The New England Patriots had an alarming loss to the New Orleans Saints in Week 3.
James Winston and the Saints had a suffocating loss the week prior and the expectation was that New England would carry its momentum in a home game to take walk away with a victory. Sean Payton and his pass rush had different plans.
Mac Jones, who threw for 270 yards, a touchdown and three interceptions, was flustered the entire game as he was hit 11 times. The Saints defense threw different looks at him throughout the entire game and were the first team to make him look like a rookie.
A lot of his struggles came from the Patriots’ offensive line and their inability to keep him protected, though. And for that primary reason, along with others, Boomer Esiason explains why he’s not worried about Jones.
“Everybody’s just gotta calm down,” Esiason said on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show.” “I’m telling you, these rookie quarterbacks all through the league, every single one of them struggled yesterday. Some looked so bad and so lost that they really don’t have any business being on the field, because I don’t think they can protect themselves and I don’t think their teams are good enough to support them.
“That’s not the case in New England. New England’s a good team. Losing James White is going to hurt, no doubt about it, but they’re a solid team. This league is all built to have maybe two or three super teams if they can stay healthy through 17 games. There’s probably four or five also-ran teams that are gonna be in the running for the first overall draft pick. And then the rest of the league is gonna be right smack in the middle between 7-10 and 10-7, and I think that’s right now where New England is.
“Coach Belichick is gonna have to coach his ass off, just like he did last year to get this team to seven wins. If he can do that and they can figure some of this stuff out, they’ll beat the teams they’re supposed to beat. Yesterday, that’s a good team. That’s a good, big, defensive team, and it seemed like they were one step ahead of the New England offense. … New England’s got growing pains, and that’s exactly what we’re going through.”
When it comes to the future and bouncing back, Esiason isn’t worried about Jones’ dedication.
“He’s an all-in guy, there’s no question about that,” Esiason said. “We talked about that after Week 1. We talked about that after Week 2. He knows what it takes to be great in the league, and he knows there are going to be growing pains. He also takes every loss with a heavy heart, and that’s the way you want it. That’s one of the reasons I really like him, because it means that much to him.
“He’ll be at the facility very early this morning, going over tape with Josh [McDaniels] and trying to figure out what he can do better next week. … I know that Mac will put this one behind him and he’ll immediately turn his attention to the Tampa Bay Buccaneer defense. That’s just going to be the scope of what he has to learn.
“He’s fine. He’s mentally tough enough to handle this. I can’t express enough just how difficult this is for these rookie quarterbacks with everything coming at them for the first time. Getting hit, dealing with the anxiety, picking yourself back up, learning from your losses, and trying to apply it to the next game. This is part of the maturation process of all young players, especially quarterbacks.”
Esiason makes great points and Jones clearly is going to work much harder to correct these issues and get better going forward. It’s just unfortunate that his next stop is against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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