Assessing Mac Jones' long-term NFL outlook after a wasted sophomore season with Patriots

BOSTON -- Here's the thing with Mac Jones: It is exceptionally hard to evaluate his second NFL season, considering the circumstances. Matt Patricia and Joe Judge were not the duo that Jones needed to progress his career after a very promising rookie season, and most everybody knows that.

Here's the other thing with Mac Jones: He really complicated the evaluation process by not being particularly excellent when given brief windows to perform. That is to say, while no quarterback would have been capable of overcoming that particular situation completely, Jones still could have been a bit better at times throughout the season.

Combining those two elements makes it rather challenging to make a firm and informed case that Jones has several Pro Bowls in his future. It's equally difficult to conclude that he'll be relegated to career backup. Anyone trying to make a case either way might have a compromised opinion.

It's not ideal, clearly, and it's largely what led to the most lukewarm message of support from Bill Belichick when the head coach was asked Monday whether he expects Jones to be the starting quarterback for the Patriots in 2023.

"I think there's -- you know, Mac has the ability to play quarterback in this league," Belichick said. "And we have to all work together to try to find the best way as a football team -- which, obviously the quarterback is an important position -- to be more productive than we were this year. And so that's incumbent upon all of us. We'll all work together on that and again, look for better results."

Again, in an ideal world, the head coach isn't giving halfhearted statements of support when asked a straightforward question about whether a second-year quarterback who was a first-round pick will remain the starting quarterback next season. But the Patriots, for several reasons, aren't living in an ideal world.

Though that's a new way of life in Foxboro, it hardly makes the Patriots unique among NFL teams. First-round picks get invested in quarterbacks every year, and the success rate on those picks is quite a bit short of 100 percent.

And all of those success and failures were, like Jones, based on various factors. The quarterback's own ability is a major part of the equation, no doubt, but whether that player landed in a spot with good coaching, bad coaching, a chaotic front office, poor ownership, bad teammates, great teammates, or anything else that could impact performance has always been largely out of the quarterback's control.

To help get a better picture of where Jones stands among some first-round quarterbacks who did and did not get second contracts with the teams that drafted them, here's some raw statistical comparisons to consider.

First, here's Mac Jones through two years.

Mac Jones
16-15 win-loss record
66.5% completion rate
7.1 Y/A, 219.3 Y/G
36 TDs, 24 INTs
89.0 rating
91 rushes, 231 yards, 1 TD

With teams having to make choices on fifth-year options for first-round picks after year three, we can go back to the 2015 draft to find a worthwhile pool for comparison. With that, here's how the first-round quarterbacks who did get a second contract from their teams performed through two years.

Jared Goff (signed, eventually traded)
11-11 win-loss record
59.8% completion rate
7.2 Y/A, 222.4 Y/G
33 TDs, 14 INTs
89.4 rating
36 rushes, 67 yards, 2 TDs

Carson Wentz (signed, eventually traded)
18-11 win-loss record
61.5% completion rate
6.8 Y/A, 244.1 Y/G
49 TDs, 21 INTs
88.8 rating
110 rushes, 449 yards, 2 TDs

Patrick Mahomes
13-4 win-loss record
65.9% completion rate
8.7 Y/A, 316.5 Y/G
50 TDs, 13 INTs
111.7 rating
67 rushes, 282 yards, 2 TDs

Deshaun Watson (signed, eventually traded)
14-8 win-loss record
66.6% completion rate
8.3 Y/A, 255.0 Y/G
45 TDs, 17 INTs
103.1 rating
135 rushes, 820 yards, 7 TDs

Josh Allen
15-12 win-loss record
56.3% completion rate
6.6 Y/A, 184.4 Y/G
30 TDs, 21 INTs
78.2 rating
198 rushes, 1,141 yards, 17 TDs

Kyler Murray
13-18-1 win-loss record
65.8% completion rate
7.0 Y/A, 240.4 Y/G
46 TDs, 24 INTs
90.9 rating
226 rushes, 1,363 yards, 15 TDs

Among that group, Mac Jones has the second-best completion percentage, and his passing yardage numbers are comparable to Wentz, Goff and Murray.  

Jones' passer rating was in line with Murray's, Goff's, and Wentz's.

Mahomes and Watson were clearly in a separate stratosphere.

Jones was, clearly, a much better statistical quarterback than Josh Allen ... but Josh Allen also had maybe the most remarkable career turnaround at the position in NFL history. He is the exception to all rules of quarterback evaluation, so his statistics through two years don't matter much in terms of how and why he earned his mega-deal in 2021.

While Dak Prescott wasn't a first-round pick -- he went in the fourth round -- he also stands out as a quarterback from that timeframe who earned a second contract. Here were his stats through two years.

Dak Prescott
22-10 win-loss record
65.2% completion rate
7.4 Y/A, 218.5 Y/G
45 TDs, 17 INTs
95.5 rating
114 rushes, 639 yards, 12 TDs

As a passer, Jones compares well with Prescott, who obviously offered a bit more as a rusher. Prescott's 45-17 TD-to-INT ratio, however, was far superior to Jones' 36-24 numbers.

