QB Evaluation: Mac Jones vs Georgia
Breaking down Alabama quarterback Mac Jones against Georgia
One of the more intriguing quarterbacks in this year's draft class is Mac Jones. The Alabama quarterback put up fantastic numbers in 2020, completing 77.4% of his passes while throwing for 4500 yards, 41 touchdowns and just four interceptions. He also led his team to the national title in an undefeated season. Despite all that, Jones is typically ranked as the fifth best quarterback in this class and receives criticism for his lack of mobility, arm strength and having an outstanding supporting cast around him. So this week, I’m going to put some of Jones’ performances under the microscope and see if those knocks on him are accurate, if he has any other issues, or if he’s being overlooked.
This post will focus entirely on Jones’ performance against Georgia. Alabama won the game 41-24 and Jones put up strong numbers. He completed 23 of 32 passes for 417 yards, four touchdowns and an interception. So let’s get into if those numbers are a fair representation of his performance.
The Good
Jones made a number of excellent throws throughout the game. He was aggressive in attacking down the field, but not reckless. He managed to hit on a number of deep shots and threw some beautiful passes in the process. Here’s a compilation of some of those throws.
First play timestamp: 0:00
Notes: The first play of the clip is his first touchdown pass. Georgia send a cornerback blitz from the boundary, which is the smaller side of the field based on which hashmark the ball is placed on. Jones executes a play-action fake and then located the deep safety. He recognizes the corner blitz leaving the safety to cover the receiver and instantly works that matchup. He doesn’t even wait for the receiver to get level with the safety before he decides to pull the trigger. The throw is perfect, dropping over the receivers shoulder, allowing him to make the catch without breaking stride as he walks in for a 40-yard touchdown.
Second play timestamp: 0:18
Notes: The second play shows Jones’ second touchdown pass. Alabama runs a switch release concept to the left, with the outside receiver breaking inside on a deep over route while the inside receiver works outside on a wheel route. Jones spots the cornerbacks having trouble with the switch release and gets his eyes on the deep safety to decide which throw to make. The safety drives down on the deep over route inside, so Jones works outside and throws over the top of him. The throw from Jones isn’t perfect, as the receiver had to adjust his path significantly to work inside and make the catch, but with the defender beaten already, Jones had plenty of room to work with and Alabama ended up with a 90-yard touchdown on the play.
Third play timestamp: 0:51
Notes: Next we have perhaps Jones’ best throw of the game. The tight end motions into a trips set to the right and runs a route over the middle designed to occupy any deep safety. On the outside, the slot receiver runs a corner route, with the outside receiver running an under route. Jones spots the safety rotation with the motion and checks it again after the snap. The safety works inside with the tight end, leaving the slot corner one-on-one with Alabama’s best receiver, Devonta Smith. The safe option for Jones here would be to just take the under route by the outside receiver, but instead he takes the aggressive option while maintaining a degree of safety. Jones can see the corner is struggling to stay with Smith and knows he can put a high ball on Smith without the defender being able to see it. The placement is perfect and Smith does a tremendous job going up to pull in the catch for another touchdown.
Fourth/fifth play timestamps: 1:14/1:40
Notes: The final two plays of the clip show some nice throws on wheel routes. First, Alabama fake a swing screen to the back out of the backfield, with Jones showing good body manipulation to align to the flat and get the slot defender to bite up on a fake to the flat. That allows Smith a chance to burst past him down the sideline and Jones throws a nice ball over the top for another touchdown. The second play shows a mesh concept with a wheel from the running back. Jones spots the outside corner attaching to the vertical route from the receiver that motioned across, which indicates he could get a man coverage matchup on the back. Indeed, the edge defender peels off and tries to cover the back, but gets caught up in traffic and can’t stay with him. That’s all Jones needs to decide to throw and he delivers another nice throw into a small window over the top of the sinking defender but underneath the incoming safety.
Clearly then, Jones showed he’s perfectly capable of delivering some excellent throws with solid arm strength and good accuracy. He also showed some strong mental processing, which is incredibly important for quarterbacks at the next level. The coaching staff did a good job with the scheme to help give Jones as much information pre-snap as possible, but he showed he was capable of taking that information and processing it into positive plays.
Notes: Here is a perfect example of Jones’ mental processing. Alabama work out of 12 personnel (one running back, two tight ends, two receivers) with both tight ends aligned tight to the left and both receivers out to the right, before he snaps the ball, Jones sends his running back in motion out to the right, leaving an empty backfield.
When working out of an empty backfield, it’s essential the quarterback is aware of his protection rules, because he has the minimum number of blockers to keep him protected. The typical empty protection is known as “5-0”, meaning the five offensive lineman are each assigned with a single defender to block. Georgia has five defenders aligned on the line of scrimmage, so those are the five the offensive line has to account for. If any other defender rushes, like either of the inside linebackers, for example, then Jones is considered “hot”, meaning he has to get the ball out quickly to a predetermined “hot” route.
