New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones wasn’t happy with his individual performances against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 11.
New England won, 25-0, but the Patriots offense managed just one touchdown, Jones’ 19-yard touchdown to receiver Nelson Agholor, a product of busted coverage. Jones finished the game completing 85% of his passes for 207 yards, the touchdown and one interception. He had no shortage of rookie mistakes, with the interception being, perhaps, his most flagrant error.
Jones threw the ball about 25 yards from the line of scrimmage toward tight end Jonnu Smith up the seam of the field. Unfortunately, cornerback A.J. Terrell snuck away from receiver N’Keal Harry while reading Jones’ eyes. Terrell broke on the ball and nabbed it away from Smith.
“I’ll have to watch it and see what happened, but the guy (Terrell) made a good play and the line gave me enough time. It was just a bad throw and a poor read,” Jones said after the game on Thursday.
Here's Troy Aikman's breakdown of the INT.
It shows A.J. Terrell leaving N'Keal Harry open to get to Jonnu Smith. pic.twitter.com/6G41x2iMeJ
— Henry McKenna (@McKennAnalysis) November 19, 2021
During the broadcast, former Cowboys quarterback and current FOX Sports analyst Troy Aikman shared his take on what happened.
“On the interception, Jonnu Smith is going to run up the scene. You’ve got N’Keal Harry here (on the line of scrimmage lined up on the numbers to Jones’ right) running a wheel route,” Aikman said. “And they’re putting an iso on A.J. Terrell. He’s got to make a decision here. They’ve got N’Keal Harry. There’s a hole if Jones is able to drive that ball in there, but A.J. Terell was eyeing it and was ready to make a move.”
Essentially, Jones either made the wrong read or a bad throw. You can argue that he was OK to throw the ball to Smith, but that Jones clearly didn’t put enough muster on the ball to get it into that window. You can also argue that because Jones doesn’t always have that arm strength — and Terrell was shading toward that route — the quarterback should’ve looked off Smith and instead found Harry. Either way, it’s a mistake on Jones.
