers but he can get the ball where it needs to go. If he's off platform or tap dancing in the pocket it's complete trash.
His average throw without setting his feet has less on it than the average QB's throw without setting his feet. When he's lined up and steps into it the velocity is workable, even if below average as well, but he never does. I think the arm is limiting, but he exacerbates the problem.
He wasn’t the same after the strip sack. I’ve gone back and watched the clip a couple times and it looks like Mac gets properly face planted into the concrete/artificial surface…maybe cobwebs?
I don't think that helped but he was jumping around and backpedaling all game. The third and 1 before the only points they scored was hilarious, he hops about 4 times before throwing off his back foot: View: https://youtu.be/3yFJb769c60?si=dQUSznV_sY5kpsLd&t=88
They should be - I believe Taylor Kyles confirmed he ran the route wrong. If he didn't confirm it I can with full confidence say he is running it too shallow. If I am wrong I will donate to the Jimmy fund. Mac did a lot wrong last game but that throw was not one of them.
He threw it after Gesicki had already made his break. No anticipation involved there. If he ran it shallow he was already shallow before the ball came out.
