At this point, most Patriots fans are likely tired of hearing anything Mac Jones has to say about his time with the team, especially since most of his comments haven't been all that positive over the last two years. But he's also revealing some truths behind the scenes that we either didn't know about or suspected but never had confirmation of.
That's what he's done for several things during his recent appearance on the "Bussin' with the Boys" podcast, and although it might not be something New England wants to hear, what he's saying is very interesting, to say the least.
He finally admitted what caused the domino effect after his rookie season: Josh McDaniels' departure. He helped lead a mostly mediocre team to the playoffs after the team had missed the postseason the year before, earning him another shot as a head coach with the Raiders.
That was the start of Jones's downfall and part of what would inevitably become the last two years in Foxboro for Bill Belichick.
The longtime head coach was apparently willing to do whatever it took to get the Patriots back on track, so much so that Jones confirmed a longstanding rumor that he was overseeing the offense after McDaniels left, which certainly explains a lot about their performance during his final years.
Mac Jones just let the cat out of the bag about the downfall of the Patriots offense starting in 2022
It was clear from the start that Belichick's decision to make defensive coordinator Matt Patricia the offensive play-caller was a mistake, and the results proved as much as early as minicamp in the spring.
But according to Jones, Patricia wasn't in it alone. Instead, Belichick was also calling plays for the offense, which seemed to only confuse the situation further and made the quarterback's job that much more difficult.
"At first, Bill was going to call the plays. Which I was like, 'Alright, this is kind of fun. Let's see how this goes.' He took it over, and we kind of didn't know where we were going. There was three people in the meeting, who stands up to talk to the offense? They didn't really know."
The situation for Jones was already unfavorable enough with McDaniels leaving after such an impressive year, so having multiple people with headsets and an unclear vision of what the offense should be surely only made it all much worse.
It's likely what led to the decision to hire Bill O'Brien again in 2023, and it would probably be fair to suggest it was a last-ditch effort by Belichick to make the offense competitive in a game, but it ended up being the opposite.
Those seemingly rushed, ill-thought-out decisions ultimately led to Belichick's demise and prompted Robert Kraft to let him go after almost 25 years at the helm. Unfortunately, the following season wasn't much better under Jerod Mayo, but at least they now appear to have the right people in place under Mike Vrabel to maintain the level of success the team has been known for.
And the more details we hear about what was going on behind the scenes during Belichick's final years, the more understandable Kraft's decision becomes, even if many fans still couldn't forgive him for Tom Brady leaving.
No matter what, it's clear that Belichick was not operating in the right manner over the last several years, and unfortunately for Jones, he got the worst of it.
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