Mac Jones' sideline outburst caught on broadcast: "Throw the [bleeping] ball!"
BOSTON -- Thursday night was a rough one for everyone involved with the Patriots. Frustrations are bound to boil over in such moments.
One such instance from quarterback Mac Jones was caught on camera by the Prime Video broadcast, and a clip of a brief outburst from Jones aired during the postgame show on Thursday night.
In the clip, Jones appears to be shouting, "Throw the [bleeping] ball! The [bleeping] quick game sucks!"
Initially, internet lip readers believed that Jones said that the "running game" sucked. But with the video spreading quickly on social media, Jones was asked about the moment in his postgame press conference and clarified that it was the short passes that he took issue with.
"Yeah, obviously just kind of let my emotions get to me. But you know, we were kind of playing from behind, and what I said was about throwing it deeper. In the short game, I gotta execute that part better, but it's the short game that we kept going to -- which was working, but I felt like we needed chunk plays, and I shouted that out to kind of get everyone going," Jones said. "And that's emotional, that's football. I'm passionate about this game. Obviously, you don't want to let your emotions get the best of you. But yeah, I think that's pretty much it. It wasn't directed at anybody. Just emotion coming out, and we kind of needed a spark."
Later, Jones expounded a bit, indicating he was getting impatient with the short passes being called.
"Yeah, I think it was just me at that point in the game was just like, 'All right, we're playing catch-up here. Let's just go for it. Let's be aggressive. Let's take those shots. Let's just go down fighting,' you know?" Jones said. "And Matty [Patricia] was on the same page and we kind of did that at the end there and moved it a little bit more. So at the end of the day, we've gotta execute the plays and do a better job. But sometimes you're just so competitive, right? You want to go out there and, 'Hey, let's get a 50-yard gain.' And sometimes it doesn't happen but we might as well go down trying and trying to make it work.
The Patriots scored just 10 points against the Bills, with their lone touchdown coming when New England caught the Bills off guard by utilizing kick returner/defensive back Marcus Jones on offense for a 48-yard catch-and-run. The team added a field goal in the final minutes.
Jones completed 22 of his 36 passes for 195 yards with one touchdown and no interceptions.
Rhamondre Stevenson accounted for almost all of the running game, rushing 10 times for 54 yards. After that, Jones had three rushing attempts for seven yards. Rookie Kevin Harris got one carry for a loss of a yard. Damien Harris was out due to injury.
The Patriots were playing without Isaiah Wynn at right tackle, and without his backup, Yodny Cajuste. Left tackle Trent Brown was sick, to the point where he was questionable to play and did not participate in warmups. Center David Andrews returned from injury in the middle of the line. Practice squad tackle Conor McDermott spent the night at right tackle. Jones was only sacked once but spent much of the night trying to run to safety.
The Patriots gained just 242 total yards, their second-lowest number of the season. And the boo birds came out early and often at Gillette Stadium.
While Jones was obviously upset in the moment, he took his share of the blame after the loss.
"So when you're playing from behind against a really good team and a good offense, you need to go out there and make better plays, and that starts with me. So definitely wasn't good enough by me tonight," Jones said. "And all you can do is watch the tape and see where we can get better. But playing catch-up is hard, we didn't want to do that all game, and I didn't do a good enough job of getting ahead early and making it work. So tough one, but hat's off to the Bills for playing a good game."