For whatever reason, there has been an ascension for Alabama QB Mac Jones in this draft class. I really don’t understand it either. I don’t see him as a guy who should be a top 10 pick, let alone top 5. Let me explain why.
I have to preface by saying that I don’t think Mac Jones is a bad quarterback. He isn’t. He does some things very well. His arm accuracy is great and his processing of defenses is really good. But I’m still struggling to see why he’s getting the level of love he is at the present moment.
The problem with Mac Jones will always be that he isn’t a game-changer. His play doesn’t elevate anyone. You could honestly make a great argument that playing behind the best offensive line in college football and having Smith, Waddle and Harris on offense elevated him. He faced zero adversity at Alabama his one full year of starting, which had the most dominant college football season I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t close. The roster was the best I’ve seen too. You couldn’t be surrounded by a better supporting cast as it relates to how much better they were than their opponents.
There are certain guys in the NFL that need a great supporting cast and a great system to be good. Some of these guys include Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Jared Goff, Derek Carr and Jimmy Garoppolo. I’d place him in that class of QB in the NFL. Again, not bad, but also not a guy that is going to move the needle by himself. He’s going to need everything around him in order to be successful. His talent alone can’t create wins like Mahomes, Allen, Rodgers, Wilson and others can. Also, let’s stop with the comps to Brady. Come on man, there’s only one of him. Don’t be disrespectful.
When you are taking a QB in the top 10, you better get a guy who is seen as a super talent, not a guy who is “just another guy.” We’ve seen way too often that teams take these ordinary kind of players at QB way too early in the draft and they get burned. Goff was the biggest case of this recently. Mayfield was this way too and has only been a middle-ground QB at best. The top of the draft should be reserved for guys who are seen as the top 1% of talent you can find. You can find Mac Jones types later on in drafts. Cousins was a 4th round pick and he’s the most popular comp for Jones. What are we doing here? Has the NFL learned nothing from constant failures in this regard? Does it ever succeed? Why do we keep doing this every year? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Every time a team takes a player like this early, they regret it for years to come while other teams run around with these uber-talented guys and win.
The NFL is a totally different game than it used to be. A quarterback like Mac Jones just doesn’t win you Super Bowls in the current NFL. 20 years ago Mac Jones would be a really good prospect. Now? Not really that attractive. You need a super-athletic guy who can do-it-all these days, unless you have Tom Brady. How many Super Bowls have Cousins, Ryan, Goff and Garoppolo (as a starter) won? Yep. Zero. There’s a reason for that.
I just don’t get what’s going on here. Some team is going to make the same mistake we’ve seen made over and over again in this league and that’s a team taking a more ordinary player over a guy who is a 1%er in talent. I don’t love that. Again, Mac Jones is not a bad player, but he’s just not a guy I could ever justify taking so early in the draft. That’s not where you get a system QB. You pick in the top 10, you better get someone who is on a different level in talent, even if it’s a bigger risk. You need to get a guy who can be transcendent. That’s what you’re picking that high to do, or at least it should be. If it’s not, than your thinking deserves to be questioned.
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