Peter King: 'Matter Of Time' Before Mac Jones Wins Starting Job Over Cam Newton
BOSTON (CBS) -- The world has finally caught a glimpse of Mac Jones in a Patriots uniform. And the opinions -- informed or otherwise -- are flowing.
One such opinion that's sure to raise an eyebrow or two in New England came from Peter King. In his weekly Football Morning In America column, King touched on the performance of all of the rookie quarterbacks before stating his belief that Mac Jones will be the starter in New England at some point in the near future.
"Seems like a matter of time before Jones wins this job," King wrote.
King said that veteran QB Cam Newton has the upper hand, as is generally the case when such a dynamic is at play. But Newton's performance in his two series last week against Washington in the 2021 preseason opener didn't do much to boost Newton's stock.
"He didn't have a good debut in his two series against Washington," King said of Newton. "His throwing, as last year, looks labored."
Elsewhere in the world of big, national, weekly football columns, SI's Albert Breer was not quite as definitive in opining that Jones will win the job. But Breer said that the competition under center is very real.
"We told you at the start of camp that this was going to be a real competition," Breer wrote. "My belief is that it is one, still, and Jones is going to make this call a really tough one for Bill Belichick."
Breer gathered intel on what the Patriots consider the pros and cons from Jones' debut.
"Jones looked very comfortable in his debut. And I think that's the best thing you can say for the Patriots' first-round pick -- the operation looked clean, he ran the no-huddle confidently at the start of the second half, the ball was out on time and there really wasn't anything that looked too fast or big for him (which makes sense, given that he played in a program that basically mirrors the pros in a lot of ways)," Breer wrote. "Specifically, the negatives I gathered were that he aimed the ball a little too much after he first got in the game, and that there were a couple of shots downfield there for him that he didn't take. But overall, he made the Patriots offense look like the Patriots offense we've seen run for the last 20 years, and the coaches showed confidence in him in one very real way. Five of Jones's 19 pass attempts on the evening were out of empty formations -- meaning that there were just five guys blocking for the quarterback, and that he personally had to be responsible for extra rushers coming free. Jones connected on the first four of those throws and took a hit while he threw an incompletion on the fifth one. Which, again, is a pretty good starting point for a rookie."
While the competition doesn't necessarily have to be concluded by Week 1, the world will get a second look at the Newton-Jones dynamic on Thursday night, when the Patriots play against the Eagles for the second preseason game of the summer.