Georgia tries to beat the protection by changing up which five defenders rush. The Bulldogs send an inside linebacker off the right side of the line, while the edge defender on the left side drops out into coverage to replace the linebacker. While it’s still just five rushers and Alabama technically has five blockers to account for them, those five blockers are pre-assigned their man to block. If Jones had seen the blitz coming pre-snap, he could have slid the protection to the right to pick it up, but it wasn’t an easy blitz to read. So with that linebacker rushing, Jones has to work hot.
Fortunately, Georgia leaves Smith uncovered in the slot, with a safety playing outside leverage from 11-yards off the line of scrimmage. After the snap, that safety rotates back while the opposite safety drives down inside as a robber, but it’s too much ground to make up. Jones spots the linebacker blitzing immediately and instantly shortens his drop to get the ball out as quickly as possible. He hits Smith for a first down before the safety could get to him.
It was one play, but that one play showed that Jones is aware of lots of little details and can process information quickly, understanding not just passing concepts and coverages, but protections too. That will stand him in good stead at the NFL level.
The Bad
One of the big knocks on Jones’ game is his arm strength. As we’ve already seen, when Jones is afforded time to set up and deliver a pass, he has plenty of arm to drive the ball down the field. However, NFL defenses don’t always allow opposing quarterbacks the luxury of working from a clean pocket. When Jones isn’t able to throw from a stable platform, his velocity suffers.
First play timestamp: 0:00
Notes: The first play of this clip comes from the two-minute drill at the end of the first half. Alabama runs a dagger concept, with a seam route designed to clear the deep defenders, a hook route designed to occupy underneath coverage and a dig route to attack the hole created by the other two routes. Jones gets to the top of his drop and feels the center struggling to maintain his block. He attempts to step up initially, but feels a defender looping inside and knows the open lane will soon be closed, so he bails out to his right. As he rolls out, he spots his receiver wide open across the middle. He doesn’t have time to set his feet for the throw but attempts to make the throw anyway. The throw is all arm and lacks velocity, but just manages to get there thanks to the receiver working back to the ball and making a good diving catch.
Second play timestamp: 0:21
Notes: The second play is a flea flicker, with the ball behind handed off before the running back tosses it back to the quarterback. Jones collects the ball and attempts the longest throw available to him. Under some pressure, he has to take a few steps to his right, but is able to reset his feet somewhat to make the through, though he doesn’t fully step into it due to a defender in his face. The ball holds up and forces the receiver to break off his route and come back to it. The pass is again complete, but shows the lack of arm strength. He got away with it while attempting ambitious throws in this situation, but he might not be so lucky in the NFL.
The other big knock on Jones is his mobility, or lack thereof. The modern trend for young quarterbacks entering the league is to have some mobility. The ability to avoid rushers, extend plays, work off-script and run for yards when all else fails is taking over the NFL. Aaron Rodgers was the best at this for a long time, but Russell Wilson, Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson and many others are all excellent at using their mobility to create when plays break down. Jones isn’t the same type of athlete, which not many people are, but it means he can’t always escape pressure when protections break down.
First play timestamp: 0:00
Notes: The first play is a play-action pass with just two routes. It’s a max protection play with eight blockers kept in to protect on a play-action fake. However, a tight end whiffs on his block and a defender comes free early in the play. A more athletic quarterback might look to scramble or put a move on the defender to make him miss, but Jones realizes he doesn’t have that ability and tries to throw the ball away, resulting in an intentional grounding penalty.
Second play timestamp: 0:15
Notes: On the second play of the clip, Jones’ mobility issues show up again. As he sends his receiver in motion, the defense responds by shuffling over instead of having a defender trail the receiver, which indicates the defense is in zone coverage. He knows he has a curl route to his left and wants to work to that side, but the edge defender sinks into the flat underneath it while the corner stays on top of it. Jones then steps up in the pocket as he feels pressure arrives and attempts to bail out of the pocket to his left. As he scrambles, the flat defender closes on him and Jones attempts to throw over him, but fails to get his hips turned around properly to generate any velocity on the throw. The defender ends up tipping the pass as it falls incomplete.
It’s perfectly fine to be more of a pocket passer than an athletic, mobile quarterback. That was the way of the league for so long, but it does come with a major disadvantage. The quarterback has to have his mental process spot on every time without a back up option. The likes of Mahomes and Watson have the ability to scramble around and work off-script if their first or second choice isn’t there or protection breaks down. Jones doesn’t have that to fall back on, which can hurt him particularly on third down, when defenses are at their most complex.
