Belichick Passes Up the Opportunity to Confirm Mac Jones is His Starter Amid Reports of Major Tension Between Them

We've seen this sort of thing before, of course. Belichick setting his Deflector Shield to "FULL" and rerouting them through the impulse engines for maximum power. Most notably Week 4 of 2014 when he was being asked if he was considering replacing a then 37 year old Tom Brady with Jimmy Garoppolo. And ironically, just kept repeating that he was "onto Cincinnati." 

He's behind that podium solely to manage the narrative in a way that helps his team win, not bait every journo's click traps for them. He's done it dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands of times. It's one of his many strengths.

And yet this time, it feels different somehow. Owing primarily to the Bomb Cyclone levels of turmoil around the team all year. Amplified by reports from Patriots insiders, who are saying Belichick is all the way over the way Mac Jones has been conducting himself:

WEEI -The relationship between Mac Jones and Bill Belichick can’t be in a great place following weeks of on-field insubordination, says NBC Sports Boston’s Tom Curran.

On “Gresh & Keefe” Tuesday, Curran said he thinks Jones’ hysterical behavior … may have caused irreparable damage to the young quarterback’s rapport with Belichick. 

“What Mac is doing right now is really eroding Bill’s trust for him, I think,” said Curran. “Bill lives on a chain of command, respect for authority. That’s a cardinal rule for him. What Mac is doing now is eroding the trust that Mac won’t go up the backstairs, even symbolically. Because Robert Kraft can’t watch the gesticulations and histrionics on the field, and see what happened on 1st-and-goal from the 2 the other day, and not go to Mac at some point and say, ‘So what’s going on here?’ In that conversation, whether he says it or not, Bill Belichick will perceive that Mac is either showing up him, his decision or everything Bill is all about. That’s what Mac has set up with his histrionics and the notion that ‘we have to take more control of this offense.’ He’s making an enemy out of Bill Belichick.” 

Emphasis mine. Curran went on to infer that Sunday's final play was evidence of a revolt among the players against Matt Patricia, led by Jones:

“I think Sunday was a bridge too far,” said Curran. “If you look at what Rhamondre Stevenson and Jakobi Meyers did at the end of the game: desperation, no fear of what the reprisals would be if they continued with that play. I’m not saying they went in the huddle and said, ‘Let’s whip it around for a while.’ But I think if there’s a fear of authority that existed for Jakobi Meyers in 2021 or 2020 in the same way in 2022, you wouldn’t have seen that. There’s an erosion of the ‘Bill knows what’s best. I don’t want to piss Bill off’ that Mac has been, I think, behind.”

And Curran is not alone among Patriots reporters in believing Jones' freakout on that 1st & goal situation represented his Arnhem Bridge as far as the coaching staff is concerned:

And by no means was it his first tirade. A lot of Jones' most angry rants - like the goal line ones - aren't available on the www.internet.com machine. But it's not hard to fill a holiday assortment box of them, from different games and all angles:

And frankly, I've been all for them. I think the vast majority of Pats fans have. I gave Patricia, Joe Judge, and whoever else is involved in the decision making that leads to a Delay of Game and a timeout to prevent a Delay of Game every single week, all the time I possibly could for them to figure their shit out. And I thought maybe that 26-3 win over the Colts in Week 9 was them turning a corner. Then came the bye week. Followed by them scoring 3 points against the Jets and 10 against Buffalo, precipitating Jones's rant that was going to define the season:

 … until that Hook & Ladder play crashed and exploded. I truly believe when McCorkle is ripping the offensive staff, he's speaking for all of us. His frustration at their incompetence is our frustration. His emotions are our emotions. His peasant revolt is our peasant revolt. 

On the other hand, if you look at it from Belichick's perspective, which is the only one that counts at all here, you can understand how he'd have zero interest in letting this continue any further. 

First of all, because while I truly believe Jones has been done a disservice by Matty P., he doesn't exactly have the juice to be going full Braveheart here. He has yet to earn the level of trust with his play to justify pitching fits in the middle of games. When Tom Brady was screaming at Bill O'Brien on the sidelines that time, he'd won three rings and MVPs and set records. Jones was a fifth alternate to the Pro Bowl and runner up ROTY. 

Second, because carrying on with overly dramatic gesturing is fine if you're Jim Leyland trying to get thrown out of a game. Or you're conducting an Over-Emoting Workshop for actors trying to land roles in the Sharknado franchise. Fat lot of good it does you in a goal-to-go situation in the red zone, though. It certainly didn't help the Patriots punch it in. Unless you count Jones's dive play that got called back because Jonnu Smith was looking around and pointing instead of getting set for the snap he knew was coming. 

Being quarterback means you lead the huddle. That requires focus, calm, and an air of confidence. Something that's hard to pull off when you're bitching to your coworkers about how incompetent your boss is. (Even if it's true.) The rest of us have the luxury because we're just drunken monkeys sitting on our couches or burping the alphabet into our keyboards. That's a privilege second year QBs do not enjoy.

Personally, I'm firmly on Team Mac. I hope Belichick resolves this situation with a sit down, 1-on-1, man-to-man heartfelt talk. Use it as a teachable moment that's followed by hugs and lessons learned. Put it behind us and look forward to looking back and having a good laugh about it in happier times.

But I wouldn't put it past him to drive the point home in a more definitive way, with a benching. This is after all the guy who determined 2003 Lawyer Milloy was what the organization referred to as a "negative leader" and cut him five days before the season began. Who benched Wes Welker for the opening series of a playoff game for making jokes about Rex Ryan's foot fetish. And wasted no time trading Randy Moss at the deadline once he gave an unhinged press conference griping about his contract status. If he decides a player's attitude is a detriment instead of a benefit, he's going to … stop me if you've heard this before … do whatever is in the best interest of the team. 

Whatever happens, watching the way it unfolds over the next three weeks is going to be fascinating to watch. The playoff ship has probably sailed already, but the whole future of the franchise may be riding on it.