Bill Belichick hasn’t always been a straight shooter when he’s asked about his quarterbacks, whether it was Tom Brady, Jimmy Garoppolo, Cam Newton or Mac Jones.
That’s why it was interesting to hear Belichick give seemingly unfiltered praise for Jones after the Patriots’ 25-22 win over the Houston Texans in Week 5. New England played an ugly game. Jones, however, was fairly clean. He was 22 of 30 (77%) for 231 yards, one touchdown and one interception with a 95.3 quarterback rating. He took one sack. Considering Jones was playing behind an offensive line comprised of four backups, that’s a solid performance.
“Mac gave it to us the whole day. I thought he — we moved the ball,” Belichick told reporters after the game on Sunday. “I thought he made a lot of good decisions. There were some checks that he had to make that he made throughout the day. That last drive, the third-down conversion to Hunter (Henry for a touchdown) and we had a couple of good runs in there. But Mac’s been good for us all year in terms of his leadership, his resilience. (We’re) always counting on him to do the right thing. He really does it at a high level. It’s impressive.”
Jones helped the Patriots get to 2-3 by scoring 10 points on the team’s final two drives in the fourth quarter. He mustered the first fourth-quarter comeback of his NFL career and his second win.
