Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Jakobi Meyers had New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones as a teammate across the 2021 and 2022 seasons, meaning Meyers knows plenty about what went wrong for Jones during the signal-caller’s sophomore pro campaign.
“How that went down with Mac, I kind of watched it all unfold the last couple of years and I feel like you could’ve seen it a couple years ago and tell that it would end up bad,” Meyers recently told NBC Sports Boston’s Phil Perry, as shared by Adam London of NESN. “I don’t like singling people out, but I think they had to meet him a little bit more. ‘Cause I know he’s in the building working. I can’t name too many people working harder than him. I hate to see it for him, I really do.”
Meyers is hardly the first person to suggest that former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick failed Jones after the 2021 first-round draft pick earned a Pro Bowl nod as a rookie playing under then-offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels.
Following McDaniels’ departure, Jones regressed while working with assistants Matt Patricia and Joe Judge during the 2022 campaign, and Belichick later pulled the 25-year-old from games on four different occasions this past season.
Jones reportedly “has a clean slate with” new head coach Jerod Mayo, but it’s widely assumed the Patriots will try to receive some compensation for the quarterback’s services either before or after this year’s draft.
Meyers added that he wished the Patriots did more to “help” Jones after McDaniels became the head coach of the Raiders in early 2022.
“Like talent, coaching, you name it,” Meyers explained. “Just putting him in a better position to win I think would’ve helped their program a lot.”
Mayo acknowledged last month that “there’s enough blame to go around” for why Jones went from being a QB1 for a playoff team in January 2022 to somebody who could soon find himself competing for a roster spot.
While Meyers and others likely are right in thinking that Jones deserved better over the past couple of years, it seems the former Alabama Crimson Tide star and the Patriots need to agree upon a divorce sooner rather than later.
