Hurley: Mac Jones has much more on the line than the Patriots this season

BOSTON -- People in New England sure do talk about Mac Jones in a weird way. A very weird way.

For whatever reason, he's always spoken about in extremes. Whether it's listening to sports radio or simply having a conversation at a cookout, you'll generally hear that Mac Jones is either the worst quarterback in America who whines too much or that he's the helpless victim of bad coaching who just two seasons ago was one of the best rookie quarterbacks to ever play in the NFL. The area in between can be difficult to find ... even if it's the most reasonable and accurate way to assess the player and his situation.

Nevertheless, there's this weird ownership of Mac Jones that seems to be going on with Patriots fans, as if some of them believe he owes them something. 

Perhaps I'm describing this poorly, maybe I'm making it up. Maybe I'm the whiner. The point is this: Everybody has it wrong.

For as much as everyone is worried about the ultimate win-loss record of the 2023 New England Patriots, the reality is that Mac Jones has a whole lot more on the line this coming season than the franchise at large.

Put another way: Whether the Patriots go 4-13 or 13-4, they will remain a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Gillette Stadium will be printing money for a long while. That will be the case if Mac Jones is the MVP of the league or if he's benched by Week 4.

For Jones, though, his entire career is more or less riding on the performance he puts forth in the coming season.

That's not even hyperbole, really. After the conclusion of the 2023 season, the Patriots will need to decide whether or not they will exercise the fifth-year option for Jones for the 2025 season. If Jones is deemed a reliably good starting quarterback who still has upside, then the decision to keep him for 2025 will be a relative no-brainer. Doing that will cost something between $23 million and $30 million, though, so it will be a challenging decision if Jones leaves enough room for doubt about his NFL ceiling based on his play in the 2023 season.

If Jones does play poorly and/or gets hurt again in 2023, and if the Patriots decline that fifth-year option, it'll officially put Jones in scramble mode as he tries to secure his footing in the NFL. That scenario can happen to anyone, regardless of college pedigree or draft position. And the line between secure starter and journeyman backup can really be drawn at that fifth-year option decision.

The Bears declined the fifth-year option on Mitchell Trubisky for the 2021 season, after he had thrown 48 touchdowns and 29 interceptions while leading the Bears to a 23-18 record over his first three seasons. The Bears traded away four picks -- a first, two thirds, and a fourth-round pick -- in order to move up one single spot in the 2017 draft to take Trubisky at No. 2 overall, so declining that option was likely a painful decision. He ended up leaving Chicago via free agency in 2021, signing a one-year deal worth $2.5 million. The Bears drafted Justin Fields at No. 11 overall later that spring, thereby resetting the quarterback clock with a newer, younger, cheaper (and probably better) prospect.

Sam Darnold presents another case. When faced with a decision to pick up or decline Darnold's fifth-year option in 2021, the Jets opted instead to trade the QB to Carolina, where the Panthers then picked up the option. To that point, Darnold had been 13-25 as a starter with 45 touchdowns and 39 interceptions. Darnold was never good or healthy in his two seasons with Carolina, and the Panthers paid him almost $20 million to start just six games last season. Darnold -- who signed a one-year deal with San Franciso with $3.5 million guaranteed this offseason -- serves as a cautionary tale for teams who are deciding on a fifth-year option for a player who has some serious performance flaws.

Baker Mayfield is another interesting scenario, as the Browns picked up his fifth-year option, only to trade him away after his fourth season. Mayfield was subpar in 10 starts with the Panthers before getting released and claimed by the Rams in December. He was paid more than $15 million by the Panthers to throw 10 touchdowns and eight interceptions, and he was left to find a taker this past offseason, when he got a one-year, $4 million deal with the Buccaneers.

Mayfield may be the most interesting comparison of them all. At No. 1 overall, he was drafted higher than Jones (No. 15). He had a Heisman Trophy, but Jones had a national championship. Mayfield entered his third NFL season in 2020 while working with his fourth offensive coordinator (Todd Haley, Freddie Kitchens, Todd Monken, Alex Van Pelt). Jones will be working with his third offensive coordinator in three years in 2023 (Josh McDaniels, Matt Patricia, Bill O'Brien). Perhaps the fact that Patricia never coached offense and never will coach offense again makes up the difference in that equation, though.

Through two seasons, Mayfield had a 12-17 win-loss record with an 85.9 passer rating, having completed 61.5 percent of his passes while throwing 49 touchdowns and 35 interceptions.

Jones, through two seasons, has a 16-15 win-loss record with an 89.0 passer rating, 66.5 percent completion rate to go with 36 touchdown passes and 24 interceptions. 

Mayfield had a strong third year, going 11-5 with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions for a 95.9 passer rating, which led to Cleveland picking up that fifth-year option. A step back in 2021 (83.1 passer rating, 6-8 record, 17 TDs, 13 INTs), though, sent him on the path that he's traveled for the past year and a half.

In that sense, even if Jones has a strong 2023 season, he still has a ways to go in order to cement his status in the league. But playing well in 2023 is step one toward attaining that goal. (Mac Jones could go the Daniel Jones route by playing decently well in year four and landing an utterly absurd contract as a result. That doesn't happen often, though.)

If the quarterback plays poorly and the team loses a bunch of games, the Patriots will take a hit in the short term ... but they'll be fine after that. Whether it's Bailey Zappe or a draft pick in 2024 or 2025, the Patriots will find another quarterback. The train will get back on track, and the train will keep on rolling.

For Jones, though, the consequences of a bad 2023 season figure to be a bit more severe.

So really, no matter what everybody seems to be yelling about Mac Jones, the full book on the soon-to-be-25-year-old has yet to be written. It's now up to him to determine whether it'll be a novel or a short story, and it depends almost entirely on how he plays in the coming season.