FOXBORO, Mass. — There have certainly been plenty of bumps in the road this preseason for the New England Patriots offense.
New England’s final preseason game against the Las Vegas Raiders was one of them, with the offense putting together a lackluster performance and failing to score a touchdown in a 23-6 loss.
But despite the ongoing and evident struggles, second-year quarterback Mac Jones took an optimistic approach on Wednesday when discussing how he felt about the new-look offense has progressed recently.
“A lot of learning experiences and (there’s) always room for growth,” Jones said following practice. “I think it’s been good. I think we’ve ironed out a lot of things and it’s good that they’re happening now. I feel confident in what we’re doing. We just have to go out there and do it for 60 minutes, and that’s just play-by-play. Obviously, during practice, same thing, play-by-play, go out there and execute it and once you turn on the game film and you look back and there’s 45, 50 good plays then hopefully you come out on top. But that’s more about executing it and doing your job individually. If we all do that, 11 guys do it close to right every play, then you’ll have a good play.”
The Patriots are still trying to form offensive cohesion after struggling to pick up aspects of the Kyle Shanahan offense that they will implement this season.
Part of the process seemed to be seeing which plays the Patriots could run effectively compared to the ones that gave them trouble, but Jones said the Patriots aren’t throwing any plays in the trash at the moment.
“I think plays are plays. You can have a bad result with one and you’re like, ‘I don’t really like that one,’ but a lot of times it’s more about the process of the play and what you’re trying to do,” Jones said. “So I don’t think canning a play because it doesn’t work one time in a game or practice is (a good) idea.
“I think, like I always say, I just like to know why and when the coaches explain that to me, they’ve done a great job explaining, ‘Hey, this is why we’re doing this,’ and from there it’s my job to execute it and do a great job. That’s one of the things that I feel like we have ironed out.”
To use Jones’ words, the Patriots have a week and a half to continue ironing out their offense until their regular-season opener in Miami against the Dolphins. It will definitely be a critical time to try to get things on track because the offense hasn’t exuded much confidence so far.
