Draftables: Mac Jones
“It’s easier to maximize your ability when you know where that ability ends”
- probably a real person
That may seem like a diss, but you gotta respect what Mac Jones has done with limited physical tools. He’s gone from the afterthought quarterback in one of the best college recruiting classes of all time, to the winner of a preseason quarterback competition with a five-star Kyler Murray-type, to a national championship winner and potential top 5 pick in the NFL draft.
His production this year—while leading one of the top offenses in college football history—was remarkable, but two major questions remain: (1) how much of that production was—like it has been for so many Alabama quarterbacks before—based on the supreme talent and scheme around him; and (2) how will his lack of ideal tools translate to the NFL?
Let’s try our best to find out / guess.
![Get… excited? [Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e40f3a094d5fa3ebbbedb09/1617765369346-P2ZPPPA202UVEA3FMBF5/Mac+Jones.jpg)
Get… excited? [Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images]
Ht: 6-2
Wt: 217 lbs.
Age: 22
School: Alabama
Stats
Build: Due to his long limbs, I expected Mac (real name “Michael McCorkle”) Jones to be much bigger, but he measured out just a fraction of an inch taller and a few pounds heavier than Zach Wilson. However, the two carry their weight much differently.
In essence, Mac Jones has transformed from your cousin’s gangly twelve-year-old friend who tries to hit on all the senior girls at the family Labor Day party to the dad flipping burgers and talking incessantly about his grill at that very same party.
Tom Brady’s infamous combine pictures are the gold standard for “it doesn’t matter what you look like as long as you can ball,” and—to be fair—there are plenty of NFL quarterbacks who have succeeded without chiseled physiques. So Jones’ bod isn’t actually important, even if it resembles that of a forty-year-old man.
Experience: A redshirt junior at Bama, Mac Jones is often billed as the most pro-ready of the first round quarterbacks but actually has the same number of career starts (17) as Trey Lance, whose entire sophomore season was cut short (except for one game) due to COVID shutdown. Granted, when you sit behind a Heisman front-runner and top 5 pick, the experience questions aren’t held against you as much (see: Murray, Kyler). But we’re still talking about a single season as a starter.
Injuries: Mac was kept pretty clean by Alabama’s elite offensive line and th only injury I could find was that a sprained ankle kept him out of playing in the Senior Bowl this draft season.
Scouting Report
Offensive Mastery: One of the reasons people don’t mention Jones’ lack of college starts is the level of mastery in which he ran Bama’s offense this past season. While he was certainly helped out by a truly unfair collection of talent around him, Jones showed complete control over the Tide’s playbook—which was NFL-like in breadth and complexity, even if it relied much more on RPOs than a pro team—and it’s easy to see how that will translate to the next level.
While he was often knocked as a game manager, Jones regularly puts the ball in the right place at the right time, and that fundamentally simple—but difficult to find—quality shouldn’t be undervalued in his evaluation. His understanding of the Bama offense was so deep that when Bill O’Brien came in to take over as offensive coordinator after the season, Jones was tasked with helping walk him through the playbook.
Reads the Full Field: While Bama was so stacked that he didn’t often have to go through all his progressions, Jones is lightning-quick scanning through his reads and getting the ball to the right player. He processes faster than any of the other quarterbacks in the class, is clean moving through his progressions, and throws with great anticipation, especially when throwing into windows between the hashes.
As mentioned in the Zach Wilson write-up, anticipation often differentiates starters from busts and is something that some people can learn and others simply never grasp. The fact that Jones already has it is a great sign.
Very good accuracy: When Jones is throwing within the comfort zone of his arm strength, he’s as accurate as any quarterback in this class. He regularly dots receivers in stride on short-to-intermediate routes, shows great touch throwing over underneath defenders, and typically makes work between the hashes look routine.
Despite being a bit gangly, Jones’ throwing motion is compact and efficient, leading to a quick release that can offset some of his arm strength limitations. He does a great job of keeping his mechanics in lockstep on every throw, has fewer eye-popping misses than the other prospects, and can throw down the field successfully when he can get the ball out quick and/or attack the middle of the field. His placement plus release will be an immediate weapon in the RPO and YAC game and will certainly get the attention of Shanahan—who has always prioritized accuracy in evaluating his quarterbacks.
Athleticism: Jones is scaring absolutely no one with his legs, but his athleticism is better than it’s been billed. He’s got quick feet and shows good awareness in the pocket, knowing when to step up or slide from pressure. He’s also much better throwing on the run than he’s given credit for, largely because he does a great job of keeping his eyes downfield and maintaining his upper body mechanics while on the move.
That said, don’t expect the sort of jaw-dropping off-platform throws that a lot of these other guys have shown throughout their film. When Jones really gets off his mark, is crushed for space and/or time, and has to rely more on his pure arm talent than mechanics, things can fall apart in a hurry. But that’s the case for a number of quarterbacks.
