Las Vegas is not confident in Patriots quarterback Mac Jones improving in Year 2

Sports Guys have forced my hand; I’m going to keep making this joke until everyone besides our few national allies at Good Morning Football and The Athletic stop saying that New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones has already become everything that he’s ever going to be at the ripe old age when Blink-182 says nobody likes you:

Now, let’s be real: it feels safe to speak for the class to say that nobody is expecting Mac to take the kind of leap in 2022 that, oh, let’s say, a certain other quarterback did from his first couple seasons in the NFL to arriving as Tom F’in Brady. That being said, it’s not a Kool-Aid statement to say that unless you think the much-maligned play-calling situation is going to sink the 2022 Patriots before they even take the field, with Mac Jones having a year’s experience in the big leagues under his belt, a couple new wide receivers with eyebrow-raising potential, a running back army so deep you need both hands to count ‘em all, and a mostly-same-as-it-ever-was offensive line that should be able to hold serve as a top-10 unit, expecting at least some improvement is perfectly reasonable.

How’s that for spicy, eh? It’s ok to expect a quarterback to improve when his weapons improve and his protection is borderline elite and he has some games under his belt in the pros. Crazy July homer talk, I know.

....which brings us to what caught my eye on Wednesday, thanks to a sharp-eyed Christopher Price of the Boston Globe. It’d be one thing if the betting odds on Mac Jones’ performance were pretty clearly expecting him to get better or worse. Either way, expecting either some statistical improvement or a sophomore slump of sorts could make some sense, depending on how you look at it and/or where you fall on the “In Belichick We Trust” spectrum.

Instead, what’s bizarre is that Vegas apparently thinks that McCorkle will pretty much... stay the exact same?

DraftKings Sportsbook

All of those are almost what Jones’ stat line was for the 2021 regular season:

• 2021 Passing Yards: 3,801
• 2021 Passing Touchdowns: 22
• 2021 Interceptions: 13

Now, while your faithful author is certainly no gambling expert, and definitely not even close to the same universe as Richard Seymour at the poker table, it would seem like one of the following would have to be true:

Option 1: Whoever sets the lines on these things looked at all of the Patriots’ offseason in totality, accounted for losing longtime offensive coordinator and play-caller Josh McDaniels, the additions of Tyquan Thornton and DeVante Parker at receiver, getting the band back together with the same tight end room and Damien Harris and Rhamondre Stevenson at running back, plus the addition of another bruiser back in Kevin Harris and speed demon Pierre Strong Jr., an offensive line that can bang with the best of ‘em, and of course, all the offseason reports that Bill Belichick is making the offense his passion project this summer, squared it up with the Patriots schedule that appears to be far more of a gauntlet on paper than last year, and decided “....yeah all that stuff pretty much all nets out, so, some good, some bad, probably gonna be basically more of the same in 2022”.

OR

Option 2: Like we kinda-sorta tongue-in-cheek implied earlier, someone just copied and pasted Mac’s stat line from 2021 and decided “eh, close enough”.

Even if you’re the most negative “I hate it here” type of New England fan that there is, neither of those methods of reasoning seem particularly accurate.

Either way, the message seems to be clear; the betting public does not exactly have a whole lot of faith in Year 2 Mac Jones tearing it up, or even being significantly better than he was as a wet-behind-the-ears College Football National Champion rookie.

Do with that information what you will, and have a happy and safe 4th of July weekend, everyone.