Mac Jones Named AFC Offensive Rookie of the Month

New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones was named AFC Offensive Rookie of the Month for November. The former Alabama All-American is the first Patriots rookie to receive the honor since Chandler Jones in September of the 2012 season.

Jones guided the Patriots to a perfect 4-0 record in November. He led the NFL in passer rating (117.2), yards per attempt (8.63) and completion percentage (76.8) for the month. Jones also threw 854 yards and seven touchdown passes.

ESPN NFL analyst Ryan Clark offered some high praise for Jones earlier this week on “Get Up!”

“Mac Jones is going to be the Rookie of the Year,” Clark said. “And many times when we see these quarterbacks that are Rookie of the Year — you look at Justin Herbert, it was all about talent. Cam Newton, when he won it, it was all about talent. And we always go, ‘When he gets some of these things, he might he might be the MVP of the league. Mac Jones has all of the ‘some of these things. “The anticipation, the intelligence, the understanding of defenses, how to execute, how to attack it. And the New England Patriots use that to the best of their ability, and that’s why they’re successful offensively.”

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Jones has been spectacular through the first 12 weeks of the season. He leads the league in most games with 65%+ comp percentage this season with 10. In fact, Jones is throwing a catchable ball 85% of the time, the highest among all NFL quarterbacks.

"You run out of superlatives for this guy... He's playing at a level and he's thinking at a level of a QB with much more experience than he has and it's incredibly impressive,” said CBS NFL analyst Steve Beuerlein.

The 23-year-old signal caller is only getting better each week. Jones went 19-of-23 for 198 yards and three touchdowns in the Patriots 45-7 rout of the Cleveland Browns in week 10, setting a career-high 142.1 passer rating. The following week against the Atlanta Falcons, he became the first rookie quarterback to complete 80% of his passes in back-to-back games. In last week's win over the Tennessee Titans, Jones threw for a career-high 310 yards.

Jones already has six games this season with a passer rating of 100 or greater, the other first-round quarterbacks in this class have a combined zero.

“He’s a guy that wants to do everything the best that he can, so if he, for some reason, didn’t have great success in a series, then he’s got an urgency about him and a desire to do it better,” McDaniels said.

"He’s a very good listener. He’s in-tune with what happened,” McDaniels said. “He usually gives me very good feedback from what he saw, which is a great sign for a young player. You say, ‘Hey, did he rotate late?’ (And Mac says,) ‘Yeah he rotated late.’ Then you look on the picture and see that he did. So we always try to tell the young guys: don’t make something up if you’re not sure. He usually has a really good grasp on the series that he just was out there for, and we have a good dialogue about it. He has good answers to any questions that I have.”

The Patriots will return to action on Monday, Dec. 6 to face the Buffalo Bills in a battle for first place in the AFC East. Kickoff is set for 7:15 CT and will air on ESPN.