Leadership/Character: The Bama program and its players have spoken very highly of Jones, and he definitely gives off the vibe of a “chill bro” who you like to have around the locker room—an image that he continued to foster while chatting up Shanahan at his pro day. However, his record isn’t pristine. As a freshman, Jones was arrested for a DUI on campus after getting into a car accident at two in the morning.
To his credit, Jones has been open about his mistake and says that it changed his life and his life for the better. Since then, there have been no character issues. He finished his undergraduate studies with a 4.0 GPA in three years and played last season while working towards a masters degree. The DUI seems out-of-character enough and Mac Jones is white enough that it hasn’t gotten a ton of pre-draft attention, and while any red flag is worth investigating—and the Niners certainly will do just that—“dumb college kid does dumb college kid thing” is less likely than others to lead to issues down the road.
Subpar Arm Strength: This is Jones’ biggest knock, and it’s a very legitimate one. It’s not just that his arm strength falls well short of the other quarterbacks on this list—they all have absolute hoses—but that his arm strength will be—at best—average by NFL standards. And you see it on film.
It’s been noted that Jones’ completion percentage on deep passes was actually better than any of the other top QBs in this draft, but... Alex Smith also led the NFL in yards per attempt his last year in Kansas City. If you diagnose the deep ball quickly and let it rip early—as Smith did in KC—you can put up good vertical passing stats, but that’s not the same as threatening teams vertically with arm strength. When Jones really had to open up and uncork it down the field, the ball often wound up short, and he was bailed out more than a few times by great playmakers out wide.
Yes, most of these are completions, but they should have been touchdowns. That’s a lot of points left on the field. Granted, some of these are difficult throws, but they’re also throws that everyone else in contention for the No.3 pick has the arm strength to make (some, with regularity). Jones’ lack of arm strength also showed on quick balls outside the hashes and on some crossers when he had to throw across his body.
While he has enough oomph to get the ball to most spots on the field and should have few issues between the hashes, his arm strength is limited enough that it will affect the playbook and what we’d feel comfortable running.
Summary
NFL Comp: Swaggier Kirk Cousins
In the past decade, how many quarterbacks have played at a truly elite level with only average arm talent? I would argue two, and both of them (Brady and Brees) are first-ballot Hall of Famers and two of the smartest and most accurate quarterbacks of all time. Sure, Joe Burrow—last year’s #1 pick and a player who Jones is often compared to—also lacked ideal arm talent, but Burrow was considerably more effective off-script than Jones and had truly elite accuracy. Matt Ryan has also been the comp for people who are high on Jones, although I’d argue Ryan’s arm is better and that he was more accurate for longer through college—despite considerably worse numbers due to situation and supporting cast. A solid-but-not-spectacular Kirk Cousins or a more accurate-but-less-athletic Alex Smith is closer to where I’d guess. If he doesn’t occasionally wilt like Cousins, then is that enough?
While you can have prolonged success as a running back who’s not that fast (Frank Gore) or a receiver who’s not that big (Marvin Harrison), a quarterback’s skillset dictates the entirety of your offensive playbook. Gore didn’t have to run fly sweeps and quick pitches because there was always a backup or gadget player for that. Harrison didn’t need to win jump balls in the end zone because at any given time there were 2-3 other receivers they could line up opposite him to accomplish that task. As we’ve seen with Jimmy, if your quarterback isn’t comfortable (or capable) throwing the deep ball, the deep ball no longer exists in your playbook. If we’re going out of our way to replace Garoppolo, do we want to do so with someone who doesn’t let us expand our playbook?
I would absolutely take Mac Jones after the first round. Depending on who was still on the board, I would maybe take him at 12. Jones’ intelligence and accuracy should allow him to be a long-time player in this league—arm concerns be damned—the question is in what capacity. If the end result is an average-to-above average starter, have we improved from Jimmy G? Because that’s a major draft capital loss for a lateral move—even if Jones has fewer injury problems.
Since we traded four picks—three of them first-rounders—for a chance to move up for a quarterback in a loaded class, I want someone with higher upside whose tools let us open up our offense and better utilize the weapons at our disposal. I want someone who I can envision being a top 5 quarterback in this league for the next decade. If that’s our expectation for Mac Jones then—considering his physical limitations—he has little to no room for error. We’d be banking on him becoming Tom Brady or Drew Brees—the two greatest outliers at the position of the past twenty years—and referencing past outliers to shape current decisions is a surefire way of missing more often than you hit.
I believe that if we take Jones at three he’ll have success in Shanahan’s system. His accuracy, quick decision-making, and smarts should allow him that floor. But for what we gave up to get that pick, the goal should be more than that. If the Niners do wind up with Jones—which every media person seems oddly sure of—then they’d better be absolutely positive he’ll reach his ceiling.
Go Niners 👍🏈