Mac Jones Says Patriots Offense Was Run by 3 People and Nobody Knew Who Was in Charge

"It just didn't feel clean."

Former New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones went off recently on the "Bussin' with the Boys" podcast hosted by Taylor Lewan and Will Compton about his demise with the Bill Belichick-led team in his second season – 2022.

After making the Pro Bowl as a rookie, Jones spiraled downward in 2022 after he lost his offensive coordinator and saw Belichick empower former defensive coordinator Matt Patricia and special teams boss Joe Judge to run the offense.

The beginning of the end

"Josh McDaniels ended up leaving, and that was kind of Step One. Thanks Josh," Jones told "the Boys."

"That really affected me. I felt like if I could have built on the year before, it would have really helped me and everyone on the team."

Jones continued to talk about the dysfunction on offense as the year unfolded.

"Bill (Belichick) interviewed people, or whatever, and I don't know, I just felt like we didn't click during OTAs, and you could kind of see it trending (down)," Jones said. "I was just a second-year player, so I didn't really say much or do much. Brian Hoyer was the backup and he was kind of like looking at me trying to keep me in it, but we were like, this is not going to be good … We ended up hiring nobody. We kept it in house."

Jones never recovered from confusion

Jones' confusion leaked into the offense as the team finished 8-9. Things just never got untracked.

"I was like ‘alright' Bill wants to take it over, good for him. He has six Super Bowls, he can do whatever he wants, right?" Jones said. "I'll trust it and maybe it's good. But, he took it over and we kind of didn't know where we were going, you know?

"Like there was three people in the meeting, who stands up to talk to the offense? They didn't really know. Is it Joe Judge? Is it Bill? Is it Matty P? … We ended up, like, (changing) our entire offense a week before the season and it was kind of like back to what we did in my first year, but we weren't practicing that so it was really hard for everybody."

Sent out after three seasons

Jones found himself in a seesaw battle with Bailey Zappe in New England that dragged out over two years. Even a return of Bill O'Brien to the OC spot did not help. Following the 2023 season, he was traded away to the Jaguars.

Jones is still in the NFL, currently backing up Brock Purdy in San Francisco.

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This story was originally published July 10, 2026 at 9:00 AM.