Alabama QB Mac Jones believes he’s more than just a pocket passer
Ever since the 49ers traded up with the Dolphins last Friday to acquire the third overall pick in the 2021 draft, Alabama quarterback Mac Jones has probably had a burning feeling in and around his ears — because everyone’s talking about Jones and that potential fit. On the most recent version of Robert Mays’ podcast for The Athletic, Daniel Jeremiah of the NFL Network said that of the texts he received after the trade, most NFL decision-makers believed that the move was made to acquire Jones with that third overall pick.
It’s an interesting discussion, because from an outside view, it’s not a great fit at all. 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan, who will join general manager John Lynch at Jones’ Tuesday pro day, has generally preferred quarterbacks with the ability to run boot-action and play-action, and those quarterbacks who can make second-reaction throws. And for all Jones did for the Crimson Tide in 2020, that was never really Jones’ thing.
I recently evaluated the four sub-Trevor Lawrence quarterbacks in this draft class for their fits in what Shanahan has historically preferred, and as great as Jones was from the pocket in 2020, he ranked last in the piece precisely because of the lack of tape in which he was able to successfully boot and get outside the pocket against pressure to keep the play alive.
I asked Jones about this perception of him as a pure pocket passer, and how that run against what most NFL teams prefer today, and he was quite certain that he can do more at the next level than people (like me) might assume.
“Well I ran a 4.7 40, so that should help out,” Jones said with a laugh. “I know what you’re saying in terms of wide zone boot and stuff like that. And actually, going back, that’s one of my favorite plays to run. I know we didn’t do a lot of it this year because we didn’t have to, but if you ask [former Alabama offensive coordinator] Coach [Mike] Locksley about that, I was always like, ‘Hey, can we get a naked [bootleg play] right here?’ We’d start the scrimmage off with a naked bootleg play, which is the bootleg you’re talking about.
“So, we didn’t do a lot of it, and I don’t know if it was because I inherited a little bit of Tua’s stuff and what they were doing there [referring to former Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa], but I can do it all. Obviously, there’s not a ton of tape on it, but in high school, I ran the Wing-T, so there was a lot of moving and throwing on the run. It’s all stuff I’ve done in the past, and it’s something I’m working now, and it’s something I’ll get to show tomorrow as well. It’s just something that we didn’t do a crazy amount of with the scheme we had, and what we wanted to do this past year.”
Jones is right in that there isn’t a lot of tape with him throwing on the move. In 2020, per Sports Info Solutions, Jones had just 21 dropbacks in which he eventually left the pocket. On those dropbacks, he completed just nine of 19 passes for 99 yards, 71 air yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, two sacks, and a quarterback rating of 80.8. Every single one of those dropbacks came under pressure; that is to say that the Crimson Tide called no plays whatsoever in which Jones left the pocket intentionally.
That said, and with the 49ers’ top brass in attendance to see what Jones can do on Tuesday, you can expect a boot-heavy script as Step One in the process of proving the naysayers wrong.
