Julian Edelman was a critic of Mac Jones well before the New England Patriots quarterback's tumultuous 2023 season.
Last year, the former Pats wide receiver took exception to Jones' outbursts on the field and his lackluster tackle attempt on the final play of the infamous Jakobi Meyers lateral game vs. the Las Vegas Raiders. Since then, Jones hasn't done much to earn Edelman's praise.
Jones was benched in favor of Bailey Zappe four times this season before finally losing his starting job in Week 13. There's a strong chance the 2021 first-round pick has thrown his final pass in a Patriots uniform.
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On a new episode of Tom E. Curran's Patriots Talk Podcast, Edelman shared his candid thoughts on Jones' demise.
🔊 Patriots Talk: Julian Edelman on Mac, Bill and what’s next for the Patriots | Listen & Subscribe | Watch on YouTube
"I mean, last year was definitely a tough situation," Edelman said. "But I think of it like this. If you're a guy, you figure your way out how to make plays. If you're a guy in this league, you do that. I mean, look at Justin Herbert. I know this year is particularly worse than what he's been having. But, I mean, the guy found out he was playing and starting his first game 20 minutes before the game, and he went in and became productive and built something, and he's made plays. You've seen confidence when you shouldn't probably have had the confidence. So I don't know. If you're a guy, you make plays.
" ... It's a tough situation. I feel bad for the kid. It was tough but he didn't help himself with how he acted in a lot of ways. You can't follow up a guy that was notoriously known to take hard coaching (Tom Brady), who did it for 20 years, and yeah there was friction here or there or whatever, but we never really heard about it out of Tom's camp. We never heard about that. ...
"When you go out and you're shushing up the coaches -- and I don't want to sound like an old guy, like an old-school guy, but that's not what you want to see from a starting quarterback. A guy grabbing dudes' ballsacks, kicking a guy, like, that's not gonna help you when these kinds of conversations come up."
Edelman believes there's still a chance Jones could find success in the NFL, but it won't be as the Patriots' starting QB.
"You never know, he could have a career that (works out). I just don't think it's gonna happen in New England," he added. "I think he's definitely broken. Maybe he goes on and gets another shot somewhere, but sometimes you gotta toughen it out."
Also in the episode:
- The Patriots currently have a top-three pick in the 2024 draft. How important to the franchise should the care and feeding of the new QB be?
- Does the “old-school” coaching style work with today’s players?
- Full interview with Julian Edelman.
