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The Other 44 Guys Have an Effect, Too

 Mac Jones has been perfectly acceptable in his first two games as starting quarterback for the Patriots. There might be some quibbles about the offense in the red zone on his watch (3 TDs and 7 field goals is not a good ratio), but Jones has done what he's been told by Bill Belichick. Execute the Herodotus playbook and first do no harm.

Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson have been perfectly horrid in their first two games as starting quarterbacks for the Jaguars and Jets respectively. Wilson's four interception game against New England last Sunday was the worst of their combined four efforts, but not by much. Their teams are each 0-2 and haven't really been in any of those four defeats.

Does this mean the number one and two picks in the 2021 draft are worse quarterbacks than Jones? No. Maybe they'll turn out to have less successful NFL careers, and maybe they'll be a pair of those rookie starting QBs who struggle in the learning experience and eventually wind up with an ugly yellow blazer in Canton.

All we know for sure is that Lawrence and Wilson were made the starters for a pair of truly horrible football teams, while Jones had the good fortune to inherit a team coming off a merely mediocre year. He has the luxury of being on a team that while it hasn't been all that impressive, isn't bad enough to drag Jones down by asking him to do the impossible, lift up a team of 45 men, 30 of whom should be in other lines of work than professional football.

In an earlier post, I noted that the only Hall of Fame QB who came in and dominated as a rookie starter was Dan Marino. I must apologize for omitting the most relevant context to that fact. Due to unfounded rumors about drug use that turned out to be one of the luckiest breaks of his career, Marino wasn't drafted by a bad team or even a mediocre one. He went to a Dolphins team that had made the Super Bowl the previous season. He got a Maserati to drive. Wilson and Lawrence have 1980s used cars from the Soviet Union. 

One of the worst mistakes fans and many commentators make about the NFL is mistaking the truth "the quarterback is the most important player on the team" for the falsehood "the quarterback is more important than the rest of the team put together." Off the top of my head, I think maybe the all-time great QBs are like 25 percent of their team's overall value in their best years. A rookie starter is like maybe 5 percent of the whole.

Jones went out Sunday and was allowed to be the best five percent he could be against the Jets. It's ridiculous to think he can't make big throws deep. Didn't anyone see Alabama play last year? But he didn't have to. There was no need for New England to take the slightest risk against the Jets.

Poor Wilson on the other hand, is playing for a team that knows it needs its quarterback to TRY and be at least 15 percent of team value if it's to have a chance against any opponent except perhaps, well, the Jaguars. The Jets are going to face a good many two touchdown deficits this year, and if they are to have a shot of overcoming any, Wilson's gonna have to make the throws. Many many throws. Might as well let him start now.

Wilson knows all this as well as anyone. If there's a better formula for pressing than being thrust into a low percentage situation from jump street, I can't think of one. The results were predictable. While one of his interceptions was just a panic throw, the rest fell into that lethal category "that one always worked against Utah State."

Some rookie QBs take that kind of humiliation and end up as stars. More of 'em break. Every NFL rookie QB was the big star for their whole lives, always successful, always the hero. Personal and group failure is more than many of them can bear. A couple of seasons being buried under large pass rushers often breaks them physically, too.

Sooner or later the Pats will need to make up two touchdowns or more and the dipsy-doo back pages of the Josh McDaniels playbook used against the Jets won't cut it. Jones will have to throw often and take risks doing so. No one has the slightest idea how he'll perform, which is why Belichick wants to postpone that evil day as long as he can.

Few teams are good enough to carry a bad quarterback to a successful season. The Pats seem to believe they're good enough to carry one who's not hurting them out there. So far, results are mixed at 1-1.

That's way better than the results Lawrence and Wilson are part of this morning.  All they can do is wait for reinforcements. Or rather, hope for reinforcements.

posted by Michael Gee @ 8:07 AM