Did the Patriots select Tom Brady 2.0 in Alabama’s Mac Jones?
Yahoo Sports’ Senior NFL Writer Charles Robinson shares his take on New England not having to move up the draft board to select the former Crimson Tide signal caller with the 15th pick of the first round.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: Well, in a pick that seemed destined almost from the start of the NFL Draft, the New England Patriots land Mac Jones, the Alabama National champion quarterback, at the 15th overall selection. Interestingly after the San Francisco 49ers selected North Dakota State's Trey Lance at number 3 overall, leaving Mac Jones on the board to slide-- although some teams will tell you it wasn't necessarily a slide-- down to the 15th slot in the draft.
Now what's interesting about this pick is you're talking about an Alabama product, a Nick Saban product, which gives the New England Patriots great information on Mac Jones. They know absolutely everything they would need to know about his character, about his play style, his film, his strengths, his weaknesses simply because of the relationship between Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban and New England Patriots Coach Bill Belichick.
Now, you're going to hear a lot of Tom Brady comparisons to Mac Jones, whether it's the size, the stature, even sort of the body types, coming into the league a little soft, sort of like Brady. He'll probably get better and stronger physically. He can move in the pocket, is adept, not necessarily an athletic quarterback, but extremely accurate in the pocket.
He processes defense is really fast. When you talk to teams that went through the paces with Mac Jones, they would tell you that, look, you could tell this guy something about your offense, some intricacies, and then come back months later and he would spit those right back at you with no problem whatsoever and may even be able to tell you the exact scenario in which you fed him the information. So he's someone who retains a lot of information, should be able to step in pretty quickly for the Patriots.
Obviously, Cam Newton there will be the starter or the slated starter when the season begins in 2021. But the pressure's going to be there for Mac Jones simply because of the Tom Brady comparisons, whether they're fair or not. It's notable if this is Bill Belichick's first, first round quarterback since he became the head coach with the New England Patriots. So plenty of pressure there on Mac Jones to succeed, but the Patriots did not have to move to get him at number 15 overall. We will see how this turns out.
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