It’s Tough To Buy Jaguars Coach’s Take On Ex-Patriot Mac Jones

The Jaguars are a bad football team currently dealing with a bad quarterback situation but don’t tell that to their head coach.

Jacksonville recently was forced to replace a struggling Trevor Lawrence after the 2021 No. 1 overall pick went down with a shoulder injury. The next man up was Mac Jones, who showed some promise in the summer but has a lot of lousy football on tape.

The NFL world last Sunday saw what it’s grown to expect from Jones. The former Patriots quarterback was awful against the Minnesota Vikings — so bad that Jacksonville managed to lose its Week 10 home game despite not allowing a touchdown.

Still, Doug Pederson believes Jones will “be better” this weekend when he makes his second start for the Jags.

“Another opportunity, another week to work,” Pederson told reporters Monday, per the Jacksonville Florida Times-Union. “He’ll work from it. Obviously he takes it hard, takes it personal, which he should … we all do. But we have a ton of confidence in him.”

In Pederson’s defense, what else was he going to say? The Jaguars coach obviously wasn’t going to step up to the podium and say Jones doesn’t give Jacksonville a good chance to win Sunday, although that would have been an accurate assessment.

Still, Jones hasn’t done anything to inspire “a ton of confidence.” And to make matters even worse for the Jaguars, they will spend Week 11 at Detroit’s Ford Field, a house of horrors for visitors where things can get ugly in a hurry.

So no, Jones probably won’t “be better” against the Lions. We should expect more of the same from the below-average QB.