FOXBOROUGH — It’s been a slow onboarding process for the new Patriots offense in training camp, but Mac Jones certainly doesn’t sound like his confidence has been shaken.
“I’m going to figure it out. I always have and I always will,” Jones said. “At the end of the day you’re going to have your ups and downs with anything new, but I’ve learned a lot of different systems and the guys around me have, too. We know what football looks like. We know what a good play looks like and the schematics behind it. It’s not just the result, it’s the process of how it looks. Run play, hat on a hat. Pass protection, hat on a hat. Then the guys getting open, which they’ve done. It just needs to be more consistent. We all trust in each other at the end of the day.
“When I walk on the field and there’s 10 people that look into my eyes, I know that they’re going to trust me to do the right thing on game day.”
All summer, players have talked about a simplified offense, but it’s been janky out of the gate. With plenty of Shanahan-style elements added to the scheme — zone running, bootlegs — it hasn’t looked less complicated yet. On the contrary, there have been more missed assignments and Jones has been stuck holding onto the ball for longer than he did as a rookie.
Still, the quarterback is preaching patience, and he’s adamant that his teammates in the locker room feel the same way, too.
“The buy-in has to be the buy-in. You have to trust it,” Jones said. “We’re going to figure it out and make this thing work. We have good coaches that are laying the path for us. We just have to see it how they see it. Come together and dominate together.”
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