Jones almost certainly won’t win six Super Bowl wins (although, you never know?), seeing as even those signature early-career Brady moments were all-time special performances from a quarterback that was now obviously going to improve at an exponential pace.
He’s already shown shades of Brady as a smart, accurate passer with great feel and ability in the pocket.
Mac Jones can absolutely be the QB, and leading man of a Super Bowl team in his early years. From 2001 to 2006 (and again in 2018) Brady led more of a running-game-centric, heavy-fullback usage, play-action passing offense, and he rose to the occasion as a gunslinger in certain moments (Super BAFC title game at PIT, 2018 AFC title game at KC) to help lead the Pats to four Super Bowls. But before Brady became the GOAT, he was still a special, yet-different type of quarterback. That’s the bread and butter of his career, a cyborg-level, decade-long run of dominance. I’ve long said that no one will ever be Tom Brady from 2007 to 2017 (and maybe in the back half of 2020 with Tampa Bay). I’m not ready to declare him the obvious-best-in-his-class passer of this past spring’s barrage, but it seems pretty clear that the Patriots have the right guy in Jones, who is in the right place, and taking advantage of New England’s world-class internal teaching and mastery of the sport. So is his 2021 draft class, led by rookie quarterback Mac Jones. And now, they are clearly molding into an AFC contender. Bill Belchick’s record-breaking, offseason spending spree is starting to pay off. The 2021 Patriots look more like an alternate version of the 2001 Patriots each week. We have two breakout performances to tackle in Week 10 before getting to ‘The Better Half’ where we have a dissection of issues plaguing the defending Super Bowl champs and explain why Cam Newton’s return is so important to the Panthers. Every team has at least two losses through 10 weeks for the first time since 2010.Īs much of the league continues to folly through fall, there are a few teams that seem to be moving their way through the cluster, or at least showing signs of that, with Thanksgiving approaching.