Mac Jones beat out Cam Newton to win the New England Patriots’ starting quarterback job.
Now comes the hard part.
Expectations should be tempered for Jones, a rookie who has yet to play a single regular-season snap in the NFL. But we’re just a year removed from Tom Brady, the greatest QB in league history, leaving New England, and the Patriots are coming off a 2020 season in which they missed the playoffs while Brady led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a Super Bowl title.
Pressure? Uh, yeah.
“The problem Mac Jones is about to face is, whether he likes it or not, he is going to be expected to be the next Tom Brady,” Skip Bayless said on Friday’s episode of “Undisputed” on FS1. “Sooner than later that’s going to be his bar — it’s going to be set up there. And it’s completely unfair. But you’re going to have to start living up to expectations because you kind of play like (Brady) does — at least when Tom (was a rookie).”
Brady, a sixth-round pick in 2000, certainly defied the odds en route to winning seven Super Bowl rings (and counting), six of which came with the Patriots. But he didn’t necessarily face outside pressure upon entering the NFL, whereas Jones has been under a microscope ever since Bill Belichick and Co. selected him with the 15th overall pick in this year’s NFL draft.
“Brady didn’t have to overcome anything because it’s just Drew Bledsoe, who had struggled,” Bayless said Friday, pointing to Brady’s predecessor in New England. “(The Patriots) were 0-2 already (in 2001). They had been 5-11 the year before. So, there was no real pressure on Tom Brady to be anything but Tom Brady. Later, he started to be compared to his hometown hero, Joe Montana, but that didn’t come for a long time.”
Of course, this isn’t the first time Jones has faced pressure. The soon-to-be 23-year-old led Alabama, a perennial college powerhouse, to a national championship last season. So, he’s already used to playing on the big stage, albeit not at the NFL level.
That could serve him well as he navigates the early stages of his career in New England, where Belichick, arguably the greatest coach in NFL history, will be around to oversee his development.
“Can the kid overcome the pressure to be Brady-esque,” Bayless asked hypothetically. “And yet, if I’m going to throw a kid into the fire, he’s in the most protected fire he could ever be thrown into, because now the guy many people thinks is the greatest coach ever, he has bought completely into you. So he will do everything in his power to make you right, to prop you up, to protect you, to make sure you do the very best you’re capable of doing.”
Jones took a significant step this week in becoming New England’s starting QB after the Patriots released Newton. He sure can’t afford to rest on his laurels, though, for the pressure only increases from here.