First play timestamp: 0:00
Notes: The first play of this clip comes on third and three in the red zone. Jones motions a receiver across the formation to his left. The defense responds by shuffling over a linebacker. A receiver on a linebacker should be a winning matchup for Alabama, so Jones knows where to look first after the snap. However, the linebacker does a good job maintaining inside leverage and taking away the slant. Jones could potentially try to fit it in there, but might not get the first down by doing so. That pre-snap read is taken away and Jones locks on to it. He begins to panic slightly in the pocket and attempts to run through the lane created for him to throw through. The lane quickly closes and he ends up running into a sack, however, had Jones just remained calm in the pocket and worked to another read, he might have found a post route on the other side of the field coming open in the end zone for a touchdown.
Second play timestamp: 0:23
Notes: The second play of the clip is a flood concept on third and five. Alabama attempts to attack all three levels of the defense to one side of the field. Georgia plays the combination well, with the flat defender holding a solid position to take away both the intermediate and flat routes. Jones hesitates for a moment, almost surprised that his primary option wasn’t open. That delay holds him in the pocket as almost a statue, preventing him from working to his next read. Jones never moves from his spot at the top of his drop and ends up becoming a sitting duck for the defense as the pressure gets home for a sack on third down.
The ability to create off-script, especially on third down, is a hugely valuable weapon in the modern NFL and often results in some of the most explosive plays an offense can create. Jones doesn’t have that ability, which is fine, neither does Tom Brady. But it means Jones has to be consistently on point with his pre-snap reads, ready to adjust if the defense surprises him post-snap and he will need reliable protection up front too. None of that is impossible to ask, but as we’ve seen from these few plays, it’s not something he always gets right on third down.
Another issue I saw creep into Jones’ game was poor footwork under pressure.
First play timestamp: 0:00
Notes: Jones actually does a lot right on this play. He identifies the corner blitz from his right and points his line towards it to ensure it’s accounted for. He then checks the safety rotation post-snap and notices he has his out route from the slot to his left. However, as Jones reaches the top of his drop, he feels pressure from his left and hurries to step up in the pocket to try and allow his left tackle to run the defender by him. This is the correct thing to do, but he executes it poorly. Instead of calm hitch steps up in the pocket, he gets chest on and almost runs forward for a step or two before trying to reset his feet and deliver the throw. This execution causes him to fall away from the throw, which drags the ball down and causes it to fall short of the receiver.
Second play timestamp: 0:16
Notes: On the second play, Jones attempts to hit a basic shallow cross concept. He initially looks to his left before working back down underneath to the shallow cross. As he does that, he gets a flash of a defender closing in on him, though the right tackle does recover. That flash causes Jones to try and back out of the pocket, but he also knows he has the shallow cross available. He attempts an awkward throw while falling away, almost jumping to try and generate velocity. It worked out enough to the point that he completed the pass, but the ball was behind the receiver and prevented him from any chance of yards after the catch.
This falling away from throws was evident on more than one occasion too.
Notes: This is another mesh concept from Alabama, but this time on third and two. Like before, Jones reads the outside corner, but on this occasion he doesn’t attach to a receiver. Instead, he sinks outside and stays on top of the wheel route by the back, forcing Jones to work elsewhere. Jones does just that and spots his underneath crossing route working open to his left. However, as Jones goes to deliver the throw, from a clean pocket, he fails to step into his throw and drive over his front leg. Instead, he falls back from the throw again, causing him to nearly miss the pass. The receiver does well to adjust his body back to the ball and pull in the catch for a first down, but the throw was well behind him and nearly cost the team a first down. It certainly did cost him yards, as the receiver had plenty of space to pick up additional yards after the catch.
Overall, it was somewhat of a mixed bag from Jones. There were plenty of positives from the performance, with Jones demonstrating accuracy, aggression to attack down the field and quick processing with understanding of protections, coverages and route combinations. The lack of arm strength is an understandable criticism, but not a major flaw. When he can set his feet, he has enough arm to make all the throws he would routinely need to make, he just doesn’t have the arm to make the off-balance, off-script throws that more athletic quarterbacks make routinely in the modern NFL. Similarly, the lack of athleticism isn’t a huge issue itself, quarterbacks in the NFL have worked from the pocket without being particularly mobile for decades.
However, the lack of arm and athleticism means Jones and his offense have less margin for error and his mental process has to be right consistently. In this game, he struggled in key situational moments like third down, where defenses are at their most complex and the pass rush is at its most threatening. Quarterback’s have to be at their best when it comes to situational football, such as third downs, and Jones wasn't in this game. Jones and Alabama were good enough to stay on script and win this game with big plays off play-action on first and second down. What I’d like to see from Jones in the next game I write about is the ability to win on third down, when the play doesn’t go exactly as scripted, because that’s what separates quarterbacks at the next level.
Great write up. Seems like he offers no more of a ceiling than Allen or Heinicke. Pass.