If You Bet the Under on '10 Games for Mac Jones to Be Compared to Ndamukong Suh,' I Have Good News For You
Deep down, we all should've known this day was coming. It was only a matter of time. As long as Mac Jones was successful (which was also only a matter of time IMHO), he was going to be vilified by America. It comes with being under center for the New England Patriots, provided your good enough. It's something that became ingrained in the public over the last 20 years. Or maybe it goes back to Drew Bledsoe, I sort of forget how he was perceived nationally. What we should've realized before now is that some professions just breed contempt as an occupational hazard. Even if you're the salt of Earth and doing your job with all the professionalism you can muster, people just hate the office. Like traffic meter officer. Personal injury lawyer. Tax auditor. President of the United States. Patriots quarterback, so long as he's winning.
Which Mac Jones is. So when he grabbed Brian Burns by the ankle after fumbling thanks to a clean but brutal hit, thought Burns had the ball and was trying to prevent a scoop and score touchdown - referred to in some circles as "playing to the whistle," the response from the Panthers was predictable.
But again, being slow on the uptake I guess, I didn't make the leap that this brutal play from the notorious headhunter that is Jones would become a national controversy. That's on me. One year of going under .500 with a quarterback no one feared because he was ... well, under .500, must have made me soft. So I didn't expect this:
Source - Mac Jones was trying to hurt an opponent. That's the only takeaway one can have after watching replays of him twisting Brian Burns' ankle on Sunday in the New England Patriots' 24-6 victory against the Carolina Panthers.
And any player who intentionally tries to hurt an opponent, especially with something not in the flow of a game, should be punished harshly by the NFL. Except he won't be, according to a report.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media said the NFL will review Jones' ankle twist, but he "faces a possible fine, but nothing more than that." That might not be enough.
The play looks as dirty as anything Ndamukong Suh ever did to get suspended by the NFL.
Ndamukong Suh. An All Decade Team defensive tackle who's 6-foot-4, 313 pounds of bad intent. Voted "The Dirtiest Player in the NFL" by a poll of players conducted by The Sporting News and "The Least-Liked Player" in a Forbes Nielsen poll. Assessed nine personal fouls in his first two seasons, the most in the league over that span. Fined $216,875 by the league for four violations in the first four years in his career. He once stomped someone while they were on the ground on his first game coming off league probation. Michael Irvin told me on my old radio show that Suh most definitely knew his probation had just ended, because he said everyone knows the last day of their probation, and laughed that he spoke from personal experience. (Note: I love that man.)
So now that 214 pound menace, that assassin in a dad bod, Mac Jones is doing it as dirty as Suh ever did. My response to that?
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Yup. You got him. Everyone in New England was hoping the rest of the world wouldn't catch onto his true nature for a while. But there was no fooling you. He's ravenous, feral beast. He's out for blood and there's no satisfying his carnal appetite. He's going to be the NFL's next enforcer. The goon of quarterbacks. A WWE Heel in Babyface clothing. Suh is probably questioning his own manhood as we speak after watching McCorkle dish out the punishment.
And the thing that most triggers Jones bloodlust? Turnovers. Do not - and I cannot emphasize this enough - DO NOT recover a fumble from this man or intercept one of his passes. His shirt will rip up the back and the green rage monster inside will come out. Just look at the vengeance he exacted on Stephon Gilmore after his pick:
So let that be a lesson to all defenders. You've got the next Suh in your midst. Only much much worse. Turnovers make Mac Jones angry. And you wouldn't like him when he's angry.
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