Now there are the QBs who didn't land that second deal. This list is a bit longer.

Jameis Winston (fifth-year option picked up)
15-17 win-loss record
59.6% completion rate
7.4 Y/A, 254.1 Y/G
50 TDs, 33 INTs
85.2 rating
107 rushes, 378 yards, 7 TDs

Marcus Mariota (fifth-year option picked up)
11-16 win-loss record
61.6% completion rate
7.7 Y/A, 231.3 Y/G
45 TDs, 19 INTs
93.8 rating
94 rushes, 601 yards, 4 TDs

Paxton Lynch
1-3 win-loss record
61.7% completion rate
6.6 Y/A, 147.5 Y/G
4 TDs, 4 INTs
76.7 rating
16 rushes, 55 yards, 0 TDs

Mitchell Trubisky
15-11 win-loss record
63.5% completion rate
7.1 Y/A, 208.3 Y/G
31 TDs, 19 INTs
87.7 rating
109 rushes, 669 yards, 5 TDs

Baker Mayfield
12-17 win-loss record
61.5% completion rate
7.4 Y/A, 251.7 Y/G
49 TDs, 35 INTs
85.9 rating
67 rushes, 272 yards, 3 TDs

Sam Darnold
11-5 win-loss record
59.9% completion rate
6.9 Y/A, 226.5 Y/G
36 TDs, 28 INTs
81.1 rating
77 rushes, 200 yards, 3 TDs

Josh Rosen (with two different teams)
3-13 win-loss record
54.8% completion rate
5.7 Y/A, 142.3 Y/G
12 TDs, 19 INTs
63.5 rating
26 rushes, 151 yards, 0 TDs

Lamar Jackson
19-3 win-loss record
63.7% completion rate
7.6 Y/A, 139.6 Y/G
42 TDs, 9 INTs
104.7 rating
323 rushes, 1,901 yards, 12 TDs

Daniel Jones
8-18 win-loss record
62.2% completion rate
6.6 Y/A, 221.1 Y/G
35 TDs, 24 INTs
84.1 rating
110 rushes, 702 yards, 3 TDs

In terms of more recent picks, these guys haven't yet signed a second contract with the teams that drafted them ... but it feels like a safe bet that they will.

Joe Burrow
12-13-1 win-loss record
68.2% completion rate
7.9 Y/A, 280.7 Y/G
47 TDs, 19 INTs
100.2 rating
77 rushes, 260 yards, 5 TDs

Justin Herbert
15-17 win-loss record
66.2% completion rate
7.4 Y/A, 292.2 Y/G
69 TDs, 25 INTs
97.9 rating
118 rushes, 536 yards, 8 TDs

In Miami, there's still not necessarily a ton of clarity on the future of Tua Tagovailoa, given his concussion issues. But in terms of on-field performance, his year three stats were very much in line with those of someone who would get the second contract. Prior to that, Tua wasn't much different from Jones.

Tua Tagovailoa
13-8 win-loss record
66.2% completion rate
6.6 Y/A, 194.2 Y/G
27 TDs, 15 INTs
88.8 rating
78 rushes, 237 yards, 6 TDs

As far as the QBs who didn't get the second payday, we can eliminate Paxton Lynch and Josh Rosen from the conversation completely.

It certainly stands out that Marcus Mariota had better numbers across the board (except completion percentage) and had comparable numbers to Sam Darnold. Daniel Jones isn't far off, either, plus he has the added element of his running ability.

(Lamar Jackson had some eye-popping numbers there, and he's headed for a likely franchise tag after playing out his fifth year, so he doesn't really fit with the rest of the group.)

And in terms of the younger QBs who haven't yet received second contracts but presumably will, Mac Jones' production isn't close to that of Justin Herbert or Joe Burrow through two years.

The conclusion from all of those comparisons is that Jones has performed similarly to some players who got second contracts, and he has performed similarly to some who have not. Granted, the second contract guys he compares closest to -- Goff, Wentz -- didn't end up being long-term answers at the position for their teams. And comparisons to Darnold, Trubisky, Mayfield, and Mariota are probably not what Patriots fans were expecting to see following year two. That's not what they hoped for on draft night in 2021, and it's not what the expected after a strong rookie campaign. Nevertheless, the stats are what the stats are. 

A year ago, Mac Jones' rookie season stood above all of the quarterbacks who made the divisional round of the playoffs, so the year-to-year drop-off has been precipitous. It's genuinely hard to see that and point the finger at the quarterback and not the massive coaching change.

But really, despite everything surrounding this season that can excuse a lot of Jones' poor production, the reality is that the NFL remains a production business. Nobody really cares that Baker Mayfield had three different offensive coordinators and four head coaches in his first three seasons. Teams just want to know if he's going to help win games.

Ultimately, Jones will be facing that judgment from the league. But in the short term, he'll be under the watch of the Patriots, whose official comment on his status after two seasons only states that he's proven capable of playing in the NFL. It's up to Jones (and whoever runs the offense next season) to change that evaluation one way or another. The clock will be ticking.