Mac Jones views rest of regular season as fresh start for Patriots offense
FOXBORO -- The offensive struggles of the New England Patriots have been well documented throughout the season. Sitting at 6-6 with five must-win games ahead of them, Mac Jones knows this offense needs to be better if the Patriots want to keep their playoff hopes alive.
The second-year quarterback is viewing the final stretch of the season as a fresh start, a chance to come together at a time when it matters most. After a disappointing and disheartening loss to the Bills last Thursday, the Patriots are looking to bounce back when they visit the 4-8 Arizona Cardinals for a clash on Monday Night Football.
"I think at the end of the day, we are where we are. Obviously, it's kind of a new season here and it starts with this one with the Cardinals and that's what we're going to focus on," Jones said Thursday. "We're in a good spot. We just got to go out there and compete and win, and that's what it's all about is whatever we got to do to figure out how to win. Practice that way, prepare that way and then obviously play that way. It's all you can ask for is putting in the work, building a great game plan and going out there and executing it."
While the team will be packing for its upcoming west coast trip -- they'll stay out west between Monday night's game in Arizona and next week's game against the Las Vegas Raiders -- "stacking" is the key word with the Patriots right now. As in, stacking good days of practice, stacking good plays and good drives during games, and -- most importantly -- stacking up wins.
"Just continuing to work through the things that we want to get better at and then look at the things we didn't do well and adjust those or move on from them," explained Jones.
After that statement, Jones was asked what exactly the offense has done well in his mind.
"I think we have guys that play together, which is important. We play for one another and when we do that and everyone does their job, we can do whatever we want," he replied. "We got to be able to, like I always say, run whatever plays, whenever, however we want to run them. That's the job as players. And we can do a better job of that, and we're just striving for that every day in practices. Being able to run it when we want to run it, being able to play action when we want to play action, throw when we want to throw, just be able to dictate whatever we want to do on our terms.
"That's important as an offense and to, obviously, be aggressive and attack and score points," he continued. "I think that's what we need to improve on, and that comes with not focusing on scoring points. You kind of have to 'alright, this is the play,' execute the play and don't put a result on it, just do the best you can. If I'm supposed to throw it here, throw it there as best I can and then eventually you have seven, eight plays, you get closer to the end zone and when you get down there it's the same thing. A play is a play regardless of third down, red zone, doesn't matter. That's the biggest thing that we're working on right now is when we put good plays on film, we score points. It's all about producing good plays."
Good plays have been few and far between from the New England offense this season. The well-discussed red zone woes are just part of the issue, with the team struggling to even get into the red area. The Patriots' 32 trips inside the 20 are the third-fewest in the league. Their inability to extend drives is the biggest problem, with New England's third-down conversion rate of 36.2 percent ranking 28th in the NFL.
Over a quarter of New England's drives are ending before they really get started, with 26 percent concluding without the team picking up a first down. That just isn't going to get it done in the NFL.
"I think we all know that as players, we can play a lot better and execute better and do all the things better. I always talk about you have the things you want to get better at and then the plan to fix them or get better at them. It's a constant grind and battle with it," said Jones. "A lot of it's fundamentals and we've got to finish strong. We have the guys to do it, we have the coaches to do it and it starts with this week.
"That's all you can do is focus on today and then obviously playing a really good football team, on the road and in primetime, which is awesome. It's what we all signed up for, so, excited about this one and definitely want to stack plays together, and like I said earlier, it's hard not to focus on the result, but don't focus on the result and just execute, execute, execute, until we look up and we did pretty good. That's all you can ask for," Jones added.
WBZ-TV is the place to be for Monday night's Patriots-Cardinals clash in Arizona! Coverage begins at 7 p.m. with Patriots GameDay, kickoff is set for 8:15 p.m., and we'll wrap it all up with Patriots 5th Quarter after the game!
