FOXBORO, Mass. – Patriots quarterback Mac Jones was fined $11,139 this week for his low hit on Bengals cornerback Eli Apple during the team’s loss to Cincinnati this weekend.
This play, a slide into Bears defender Jaquan Brisker, and a twist of Panthers end Brian Burns ankle a season ago have all been brought together to form a narrative across the league that the second-year quarterback is a “dirty player”. ESPN’s Ryan Clark went as far as to call him “the NFL’s Grayson Allen”, comparing his antics to those of the Milwaukee Bucks guard.
Mac Jones on this block, that he’ll likely get fined for (via @WEEI):
"I went down in front of him to kind of get in the way, to stop him from slowing down Tyquan, who could make the tackle there… Definitely no intention to hurt anyone on that play."pic.twitter.com/5q7VvZ1hNL
— Mike Kadlick (@mikekadlick) December 26, 2022
“Yeah, you know. Look, I don’t see it as such in terms of him being a dirty player. That’s not the person I know, that’s not the young man that I’ve gotten a chance to spend time around the last couple of years. I understand that narratives are made up of different people’s opinions, different people’s experiences with a person or with an organization or whatever it may be. You can’t control those narratives. People are going to interpret events the way that they interpret them, and, you know, I think we can’t concern ourselves too much with that because whatever we say is not going to change what people think or say about any particular player on this team. That’s our quarterback, I have a lot of respect for him, I support him.”
Does he think that Jones sometimes gets too close to the line? Or perhaps goes over it? “You’d have to talk to those guys about that. I don’t know.”
Much less lengthy, and far less defensive of the QB than Slater was.
I asked Mac about this on Wednesday to give him a chance to speak for himself on the matter. Here’s what he said:
“I think, obviously, that’s a big part of it is everybody, you know, has an opinion and the biggest thing for me is just focused on being the best teammate I can be and earning the respect of the people in this building and the people I care about. Obviously I have respect for everybody around the league and it takes a lot to get to this league. I know there’s really good players out there and we’re all playing hard and trying to win, so, at the end of the day you have to keep that in mind. It’s a game. You want to just have fun and enjoy it and compete against each other. That’s something that I’ve always done and I know my teammates appreciate that about me.”
Jones seems to have the backing of his teammates as this slander of his name goes on, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some cleaning up to do if he wants to continue being respected across the league. Ranked as the 85th-best player by his fellow NFL counterparts a season ago, Jones now has a reputation to fix as he wraps up his second year at the helm for New England.
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