From OneKumar NFL (@OneKumar_NFL):
From Rizzy (@ImK1utch):
Mac Jones, you mean, Kumar? Yeah, I still tend to doubt it. But that has more to do with Lamar Jackson’s price than any sort of feeling that Mac is affirmed as the Patriots’ future.
I said it back in the middle of February, when no one wanted to hear it—Bill Belichick wasn’t happy with how Jones conducted himself through the 2022 season, which I believe is a reason why, for six months (from the time when Bailey Zappe gave the team a spark back in October, to where we are now), the coach has refused to say Jones is his starter going forward. And regardless of what you think about the spot Belichick put Jones in last year with the offensive coaching (a tough one), Belichick’s opinion still counts more than anyone’s in Foxborough.
That’s why I think the news that Belichick shopped Jones, news that reported Tuesday, may have come to prove a point the coach has often made to players who’ve gone sideways with the organization—no one is on scholarship on the Patriots’ roster. I hit up the teams Mike Florio named in the report. A couple told me they hadn’t heard from the Patriots at all. Jones’s name did come up in conversation with one, but he wasn’t shopped to that team, per se.
So what to make of it? Well, I know the rumor circulated inside the Patriots facility just before the owners meetings at the end of March. And certainly, the idea wasn’t a new one—we’d discussed, back in February, the concept of New England considering overtures on Jones. But it is unorthodox. You don’t have the Dolphins letting things linger on Tua Tagovailoa like this, or the Bears allowing drama to creep in on Justin Fields. Yet, there the Patriots were, at least amenable to Jones’s name coming up in talks with other teams.
That, by the way, is often how these things happen. After the season, around the combine, and ahead of free agency, teams talk to every other team about their rosters, discuss who is and isn’t available and float different ideas. That Jones isn’t immune to being a part of those conversations, again, isn’t the most outrageous thing I’ve ever heard, based on the state of the relationship, but it is very, very notable.
It doesn’t mean a trade is coming. It does mean relationships here are in a weird spot.
As for his trade value, Rizzy … I don’t think the Raiders would give up the seventh pick for him. I don’t think the Texans would give up No. 2 or No. 13. I don’t think the Commanders would hand over No. 16 for him, either. So it’s a pretty low sell by trading him now.
