After Yesterday’s Patriots Game Instead of Feeling Mad, I Feel Bad for Mac Jones
Oh I’m sure I’ll be metaphorically slaughtered for this article, but I’m prepared. I feel very badly for Mac Jones.
I know, I know. This season has sucked. The Patriots have the worst record that they’ve had since the pre-Brady era. Watching Pats games this season has been more frustrating than fun and a major focus when considering the reasons for the wheels falling off has been the quarterback position and Mac Jones.
That interception Mac threw in the fourth quarter in Germany on Sunday morning while his receiver was wide open in the endzone was painful to watch. So why am I feeling some sort of way about Mac Jones today? Compassion.
Trust me, I understand if you’re a massive New England Patriots fan who looks at it like a machine – we build to win. I get that. It’s sports. And big big business sports. But in the end the sport is played by human beings, no matter how elite of athletes they are – no matter how long and hard they’ve been preparing for this level of play, they’re still human beings.
When I saw Mac Jones on the sideline after that 4th quarter interception, a ton of human perspective hit me. Mac Jones was likely a kid with a dream. I’m not interested in researching his childhood but let’s assume that at some point in his life he became enthralled by football. If nothing else, at some point his dream became playing in the NFL and leading a team successfully – maybe even to a Super Bowl. Yesterday I really felt a person’s disappointment when they realized their dream wasn’t working out the way they hoped and thought it would.
This isn’t to say that Mac won’t realize his dreams elsewhere, or perhaps given time here in New England (though it currently seems unlikely). But that’s a tough pill to swallow. I’ve personally had to swallow something similarly before. I thought I was realizing my dreams only to realize that I didn’t have the skills within me to accomplish what I thought most of my life that I eventually would. It was embarrassing, it was disappointing. I thought people were laughing at me and mocking me behind my back, turns out less cared than I thought – but to me it was center-of-the-universe at the time.
And my situation was something that mattered millions and millions of dollars less than Mac Jones’. I can only imagine the peace he is trying to make today.
I personally do not think Mac Jones is the right quarterback for the New England Patriots currently. But… I really hope Mac Jones, the human, is doing ok.
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