The ability to go thru his progressions under pressure and make throws off platform are unknowns. It’s not something he really had to do in college. How often do you think they called a play for DeVonte Smith where he wasn’t open? Or Najee Harris? Or Jaylen Waddle? Or calling a play for one and not being able to find one of the other guys immediately open in the progression?
If you watch enough Alabama film you start to get a feel for the playcall and who the plays are designed for. Those guys were open more times than not. That’s for sure.
If I recall right, I remember someone saying that Bama basically used a 2-read offense. If player A isn’t open, throw to player B. If you watch Mac’s film, he rarely, if ever threw to anyone after that 2nd player.
Again, @Air2theThrown loved Mac Jones and I did as well but I also saw the argument against the offense he played in and the talent around him. He was on such a stacked team that it was hard to tell if he was the one driving their success or if his success was due to the team around him.
The offensive coordinator said he grew over the course of the year and you can’t compare the offense in week 2 to week 10. But at the same time (these are my words not his) the offense still looks similar. Sure the OC limited what he asked Mac to do early on and then gave him more reponsibility over the course of the year. But Bama was so stacked with talent that the same principles Mac was “limited” to still applied all year.
Go to the national championship game and zone in on the plays to DaVonta Smith. Those are plays that were designed how they were executed. The NFL is a league where half or more of the snaps are spent trying to figure out how to make a play work outside of the initially designed circumstances. How can you properly evaluate that? You can’t. It doesn’t mean you think he sucks. You just have less snaps to make a judgement call from than you’d like. Its like trying to evaluate a RB who is constantly running thru wide open holes. Zeke ran thru gaping holes at OSU…but it doesn’t mean he needed them. Its just an observation of his circumstances.
I just happened to be listening to ESPN radio this morning as Keyshawn and company was bagging on Orlo for suggesting the Patriots would roll with Jones this year and compete with Bills for the division. Everyone on the show was convinced it was Orlovsky being Orlovsky as they each threw their support behind Newton.
I wonder where their conversation will go tomorrow. LOL. I don’t care enough to listen, but they’re all wearing egg on their face right now, whether they want to admit it or not.
Part of that is the Cam Newton factor people always need to factor in whenever Cam is brought up. Some people love to hate Cam Newton. But those same people need to put their hate aside and realize a majority of the leagues players support Cam and are behind him and what he stands for. As I’ve said 100 times the second he walks into an NFL locker room most of the players will instantly gravitate to him. That’s why you can’t have him as a backup.
As our players tell the story one of the early moments when Patricia started to lose the locker room was when he put up highlights of Cam Newton dancing and he talked trash about Cam. This was supposed to get the players fired up, and in the special environment that was New England with Belichick speaking to the players might have even pretended to go along. But here (as well as other places) it fell flat. That’s Cam Cam. Its different. The players want to beat him for different reasons. But not the middle aged guy in the suburbs reasons. Its wanting to beat someone you look up to reasons. But Cam is a cultural icon who isn’t going to be knocked off his spot with some dancing videos.
Very well stated and right on. And probably hits right to the core of why the previous regime received and deserved so little respect. In addition to all the other terrible moves and other things they did.
Sorry you said the Middle Ages suburban guy reasons and it just reminded me of this song
Off platform throws are definately something to question however going through his progressions period is a strength. I mean you can literally see it and I’ve watched a lot of Alabama as well. Also you’re right in that there was a lot of 1 and 2 read stuff that were specifically designed, however there were plays where he was clearly going over 3-4 reads especially a lot of the plays that took longer to develop.
Jones winning the job this early really shouldn’t be a surprise since Bill covets cerebral QBs and frankly Cam hasn’t been good since his Super Bowl appearance.
I don’t know I saw a guy that went with the open guy whether it was designed play or not and he always got the ball out quickly. Never had an issue with that myself. It’ll be interesting to see how he does.
Well… at least he put those worries to rest with his preseason showing against exotic blitzes and teams that developed specific game plans with their 1st string defenses.
Oh wait… I was just reminded that NFL teams don’t do that kind of stuff in the preseason…
Nevermind.
Just because a play takes longer doesn’t mean he’s moving thru his progression. I remember people on here were trying to convince me that he went thru his progressions on a play and he found an open guy on a play I saw a handful of times in the film and THAT was the guy that play was designed for and who he went to each time. But like the RB going thru open holes analogy, it doesn’t mean Mac couldn’t do it. Its just not something he was asked to do very often or something that he needed to do very often. He did learn how to throw the ball away and live to play another day. That’s something alot of guys have some growing pains learning in the NFL.
Alabama’s OC has come out and said he feels like Mac was more capable than what they tasked him with at Alabama. And they started him off too slow for the first 4 games of the season before realizing he could do much more. He said they should have been feeding him earlier.
Add to this the fact that Cam seems to have bought into a fair bit of the “Patriot Way”, and I think that’s the best endorsement of Jones.
A natural leader like Newton who is on board with the company line? That’s enormously valuable. Belichick must really think Jones is bringing something to the table to forego that.
100% guarantee not one will admit Orlovsky was right.
They would be more likely to passive aggressively insinuate the Patriots discriminated against Cam.
That’s just how things work.
Its way past brake pumping time on Mac Jones. In fact the runaway truck ramp is already miles behind us. Espin is already annointing Jones rookie of the year.
All that’s left now is for a mediocre season, which for any starting rookie qb is actually good, and all those Patriot bandwagoneers dropping like flies when they realize the Patriot dynasty is still dead and nfl qbs have a learning curve.
More importantly the actual elite teams still exist and the pats are not one of them. Funny what winning 20 super bowls does to a team’s fans- they are like high rolling coke fiends who can’t operate without mounds of high grade powder. It’s superblow or nothing. I even doubt Bellycheck has the time or patience for training wheels. This CAN all go bad for Mac Jones, especially since some of his teammates believed in Cam. Tom Brady turned into Tom Brady because he was a nobody in nowhere’sville and he exceeded expectations just by playing ‘ok’. Jones has to be Tom Brady out of the gate. How’s that going to work?
Stop making sense. Pro football is all about misplaced loyalties. These guys sacrifice their physical structures to a business unit which is constantly depreciating them. They will get behind Mac Jones until it’s clear he is just another rook qb with a lot of learning ahead of him, their own careers are much shorter and they don’t have time to wait on some kid learning the position, they don’t care he will eventually be very good.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. They made a ballsy move years ago moving on from Drew Bledsoe and putting all their eggs in the Tom Brady basket. It reminds me of the Packers in that regard. They made some ballsy moves in the past and now they seem to have a “finding a QB is easy” kind of mentality. It could work out like Brady or it might be a smartest man in the room move like when Josh shipped out Jay Cutler for Kyle Orton and Tim Tebow.
I’m sure no small part of the decision was because of Cams position on tater tots. Newton is outspoken that he refuses to eat tater tots, and missed some time with the team due to the leagues regulations on players who have refused to eat tater tots. BB was visibly annoyed when asked about it
I just never had a problem with it because he always got the ball out quickly and to whoever was the open guy. You can slam him for his preseason success because he’s against vanilla defenses, but it hasn’t changed my mind about him. I mean everyone is going up against vanilla defenses so you might as well slam all the rookies and disregard whatever success they’re having.
