Colin Cowherd Wins the Hot Takes Arms Race by Declaring Belichick is Ready to Move on From Mac Jones

In Tolkien lore, there was only one force in Middle Earth with the power to destroy the One Ring. And that was by casting the Ring into the fire from which it was forged, the cauldron of burning magma boiling inside Mount Doom. But that's only because Professor Tolkien never lived to know Colin Cowherd. Because no mere Ring of Power could withstand the intensity of this Molten Lava Take. 

So let me see if I can follow the logic here. Bill Belichick is about to turn 70. I'm with you so far. He wants to win Super Bowls. Roger that. Josh Allen presents a problem. Agreed. Mac Jones didn't have a bad game Saturday. I'm still following you. Quarterbacks who have Allen's skillset are who wins championships in today's NFL. I don't agree, but I'll allow it for the sake of argument. Jones is young and has three years left on an affordable rookie deal. Very true. That makes him valuable. Go on. So therefore it makes sense to trade Jones now. 

Beg your pardon?

I appreciate the pressure to spew outrageous, ill-considered, illogic nonsense in order to cut through the noise in the basic cable echo chamber. But this is just so wrongheaded on so many levels as to be incomprehensible. It's a masterpiece of stupidity. Like a piece of modern art that you can hang upside down or sideways and look at from any angle and it still makes no sense because the artist wasn't going for comprehension. Just a reaction. And he got it. 

In spite of everything Cowherd correctly says about the last two games against the Bills, this season was a success. Because they went 10-7 and made the playoffs. But more to the point, because they found a 23-year-old quarterback who led them there. If they were under .500 but Jones was the exact same player, the season would still have been a win in the grand scheme of things. By the same token, if they went 10-7 with, say, Cam Newton playing exactly like 2020 Cam Newton, there would little to no hope for the future. As it is, we've got the best of both worlds.

Besides, look around the league and tell me what hitting on a rookie quarterback the way the Patriots did is worth to a franchise. The Jaguars had to be the worst team in football to get their generational QB. And they're right back where they were last year. The Jets were right behind them, and are close behind them again. 

The Niners spent their next two 1st rounders to get Trey Lance and his 41 completions. And are heading to Green Bay for the Divisional round with him on the bench. The Patriots spent nothing to get a guy who is objectively, right now, better than any of them or Justin Fields. They not only have the 21st pick to either add to the defense that keeps getting gutted by Allen or someone Jones can throw to. And the favorable cap situation his rookie deal provides to upgrade the roster even more. 

Advertisement

So with all that in mind, a guy who gets paid to understand the NFL landscape thinks the smart move is to … start over? Declare the Jones experiment a failure? Try to beat Allen with whom exactly? Jimmy Garoppolo at $25 million a year? Someone younger who's already fallen out of favor with the team that drafted him like Baker Mayfield or Tua Tagovailoa? Draft someone else, God forbid? 

Thanks for the laughs. This has been a lot of fun. I haven't enjoyed a "They should trade him now because his value will never be higher" conversation this much since 2002, when the Boston media was still lousy with Drew Bledsoe loyalists who thought Tom Brady just got lucky and was too limited an athlete to be Belichick's long term solution. I haven't forgotten them. And when Jones is on his third Patriots contract and an 80-year-old Belichick is still happily winning with him, I won't forget this hot take, either.