Mac Jones' frustration boiled over as an impotent New England Patriots offense failed to produce during Thursday night's 24-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills.
The Prime Video broadcast showed Jones on the sideline at one point, appearing to say, "Throw the f------ ball! The quick game sucks!" The assumption from the majority of viewers was that Jones directed his ire at play-caller Matt Patricia. But the quarterback said after the game it wasn't directed at anyone specifically.
"Obviously, just kind of let my emotions get to me, but we're kind of playing from behind," Jones said. "What I said was about throwing it deeper in the short game. I got to execute that part better. But it's the short game we kept going to, which is working. But I felt like we needed chunk plays. I shouted that out to kind of get everyone going.
"That's emotional. That's football. I'm passionate about this game. Obviously, you don't want to let your emotions get the best of you. But yeah, I think that's pretty much it. It wasn't directed at anybody. Just emotion coming out and we kind of needed a spark. When you're playing from behind against a really good team and a good offense, you need to go out there and make better plays. That starts with me. Definitely wasn't good enough by me tonight. All you can do is watch the tape and see where we can get better. Playing catch-up is hard. We didn't want to do that all game. I didn't do a good enough job of getting ahead early, making it work. So tough one, but hats off to the Bills for playing a good game."
The Patriots offense is a miserable amalgam of disjointed play calls, poor blocking, receivers who can't gain separation, and a quarterback who struggles outside the framework of the offense.
Nothing is easy for New England's offense. After DB Marcus Jones took a quick throw 48 yards for a TD on the first offensive play of his NFL career, the Pats got stuck in the mud, going three-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out before missing a field goal to end the half, while the game was still close.
It got little better in the second half as New England began to get some first downs against a Bills defense playing it safer, but failed to punch it into the end zone, settling for a pointless field goal late.
Thursday's singular TD put the Patriots at seven total offensive touchdowns in their last six games. Jones went 22-of-36 passing for 195 yards and a TD.
According to Next Gen Stats, Jones finished the game 7-of-20 for 57 yards on passes with time to throw of 2.5-plus seconds (2.9 yards per attempt on such passes is the lowest by any QB in a game in 2022, min. 20 such attempts). The stat underscores Jones' inability to make plays out of the structure of the offense. When the first couple of reads break down, it's over. Watching Jones and Josh Allen compete on the same field highlights the stark difference in their games.
Even with the poor performance and the sideline frustration, Jones believes he's on the same page with the coaching staff.
"Yeah, I think it was just me at that point in the game like, 'All right, we're playing catch-up here, let's go for it, let's be aggressive, let's take those shots, just go down fighting,'" he said. "(Patriots assistant Matt Patricia) was on the same page. We kind of did it there at the end and moved it a little bit more. At the end of the day we have to execute the plays and do a better job. Sometimes you're just so competitive, right? You want to go out there, 'hey, let's get a 50-yard gain.' Sometimes it doesn't happen, but we might as well go down trying, and try to make it work."
The Patriots went down for the second consecutive week, falling to 6-6 and further behind in the postseason race with five tilts remaining.