Former Patriots staffer says shopping Mac Jones is ‘against everything’ Bill Belichick would do

Things did not go very well for the New England Patriots last season. The Pats finished just 8-9, and they missed the playoffs for only the fifth time in the Bill Belichick era. Their offense, in particular, was a disaster, both in terms of on-field results and in the conception of how it should be run.

A lot of the blame for that poor performance landed at the feet of Matt Patricia and Joe Judge, and this offseason, Bill Belichick tapped back into his past to hire Bill O’Brien as his offensive coordinator and hopefully get things back on track. But it wasn’t just the coaches who came under fire; quarterback Mac Jones was widely criticized as well, and briefly seemed to be benched in favor of Bailey Zappe. This offseason, Belichick refused to confirm that Jones was definitively the team’s starter heading into 2023, and last week, it was even reported that New England was shopping Jones. 

According to Mike Lombardi, a former Patriots staffer during the 2000s, that is highly unlikely. 

“The idea [Belichick] is shopping Mac is against everything he would do,” Lombardi said on the “GM Shuffle” podcast, according to ESPN.com. “First of all, he’s the most secretive person in the league. He’s not going to tell you anything he’s doing; even some people in the organization don’t know. 

“But if somebody comes to him and tells him, ‘I’ll give you a [first-round pick] for Mac,’ does that mean he’s shopping him? No. That just means somebody asked the question. I think we’re at a semantical issue here. Did the Patriots mess up with their decision with the staffing [last season]? That’s fairly obvious, and I think [Belichick’s] admitted that. Was Mac Jones’ behavior conducive to that of an ultimate leader? No. He’s got to admit that too. So there’s culpability on both sides. The only way they’re going to improve is [acknowledging that] together.”

Lombardi’s assertion that shopping Jones is against everything Belichick would do makes sense, but for a different reason: Jones is coming off a down year after he performed much better as a rookie, so selling on him now would likely be selling low. And unless Belichick feels that Jones is done in the NFL, it’s highly unlikely that he would sell at this moment. It would be much better to wait and see if Jones performs better under O’Brien before making the decision to move on. He’s under contract for at least two more seasons either way, so you might as well gather as much information as possible prior to making a move.