Patriots’ Mac Jones responds to viral sideline outburst

The Patriots were set for another challenging game this week, as divisional rival the Buffalo Bills came to town for the first matchup between the two teams this season.

Because of New England’s recent offensive success over the last two weeks, there was a lot of hope they would be able to hold their own to get a much-needed win on Thursday night. But after a successful second series, the Mac Jones-led offense fell back into the patterns seen all season.

Unsurprisingly, fans and media members have expressed their disappointment and frustration throughout the season regarding the lackluster performance of the Patriots’ offense. In typical New England fashion, however, not much has been seen or heard from those on the team despite their apparent struggles. That was until an expletive-filled video of Jones from Thursday’s game went viral online.

In the clip, Jones is shown saying, “Throw the f—–g ball! F—–g quick game sucks! F–k!” Although the quarterback has shown disappointment in his performance during games before, this is the first time we’ve seen a passionate tirade from him during his young career.

During his post-game media availability, Jones was asked what prompted the outburst and to clarify what was being said, as a few different versions were spreading online.

"“Yeah, obviously just kind of let my emotions get to me. But you know, we were kind of playing from behind, and what I said was about throwing it deeper. In the short game, I gotta execute that part better, but it’s the short game that we kept going to — which was working, but I felt like we needed chunk plays, and I shouted that out to kind of get everyone going. And that’s emotional, that’s football. I’m passionate about this game. Obviously, you don’t want to let your emotions get the best of you. But yeah, I think that’s pretty much it. It wasn’t directed at anybody. Just emotion coming out, and we kind of needed a spark.”"

Shortly after, he explained in more detail what was frustrating him during the game. The most interesting part to those reacting to Jones’ response brought up his mentioning of Matt Patricia, who most believe is to blame for the offense’s underwhelming performance every week.

"“Yeah, I think it was just me at that point in the game was just like, ‘All right, we’re playing catch-up here. Let’s just go for it. Let’s be aggressive. Let’s take those shots. Let’s just go down fighting,’ you know? And Matty [Patricia] was on the same page and we kind of did that at the end there and moved it a little bit more. So at the end of the day, we’ve gotta execute the plays and do a better job. But sometimes you’re just so competitive, right? You want to go out there and, ‘Hey, let’s get a 50-yard gain.’ And sometimes it doesn’t happen but we might as well go down trying and trying to make it work.”"