Listening to a Patriots Legend Threaten to 'Smack the Shit Out of Fucking Mac Jones' is a Bittersweet Moment

Watching Mac Jones enjoy somewhat of a career resurgence in Jacksonville is very much a mixed blessing for Patriots fans like myself. Meaning, those of us who invested all our hopes and dreams in him back in 2021. In the year before he was saddled with Matt Patricia and Joe Judge as his coaches, and his entire career went tits up. 

On the one hand, you can be filled with sorrow over the lost opportunity. "Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: 'What might have been,'" and all that. On the other hand, you can be grateful to have a younger, much more athletic franchise QB with a higher ceiling than Jones. But on the other, other hand, you can be glad for him he's having success. Like giving a pet you can no longer care for to someone who lives on a farm, where he can run around and be happy:

And make no mistake, so far Jones is having success in Jacksonville. At least by the standards of preseason performance, which is all we have to judge him:

Among all passers with at least 25 dropbacks, his completion % was 4th most and his passer rating was 5th highest. So as it stands, the change has done him good. 

But not everyone is happy for McCorkle. For sure two-time Super Bowl champion and future team Hall of Famer Rob Ninkovich is no mood to wish him well in all his future endeavors:

 “I’ll smack the shit out of fucking Mac Jones. I don’t care. Do you care if somebody doesn’t like you? I hope he has a great career as a backup and makes a ton of money.

“Look at freaking Mac Jones down in Jacksonville right now. He’s griddying all over the place. I’d rather listen to Drake Maye talk than, [soft, high-pitched beta male voice] ‘Yeah, my modeling career didn’t work out. So now, I’m back down here in Jacksonville.'  I’m a nice guy, too. I’m a nice guy. I’m in a bike club. I needed some more nuts.”

Brutal. Positively brutal. 

Have you ever broken up with someone, and once the relationship is over, your friends feel free to tell you exactly what they thought of this person? The things they kept to each other behind your back, but now it's out in the open? That's how I'm feeling right about now. Because it's unlikely Ninkovich is the only Patriots voice - past or present - questioning Jones' manhood like this.  Or tooling on him because he was once a child star:

Or implying that he's two-ply soft. It's hard not to imagine others in the building over the previous two seasons were saying the same things. Maybe not with the authority of a Rob Ninkovich, who came from nowhere to become the cornerstone of two championships. Who appeared in just eight games in his first three years in New Orleans and Miami, then once he go to New England, didn't miss a game until he was suspended by the league for the first four weeks of his eighth and final season. 

So if there's anyone who can talk about someone lacking nuts, it's Ninkovich. And I don't just say that because we're close personal friends due to that one time I interviewed him:

So yeah, this is a rude awakening indeed for us former Mac Jones stans. It gives us a chance to see how he was perceived by others who weren't so invested in him. And through their eyes, he wasn't looking so good. I mean, that is a pretty deadly accurate impression by Ninkovich. Frank Caliendo couldn't have been that dead-on. And this has me questioning my judgement, and asking why I couldn't see it myself. 

But the real important takeaway is that this Pats legend is happy to have Drake Maye instead of Jones. And since that's our reality, or will be soon enough, then I'll take that "sweet" with the "bitter." Because Maye has nuts enough for all of us.