Is Mac Jones the Patriots' quarterback of the future?
At approximately 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, Jan. 15, Mac Jones was feeling good.
He was fresh off a stellar regular-season rookie campaign, which he closed by helping the Patriots secure the AFC's sixth seed in the playoffs.
Not only was Jones the only rookie signal-caller to guide his team to the postseason, but he also led all qualified rookies in passing yards (3,801), TD passes (22), completion percentage (67.6) and QB rating (92.5).
Couple that with the Pats' 14-10 win over Buffalo on Dec. 6 (a game in which Jones accomplished a feat no man since 1974 had by winning a game with three or fewer pass attempts), and it's easy to see why Jones brimmed with confidence.
But three hours, two interceptions and 17 points later, Jones was presented with an entirely different state of being.
His squad was absolutely blown out of the water by Josh Allen and Buffalo in a 47-17 beat-down. To make matters worse for Jones, his adversary was nearly perfect.
Allen unleashed five TD passes on the Pats' secondary, one more than his incompletion total, and boasted 308 yards while completing 21 of 25 passes.
It was an emphatic divisional statement that the Bills undoubtedly hope Jones, Bill Belichick and the rest of the Pats' platoon will remember vividly.
It's likely that they will. The Pats-Bills rivalry — more specifically the Jones-Allen rivalry — could feature many more episodes as time wears on. Buffalo has undoubtedly found its headman of the future, and some have labeled Jones the man who will assume that role for the Patriots.
But others, including Colin Cowherd, disagree, presenting a doozy of a proposal for Belichick's Pats on Monday.
"Bill Belichick has always viewed players as parts," Cowherd said on "The Herd."
"He doesn't get emotional. He's moved off great players — he wanted to move Brady. He moved Garoppolo. Josh Allen, in the last two games, has been so devastating, unstoppable and jaw-dropping. Could Belichick be thinking, ‘I’ve probably got to trade Mac Jones, 'cause if this is a gunfight, I'm not sufficiently armed?'"
Colin Cowherd: Should Patriots consider trading Mac Jones?
Nick Wright, for one, didn't see much value in Jones' play Saturday.
"When you have a limited, competent, shattered quarterback and you're going on the road in the playoffs, you might get something like this," Wright said Monday on "First Things First." "They weren't going to win either way, but that doesn't mean they were going to get mortified and embarrassed on national television."
Wright disagreed with Cowherd's evaluation of Jones' performance but concurred that Buffalo will be the AFC East's team to beat moving forward.
"Why should anyone think they'll ever be able to compete with the Bills over the next 10 years?" he said of the Patriots. "I think I would be able to defend against Mac's passing chart. He didn't use half the field. He was as bad as you can be. The only way the Pats beat any good teams all year was either the Titans, who had all their players injured, and the Bills in a windstorm."
But in Chris Broussard's mind, Jones was not the sole reason New England didn't walk away victorious.
"This is not on Mac Jones," Broussard said.
"It boils down to this: The Bills are simply the better football team — period. Are they 30 points better? No. So you can put that on the Patriots and Belichick. The Bills have essentially owned the Patriots the last two years. For all of Belichick's genius, Josh Allen has him figured out. … The defense and the coaching was way worse than Mac Jones."
Chris Broussard: "This is not on Mac Jones"
Jones, despite ending the season on a negative note, had many bright spots throughout his rookie journey, and his numbers are nothing to scoff at.
But Belichick generally scoffs at anything that doesn't pertain to a Super Bowl ring. And whether Jones sticks around for the long haul will depend on Belichick's assessment of Jones' ability to do exactly that.
