Patriots QB Mac Jones goes way back with Panthers coaching staff

FOXBORO — Five to 10 minutes.

That’s how long it took Mac Jones to impress his first NFL head coach. Though it wasn’t Bill Belichick.

Back in January, Jones played under Panthers headman Matt Rhule, whose staff coached the American Team for a week at the Reese’s Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. The Senior Bowl is the annual showcase for college prospects, where Jones was first publicly considered a potential first-round pick. He didn’t play in the game due to injury, but the event’s real value is spread over three days of practice, when players go head-to-head.

And there, Rhule said, Jones proved he would be a great pro for years to come.

“You could see how intelligent he was the first day. We put a lot of install in, a lot of words in, just to see if they could recite it. And you could see pretty quickly he had a feel for the game,” Rhule said Thursday. “He had some moxie, and he was really, really intelligent and accurate and could throw the deep ball at a high level.”

Rhule said the staff installed 45 plays, too great a load for some prospects. But not the star quarterback from Alabama.

“Mac obviously passed it with flying colors,” he said.

That week wasn’t the first time Jones and Rhule had crossed paths, either. Rhule coached at Baylor prior to leaving for Carolina in Jan. 2020. In his first season at Baylor, one of his assistants recruited Jones, then a high school senior in Jacksonville, before and after he’d already committed to Alabama.

Rhule’s staff pursued Jones a second time because the Crimson Tide had received a commitment from another quarterback, which further crowded a room that already included future NFL quarterbacks Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa. But Jones stayed, waited and eventually won the job as a senior, leading Alabama to its latest national title.

“He’s just such a competitor. He wanted to go play at Alabama,” Rhule said. “He trusted himself.”

Jones, now taking Belichick’s coaching on the field and at the podium, had little to say about sharing the Senior Bowl sideline with Rhule on Wednesday.

“Obviously, that was a good experience, and they have a great staff, and they do a great job. So it was a good experience just to go down there, but it’s in the past,” the rookie offered. “And like I said, it’s all you can take from it that it was fun and that they were a good staff.”

Jones went on to address the challenges the Panthers defense will present on Sunday. That level of difficulty went up a notch after Carolina acquired former Patriots All-Pro corner Stephon Gilmore via trade last month. Gilmore spoke with New England reporters for the first time since the trade Wednesday, and praised the rookie quarterback, despite only spending a few months together.

“He’s a good — great young quarterback,” Gilmore said. “(He’s) getting better and better each and every game, trying to get his team wired around him. He’s making a lot of good throws, and they’re running the ball well. He’s getting better. I think he works hard, and I think he’ll be a good player in this league.”

Coming off his worst performance of the season last Sunday, Jones hasn’t lost any of his current teammates’ confidence. Multiple players asserted this week Jones is an alpha in the locker room, someone who’s earned their respect and isn’t treated like a rookie anymore.

“He’s a young guy, but he doesn’t play like it, doesn’t act like it. He just continues to get better every week, and continues to build confidence in himself in the system, in his team and this organization,” tight end Jonnu Smith said. “We’ve got his back one-hundred percent.”

And they’ll need to Sunday.

Carolina owns the league’s eight-best defense by Football Outsiders’ opponent-and-situation-adjusted efficiency metric, DVOA. The Panthers are sixth-best against the pass, two steps down from the Chargers, who yielded nothing to Jones downfield after the first quarter last week. They lock down opposing tight ends and running backs better than any other team in the league, which might mean eliminating some of his favorite targets Sunday.

To rebound from last weekend, Jones must stay sharp in Carolina and sustain long scoring drives, five to 10 minutes at a time.

“To me, no matter where Mac ended up, I knew he was going to be a longtime pro, because he just has all the right qualities and all the right things that are essential to being a great player,” Rhule said. “That was evident to me from the very beginning.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3o0ZrqG