Jones cracked a joke when asked what it was like to succeed Brady as the Patriots’ quarterback.
“Well, the good news is that I replaced Cam Newton,” Jones said with a smile. “Just kidding.”
Five months after the Patriots drafted him 15th in 2021, Jones found himself playing against Brady at Gillette Stadium when Brady’s Buccaneers visited in Week 4.
Jones went 31-for-40 passing with a pair of touchdowns and an interception. Brady went 22-for-43 for 269 yards and did not throw a touchdown, but the Buccaneers were able to pull off the 19-17 victory. Jones described the atmosphere as “electric,” saying it felt like being in a video game.
“Oh yeah, that was lit. That was awesome because they were calling it the game of the century,” Jones said. “I just feel like the lead-up was really cool. It was a night game, it was sold out, tickets were going for like 4 or 5 thousand dollars or whatever and then everyone is hyping it in the media.”
“I tried to stay off social media during the season and stuff, so like, you know it’s all about Tom. I was like [expletive] I have nothing to lose here. I’m just going to go out there and sling it, and I did.”
The Patriots made the wild-card round of the playoffs, where they lost to the Bills, 47-17. Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels left to become head coach of the Raiders. New England was sixth in the league in scoring in 2021. By 2023, they had dropped to second-to-last. McDaniels’s departure was “step one” of the Patriots’ offensive downfall, Jones said.
“Bill [Belichick] interviewed people, or whatever, and I don’t know, I just felt like we didn’t click during OTAs, and you could kind of see it trending [down],” Jones said. “I was just a second-year player, so I didn’t really say much or do much. Brian Hoyer was the backup and he was kind of like looking at me trying to keep me in it, but we were like, this is not going to be good.”
Belichick considered calling the offensive plays himself, but ultimately had Matt Patricia and Joe Judge split the play-calling duties, Jones said. They were experimenting during offseason practices, Jones said, but the process became confusing.
“I was like ‘all right, Bill wants to take it over, he has six Super Bowls, he can do whatever he wants, right?’” Jones said. “I’ll trust it and maybe it’s good. But, he took it over and we kind of didn’t know where we were going, you know?”
“Like there was three people in the meeting. Who stands up to talk to the offense? They didn’t really know. Is it Joe Judge? Is it Matty P? Is it Bill? … We ended up, like, changing our entire offense a week before the season and it was kind of like back to what we did in my first year, but we weren’t practicing that so it was really hard for everybody.”
Jones said the team could see the writing on the wall, but he added that he didn’t want to “cross” anybody. The Patriots went 8-9 in 2022. The offense wasn’t great, but it was enough to stay competitive in most games.
Jones wound up crossing Belichick the following year in 2023, when he was reportedly calling around to outside football sources and asking for help. By the end of the 2023 season, Jones had been benched in favor of Bailey Zappe.
“Honestly, it was weird for both of us,” Jones said. “We were both young and it was really the second year, too, when we had like Matty P and stuff. He went in there and played really good, which was awesome. But, it was kind of weird because it was my team. I felt like that. I felt like I deserved that shot.”
Jones said getting traded to Jacksonville was like a breath of fresh air.
“Going back home was cool,” Jones said. “It was good. I felt like that era was over. It was time for me to try something new.”
Khari Thompson can be reached at khari.thompson@globe.com.
