The big drop-off in accuracy: Tom Brady ranked second in the percentage of throws charted as accurate from 2015 to 2019, while Mac Jones ranks 18th in this same metric since entering the league.
Jones takes too many sacks: Jones takes sacks more often than Brady did, which puts more pressure on the offense.
The Pats aren't calling enough play-action: Jones ran play-action nearly 28% of the time in his rookie year. Now, it’s being called only 19% of the time.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
For two decades, the New England Patriots employed one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. In that time, the organization won six Super Bowls and came close to winning another three. They secured 17 AFC East titles and were the first team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to go through the regular season without a defeat.
When Tom Brady left, the organization was sent into a flux. Their salary cap situation was in dire need of a reboot. There was no franchise quarterback on the roster, and the COVID-19 pandemic forced many of the Patriots' best players to opt out of the season.
The 2021 NFL Draft signaled a new starting point for the team following the selection of Alabama's Mac Jones with the 15th overall pick. But after a promising rookie year that propelled the Patriots to the playoffs, everything has gone downhill.
While Mac Jones’ rookie year wasn’t Brady-esque, he showed the ability to be a game manager who could thrive in ideal situations with good playcalling, a solid offensive line and a ferocious defense. But since then, Jones has not been the same, and the Patriots have struggled.
Let's examine various metrics that differentiate Brady and Jones to see what the Patriots have been lacking since Brady left for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020.
PFF PASSING GRADE
First off, let’s look at Brady's and Jones’ PFF grades. PFF grades attempt to isolate a player from their surroundings and evaluate different areas of quarterbacking like decision-making, accuracy and timing.
As you can see, there is a pretty significant difference in Brady’s grades from his time in New England to the ones Mac Jones has put up since being drafted.
During 2014, some wondered whether Brady had started to decline and if Father Time had finally caught up to him, but he then responded with some of the best years of his career, earning elite grades in each of the following four seasons and taking home two MVP awards.
From a grading standpoint, Jones doesn’t come close to Brady, and the young quarterback's play in 2023 has been pretty bad.
EXPECTED POINTS ADDED (EPA) PER DROPBACK
Expected points added (EPA) per dropback and PFF grades are fairly correlated, as good quarterback play will likely result in good efficiency numbers. So, it’s not too surprising to see a similar trend here.
Brady never recorded a negative EPA per dropback from 2012-2019, and Mac Jones averaged a -0.08 EPA per dropback in 2022.
EPA is influenced by a quarterback's surroundings, but if you look at some of the skill position players Brady was throwing to in the mid-2010s, there are not many excuses you can make for Mac Jones and his weapons.
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TURNOVER-WORTHY PLAY RATE
Mac Jones has really struggled with decision-making this season. And while decision-making isn’t something our turnover-worthy play metric (TWP) fully captures, it’s one of the best measures we have to see how often a quarterback is putting the ball in harm’s way.
Jones has been awful in this metric in 2023, with his 5.1% turnover-worthy play rate being the sixth-highest in the league through 10 weeks. He’s basically doubled his turnover-worthy play rate from 2022, as well.
After the Patriots ousted Matt Patricia and Joe Judge and installed Bill O’Brien as offensive coordinator, this was the year Jones was supposed to revert to his rookie form. Instead, he's arguably the worst he has ever been, and the Patriots are in uncharted territory, given how well Brady kept the ball out of harm’s way during his time in New England.
SACK RATE
Brady’s last eight years with the Patriots were kind of up and down in terms of sack rate, which is interesting. His down years (2013, 2015, 2017) typically came in seasons that featured a huge cluster of injuries to Brady’s skill position players or offensive line.
For example, the 2017 Patriots lost Julian Edelman in the preseason and moved to a higher-target-depth offense with Chris Hogan, Rob Gronkowski and Brandin Cooks as the primary downfield targets. Brady posted a 9.5-yard average target depth that season, his highest from 2012-2019. He also recorded a longer average time to throw (2.62 seconds). In turn, he took more sacks.
Jones has taken sacks more often than Brady, which puts more pressure on the offense.
TEAM PASS-BLOCK GRADE
Jones' blocking hasn’t even been that bad outside of 2023. In both 2021 and 2022, the Patriots earned similar team pass-blocking grades to the ones they earned blocking for Brady despite the absence of legendary offensive coach Dante Scarnecchia from the coaching staff.
ACCURACY RATE
Ultimately, the biggest difference between Jones and Brady has to be their accuracy.
Brady has always been one of the most accurate passers in the league, while Jones' 59.3% accuracy rate since 2021 ranks only 18th among 35 qualifying signal-callers.
From 2015 to 2019, Brady ranked second in accurate pass rate, behind only Drew Brees.
The Patriots went from top-of-the-league accuracy to league average accuracy in a very short space of time, another factor in their offensive decline.
PLAY-ACTION RATE
We’ve talked a lot about where Mac has struggled and how he’s been a downgrade from Brady. So, how he can get closer to his 2021 production?
Well, the Patriots should start with running play-action at a higher rate. In 2021, Jones ran play action nearly 28% of the time. This year, the Pats have called it about 19.1% of the time, 30th among quarterbacks.
Play-action is generally more efficient than non-play-action. So, it’s not too much of a surprise that Mac’s most productive year came when they ran a lot of it. It was somewhat expected that Jones would run more play action under Bill O'Brien this year, given that Houston ran it close to 25% of the time during Deshaun Watson’s final two years with O'Brien.
Still, part of this could be the game script. The Patriots have played in some blowouts this year, and running play-action down three possessions wouldn't have done anything. But calling it often and early could solve the Patriots' struggles.
THE LONG ROAD AHEAD FOR THE PATRIOTS
There’s no question that going from one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time to almost anyone else will be a downgrade. When Brady left New England, the Patriots were probably hoping they could rebuild with a signal-caller capable of winning on a rookie deal with ideal surroundings. While Year 1 of that plan seemed to work, it’s been mostly downhill ever since, and the underlying metrics surrounding Mac Jones suggest that it likely won’t get any better.
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