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WATCH: Mac Jones throws career-best third touchdown for Patriots

SimonGibbs_UserImageby: Simon Gibbs11/14/21SimonGibbs26
Mac Jones spending offseason focused on being better quarterback 2nd season 2022
Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones has shown plenty of promise throughout his rookie season, but no performance has topped his career-best start to Sunday’s game.

The Patriots, playing host to the 5-4 Cleveland Browns, jumped out to a 38-7 lead with just over 11 minutes left in the contest, and Jones is a big reason why. Jones has completed an efficient 19 of 23 passing attempts, good for 198 passing yards, and he just threw his third touchdown pass — a single-game high for the Patriots’ franchise quarterback.

Jones’ third and most recent touchdown came in a third-and-goal scenario, where Bill Belichick drew up a perfect goal-line play for tight end Henry Hunter. Jones found Hunter wide open in the middle of the end zone after the Browns’ coverage collapsed, and they connected from 10 yards out to cap off a six-play, 47-yard, three-minute drive with a touchdown.

Jones entered Sunday’s home contest against the Browns with 2,135 passing yards in the first nine games of his career, completing 68 percent of his passing attempts for ten touchdowns and seven interceptions. He has done a much better job limiting the turnovers in the past two weeks, though, as he has only thorwn one interception since Oct. 24.

Jones had only one season as the Alabama starting quarterback, as he served his first few seasons in a backup role. But he certainly made the most of the opportunity. Jones in 2020 set an NCAA single-season record with a 77.4 completion percentage, coupled with 4,500 passing yards, 41 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He won the national championship with Alabama and was a Heisman Trophy finalist in 2020 (Jones ultimately lost to his teammate, wide receiver DeVonta Smith.). He was later drafted by the Patriots with the 15th-overall pick in the NFL Draft and beat out last year’s starter, Cam Newton, to become New England’s opening-day starter.

Dan Orlovsky sings high praise for Mac Jones

The Patriots’ 5-4 record (6-4, provided that the Browns don’t make a historic comeback) makes New England far from a lock for the playoffs. As for a Super Bowl — Bill Belichick’s team, led by Jones, seems to have plenty of work on that front before it can once again be considered a Super Bowl contender. However, ESPN NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky believes that the Patriots do have the most important piece to a Super Bowl-winning puzzle: a quarterback in Jones.

Orlovsky recently appeared on First Take and explained why he believes Jones will be the quarterback to lead the Patriots back to the Super Bowl. When asked if he thinks Belichick has won his last Super Bowl, Orlovsky said no.

“I think Bill Belichick can win a Super Bowl with Mac Jones. I think Mac Jones is the best rookie quarterback that I have ever seen since doing this job when it comes to knowing where to go with the football, when to go with the football and how to throw that football,” Orlovsky said of the Patriots rookie. “And I think that is going to be a huge reason why that they can win a Super Bowl together.

“I’d look at it in comparison to where the Patriots are right now and the people that they’re going to have to beat out to get to the Super Bowl, basically out of the AFC,” Orlovsky said of Jones. “And it’s focused on the financial freedom that a really good quarterback is going to afford them over the next four or five years. We’ve heard that story before, right?”