Patriots must do more to support Jones
Maybe for an encore, Bill Belichick and Co. will discover the running game this weekend in Houston.
For all the positives attached to the moral victory last weekend – rookie quarterback Mac Jones almost upstaged Tom Brady – came the throwback reality check: The Patriots rushed for minus-1 yard against the Buccaneers.
Talk about a night for records. It marked the franchise’s worst singlegame output.
“We’ve got to do better,” Belichick told reporters this week. “That’s obvious.”
No, that’s no way to support a rookie, or even a veteran for that matter.
The pattern must turn Belichick’s stomach. New England opened the season by rushing for 125 yards against the Dolphins. Each game since, the tally regressed. From 101 yards against the Jets to 49 against the Saints to negative territory, that leaves New England with the league’s 31st-ranked running game.
New England attempted just eight runs against the Buccaneers, including the four by starting running back Damien Harris that went for minus-4 yards. The longest run (4 yards) came from a wide receiver, Nelson Agholor, off an end-around.
Shoot, the longest pass completion (30 yards) also came from a wide receiver, Jakobi Meyers, on a gadget throwback pass. You can’t knock the creative resourcefulness.
Jones, a traditional dropback passer with limited mobility, might be the perfect “game manager” to run Belichick’s system, coordinated by Josh McDaniels.
But even a real cyborg would be hardpressed to “manage” without a complementary rushing attack. Usually, that’s essential to the formula for playing with the rookie quarterback. Take the pressure off with a solid running game and stiff defense.
Sure, Jones came so close to pulling it off on Sunday night. At one point, he completed 19 consecutive passes to tie one of Brady’s franchise records. He finished the night with a 77.5% completion rate, already the third time he’s topped 70%. He plays with poise, which was surely honed while playing in so many big games – even as a one-year starter – at Alabama. He’ll get better with experience. And as defensive captain Devin McCourty declared, the rookie has earned trust in the locker room.
Yet it’s also obvious, as Belichick might put it, that the imbalance is not ideal. Opposing defenses, loading up to take away the run, will challenge Jones to beat them with his arm. Against the injury-depleted Bucs secondary, many of the completions came on quick throws to the flats and on crossing routes. Few of the attempts went outside the numbers toward the boundaries – the type of throws that might loosen up the defense to unclog running lanes.
Jones is on pace to throw for 4,301 yards in a 17-game season, but his average yards per pass attempt (6.33) ranks 26th in the league.
Jones knows. It’s a work in process, with the hope for progress as Houston’s 28th-ranked run defense looms. He threw 40 passes against the Bucs a week after logging 51 attempts against the Saints.
“I think just where we’re at, we just kind of had to do what we had to do and try to throw the ball more, and I’ll have to look at the tape,” Jones said after Sunday night’s game. “I don’t really get a chance to look at every detail of the running game, but obviously we’re disappointed with that.
“I play a part in that in trying to push everyone during practice, and we can play better than that, passing or running, and we will. And I think it’s all about communication with the coaches, the players, everybody, just to find ways to just fix the issue. And we first have to identify the issue.”
Of course, the rushing attack – which no longer gets a jolt from the extra dimension that Cam Newton provided – is just one of the issues connected to a bigger picture. Belichick noted the range of contributors in the passing game last weekend, which included new tight ends Hunter Henry and Jonnu Smith both catching their first touchdowns as Patriots.
“Mac spread the ball around and we had good production from a lot of different people, but we still need to continue to work on, as I said, our timing, our execution, pass protection, blitz pick-up, you know, situational football, red area, third down,” said Belichick, mindful that his offense ranks next-to-last in the league with a red-zone TD rate of 36.4%. “Like all those things that are always very important and that’s the key to the passing game … throwing the ball in those situations.”
In other words, it’s a steep learning curve in more ways than one.