The Patriots have found theirs, perhaps for a long time to come. college football announcer Keith Jackson decades ago saying during some game that a team, “for a livin’ fact,” had finally found its starting quarterback. Veteran Patriots defensive back Devin McCourty offered this telling assessment of Jones afterward, less than a month into the youngster’s NFL playing career: “It sucks we lost but, yeah, (but) we’re making some progress.” “I think we moved in the right direction,” Jones said. You’d have to be blind to not conclude the Patriots were the long-term winners of this game, even if they’re now 0-3 at home and 1-3 on the season. The only two reasons the Patriots didn’t win is that (1) Jones and the Pats ran out of time to move into better field-goal range for placekicker Nick Folk, and even so, (2) Folk - in driving, end-of-game rain - only missed his attempt at a game-winning 56-yard field goal because it veered left in those conditions and doinked off the left upright. Next possession, he drove the Pats 66 yards to the Tampa Bay nine for another go-ahead score, a short field goal, to put New England up 17-16 with 4:34 left.īrady answered with a seven-play, 45-yard drive that produced the winning points, a 48-yard Ryan Succop field goal with 1:57 left. He piloted a 77-yard touchdown drive that gave New England a 14-13 lead on the first play of the fourth quarter. By the fourth quarter the Bucs defence - granted, with an injury-ravaged secondary and also missing one of its best defensive linemen in Jason Pierre-Paul - could no longer stop Jones’ aerial wizardry, even when they blitzed him up the middle on almost every snap. Thereafter, every one of the Pats’ final 23 offensive plays was a called pass.Īs NBC’s in-game analyst Cris Collinsworth pointed out, New England coaches were placing that much faith in Jones because he was earning it. The Pats’ lone handoff to a running back in the second half came on the second play Harris gained one yard. He did enough as a passer for New England on Sunday night to beat the defending Super Bowl champions, in a game a large chunk of North America watched. Yet already for Jones, a running game doesn’t matter. The team, and Brady, needed the aid of a viable run-game threat - and a lights-out defence, it must be added - to win so many games as they did. In 2002 the Pats failed to rush for 100 yards in six of their seven defeats. In two of their three losses that year the Pats failed to rush for more than 51 yards. That wasn’t the case when Brady took over as starter in 2001. So what, they’d say, we’ll just pass it on almost every down and still win. It took Patriots coaches years to place so much unflinching trust in the passing acumen of the confident kid out of Michigan as to go into a game not caring whether they could run it a lick. Jones himself ran once for minus-one yard, and receiver Nelson Agholor gained four on a swing pass that was only recorded as a rush because the pass was backward.Ĭontrast that to Brady’s first games out of the box as starting QB. Taylor - rushed six times for a combined minus-four yards. New England’s three running backs - Damien Harris, Brandon Bolden and J.J.
At one point he completed 19 passes in a row, something Brady has done only once in 22 NFL seasons.Īll this, while the Patriots finished with minus-one rushing yard. Jones completed 31-of-40 throws (78%) for 275 yards, two touchdowns and one interception - for a 101.6 passer rating. Time after time after time, the Alabama product stood in the pocket and got hammered by vaunted Bucs pass rushers, who kept arriving a split-second too late - as Jones already has the mental ability to quickly diagnose where to go with the ball, and the physical tools (i.e., a lightning-quick release and uncommon accuracy) to put the ball into his pass targets’ hands. The Bucs’ rush defence is that good, and the Patriots’ rush attack that poor, that New England coaches just stopped trying to run it - and instead placed all their hopes on Jones. The Patriots not only couldn’t run it a lick in their coin-flip 19-17 loss, they barely even tried.
Games just for mac pro#
Rather, football historians years from now - on some NFL Films documentary - might well point to this soggy night in Foxborough as the moment the New England Patriots and their fans became certain they’d found their long-term successor to Brady at quarterback.īecause rookie Mac Jones, in just his fourth pro appearance, sure looked the part. Nor even Brady’s and Belichick’s finger-snap-short post-game hug, nor private, 20-minute locker-room chat long after most players on both sides had showered, dressed and skedaddled. Nor the fact he broke Drew Brees’ NFL career pass-yards record. The most important, lasting development from The Return, as NBC came to call Tom Brady’s New England homecoming on Sunday night, wasn’t the win by Brady’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
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