Mac Jones Sees Improvements With Patriots Offense

“It is a little frustrating at times. But our offensive line, the actual players and coaches, are trying the best they can,” Jones told Patriots.com. “We have good offensive lineman. Good players up front. A lot of it is just figuring out the scheme and making sure there are no free guys.”

“That’s the biggest thing for me. As long as there’s no one free, I should be able to make the throws like any quarterback can, and I know my offensive line can do that. It’s just getting the communication. It’s different from what we’ve done in the past.”

The natural follow-up question to the declaration that New England’s protection rules and calls are different than in the past is, what makes it so different to the Pats starting quarterback?

“At the end of the day, you don’t want to have any free runners. That’s the biggest thing to me. Our guys on our team, the fundamentals are really good, they’re giving me a good pocket, and we just want to clean up those few plays where they are not. A lot of it is just me stepping up and getting the ball out quick, too. It’s a full group effort here.”

With opponents always looking for an edge, it’s not a surprise that Jones didn’t get the whiteboard out to diagram how exactly the Patriots protections have changed this season.

And the Patriots offense had a more productive day both through the air and on the ground in Tuesday’s practice, where the operation was as crisp as it’s been in recent days.

With a clean pocket to throw from, Jones had time to scan from left to right and found a height mismatch on the boundary for DeVante Parker against Jonathan Jones. Mac floated the ball up in the air for Parker, who climbed the ladder over Jones to make the contested grab.

Later, the Patriots defense sent a more exotic pressure toward Jones, leading to an unblocked Devin McCourty running free through the line. Although Jones isn’t a fan of free runners, it was clear that Jones knew he was a man short if McCourty came on a blitz and threw “hot” to an…