Minutes after his rookie NFL season ended, New England quarterback Mac Jones was telling reporters about how he hoped to learn, grow and improve for the 2022 campaign, starting with the 47-17 beating the Patriots took from the Buffalo Bills on Saturday night in a Super Wild-Card Weekend game.
“Losing terrible, none of us wanted to do that tonight,” Jones said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it. There’s a lot to look forward to and be positive about and learn from. There’s nothing to hang our heads on. I’m super-proud of the people who have helped me grow as a person – coaches, players, support staff and all that. There’s a lot to look back on and just learn. There’s nothing to feel sorry about. It’s just a learning experience to get better for next year.”
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The Buffalo offense steamrolled the New England defense and scored touchdowns the first seven times that it had the football.
Jones completed 24-of-38 passes for 232 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions and ran two times for 18 yards in a game with a kickoff temperature of 7 degress. The former Alabama All-American joined the New Orleans Saints’ Aaron Brooks and the Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott as the only rookies to pass for at least 232 yards and two touchdowns in their first playoff starts.
After Buffalo safety Micah Hyde intercepted a long Jones’ throw for a touchback to end the Patriots’ first possession, New England trailed 14-0 when it got the football for the second time on Saturday night, and the deficit had swelled to 30 points by the time Jones threw a 3-yard pass to wide receiver Kendrick Bourne for the Patriots’ first touchdown with 4:12 left in the third quarter.
“It goes back to practice and just holding everybody to a higher standard,” Jones said. “I know that I’m a rookie or whatever, but I could have done a better job of just holding everybody to that standard, myself included, and I think we’ll make a lot of progress in the offseason with that and my leadership. …
“Like I said, I could have played better. A lot of guys would agree with me that we can push each other harder to get that product on the field. I think there will be a lot of strides this offseason to get there, just working together however we can, and that’s going to show up next year.”
Jones’ first postseason appearance came after he started all 17 of the Patriots’ regular-season games, helping New England tally 10 victories and earn a postseason berth after a season out of the playoffs.
Jones completed 352-of-521 passes for 3,801 yards with 22 touchdowns and 13 interceptions and ran for 129 yards on 44 carries in his first season. In NFL history among rookie quarterbacks, Jones’ completion rate of 67.6 percent ranks second, his 3,801 passing yards rank fifth and his 92.5 passing-efficiency rating ranks sixth.
In the past five years, 20 quarterbacks have been selected in the first round of the NFL Draft, including Jones, who went No. 15 to New England on April 29. Three of those quarterbacks started every game as rookies, with Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals in 2019 and Trevor Lawrence of the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2021 joining Jones. Arizona had a 5-10-1 record in 2019, and the Jaguars went 3-14 this season.
“I do appreciate everybody on our team for having my back, and I was I could have played better,” Jones said. “Obviously, we want to win every game we play in, and, hopefully, we’ll get a chance to have a really good offseason and funnel it into next year, and that’s all you can do.”
Jones expects his second season to be different as he transitions from little brother to big brother in the locker room.
“You get more comfortable with anything you do in life,” Jones said. “I always relate it back to being a pilot. Like if you’re a pilot and you’ve only flown so many times, by the time you have hundreds of flight hours, it’s just an every-day thing for you, so for me, obviously, I was a rookie. I played like that sometimes, and I shouldn’t have. I can play better, and that’s my goal this offseason is just to advance and bring all the guys with me because we have great players all around me. I know we have a lot of progress to make, and I’ll just feel more comfortable with anything you do a second time around, like schedule, routine, everything.”
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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