What exactly Mac Jones Told a Jets Employee After Being Demoted
It seems that Mac Jones got so mad at the Patriots near the end of their campaign that he wanted to take it out on the other team. At the time, Jones was jealous of a 2021 first-round pick who had a terrible junior year.
Before Week 13, Jones lost his starting job. After New England’s ugly loss to the Los Angeles Chargers at home, he was Bailey Zappe’s backup for the next four games.
In the end, the Alabama product ended his season on the worst possible note: he was a healthy scratch out of the Patriots’ season finale at Gillette Stadium against the New York Jets.
Mark Daniels of MassLive says that Jones wasn’t told about the extra demotion ahead of time and found out about his inactive listing for Week 18 about 90 minutes before the game started.
“Beside Jones, Zach Wilson, who was picked up the same year as Jones, also lost his starting job,” Daniels wrote.
“But the Jets weren’t honest about how bad their quarterback was. Wilson was told by the Jets that they would trade him throughout the off-season, according to The Athletic.
A person who was on the field before the game said the former Patriots QB was so upset about how poorly his team communicated that he told a Jets staff member that he liked how they handled Wilson’s situation.
It’s not clear if Jones was mad at the Patriots company as a whole or just at Bill Belichick. “Broken relationship” between Jones and New England’s former coach, Belichick, according to Daniels, who cited a source. Belichick stopped talking to the 25-year-old once in Week 12.
When Gang Green won the season’s finale, 17-3, on January 7, Patriots player Mac Jones was said to be jealous of Jets quarterback Zach Wilson. Daniels wrote, “Jones privately complained to close friends in the locker room that no one talks to him.”
Jones’ future with the Patriots is uncertain after a terrible losing season. He was so angry at the Patriots for not communicating that he told a Jets staff member that he liked how they handled Wilson’s situation, according to Mark Daniels of MassLive, who got the information from a source on the field before the game in Foxborough.
At the time, Jones was put on the bench for backup Bailey Zappe, and Wilson lost his starting job to Trevor Siemian.
But Jones is said to have lost it when he found out he was demoted to third-string quarterback behind Nate Rooney just 90 minutes before the game.
With the second-overall selection in the 2021 NFL draft, the Jets were honest with Wilson. This was the same class that New England picked Jones at No. 15.
Diana Russini of The Athletic reported following the Patriots-Jets season finale that Wilson was told by the team that they were going to trade him this offseason while he was on the bench.
It was said that Jones found out he wasn’t playing in Week 18 when the club released the inactive list. By that time, he hadn’t talked to former New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick at all.
After a 6-0 loss to the Chargers at Gillette Stadium on December 3, the 25-year-old lost his starting role to Zappe in Week 13. The decision itself didn’t show that something was wrong. Each team is free to make their roster in any way they choose.
By the end of the regular season, when the New England Patriots put backup quarterback Nathan Rourke ahead of third-string quarterback Mac Jones, there were reportedly even more problems in the team’s organization.
Jones reportedly didn’t find out he was being moved to third backup until 90 minutes before the team’s home game versus the visiting New York Jets when the inactive list came out.