×
×
homepage logo
LOGIN
SUBSCRIBE

Jones did everything for Patriots except get them a win

By Tom King - Staff Writer | Sep 13, 2021

Ahhhh Opening Day in the NFL is like the first day of school.

You try to look your best, but it doesn’t quite work out every time.

The New England Patriots and their rookie quarterback Mac Jones looked pretty good in a lot of spots on Sunday, but in the end, as they told us one-by-one after a 17-16 loss to the Miami Dolphins, it wasn’t good enough.

But you have to figure soon it will be. The only place Jones looked like a young rookie, young kid, was at the podium in the interview room. On the field he looked like a veteran, even though the hits just kept on coming.

“Like the shots took, some of them were my fault,” Jones said. “I need to get the ball out quicker, and that’s part of football. You have to expect to get hit.

“Our offensive line played good, and they’re going to get better, and we’re going to work together because it takes all of us.”

What this one took was for Patriots running back Damien Harris not to fumble the ball away, his miscue thanks to a heads up play by Miami’s Xavian Howard coming at the Miami 9 when it looked like the Patriots were driving for the win with 3:31 left. That’s really the only thing that kept the Patriots from winning this game.

It’s ironic. Last year, the Patriots opened up with no one in the stands, a strange feeling, with a solid win over Miami with Cam Newton as their QB. Newton is no longer here (could he bet headed to D.C.with Fitzmagic hurt?), Sunday was a return to the fans tailgating and full stands — in other words, normal — and the Patriots actually are much better offensively with Jones. But they still lost the game.

Hey, it happens. Jones was 29 of 39 for 281 yards and a touchdown, didn’t turn the ball over, and looked poised, confident, and accurate. The pass he threw down the right sideline to James White for 26 yards in the third quarter to set up one of three Nick Folk field goals was what many saw him do at Alabama last year. You bet your Adam Schefter the Patriots tabbed Jones as their man pre-draft if they could get him without paying a king’s ransom.

“I think he did well,” White said. “He’ll continue to get better too. That’s the kind of player he is, the kind of person he is.”

The Patriots love their rookie QB. How about when they tried to give him the ball he threw to Nelson Agholor for his first career TD, one that gave the Patriots a 10-7 lead with 2:30 left in the first half, their only lead of the day it turned out.

Jones refused it.

“Because it doesn’t really matter,” he said, “it was one touchdown. We’ve got to score more. It’s not like the game was over right there.

“We’ve got to do better in the red zone and get more touchdowns, and we will.”

Jones even drew praise from Dolphins coach Brian Flores, who tried to scheme up pressure to rattle the rookie all day, as any coach would.

“I thought he did a really nice job,” Flores said. “Got the ball out, was able to kind of move their offense, pick up first downs, drive them down field.”

He was better than his former ‘Bama teammate, Tua Tagovailoa, who basically holds the Dolphin offense back. They have no running game and only a short passing game, but were able to mount drives at the start of both halves.

That’s the one thing Mac Jones and the New England Patriots weren’t able to do.

Hey, 16 games to go, right? Many of them should be better than this for both the rookie and his team.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

Newsletter

Join thousands already receiving our daily newsletter.

Interests
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *