Mac Jones
House, who has famously worked with Tom Brady and Cam Newton, laid out how the Patriots quarterback could improve “arm speed” and “arm distance” with training.
New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
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As good as Patriots quarterback Mac Jones’s rookie season was, the way teams preyed on his lack of elite arm strength down the stretch raised alarms for fans and evaluators alike.
Though there’s plenty to feel good about with Jones going forward, the question persists: is Jones too close to his peak to approach the upside of young stars like Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Justin Herbert?
But while Jones might not ever have that level of raw talent, legendary throwing coach Tom House believes there’s more untapped potential in the Patriots passer’s right arm than many give him credit for.
“From what I know about dealing with quarterbacks and pitchers, when they show up, very few of them have maxed out their genetic capacity to throw,” he said on NBC’s Patriots Talk podcast with Tom Curran this week.
House, who has worked with Tom Brady, Cam Newton and a bevy of other passers and pitchers in his time, described Jones’s current throwing process as “efficient” and “accurate” while not generating a ton of velocity. But the instructor also told Curran he could work with Jones to improve the young quarterback’s “arm speed and his arm distance” with a little training.
House pointed to his work with former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck after the four-time Pro Bowler underwent shoulder surgery in 2017 and “couldn’t roll a football or a ball 20 yards without pain in his arm.”
“We reevaluated his mechanics and reevaluated his functional strength,” House said of Luck’s program. “All we did was train with round balls…we knew three weeks before camp was supposed to start that he could throw a 1-pound ball about 55 mph. So, I knew right away that throwing a football 55 mph was possible.”
Of course, Jones doesn’t have the base athletic ability of Luck, a former No. 1 overall pick regarded as one of the best college quarterback prospects ever, or other elite NFL quarterbacks, which House acknowledged.
But that doesn’t mean the soon-to-be-second-year Patriot can’t noticeably beef up his arm by the time the 2022 season starts.
“I don’t know the farthest that Mac has ever thrown a football, but I guarantee you we can train him to do it,” House added. “We can repattern and retrain his delivery to handle consistent 60-yard throws if necessary…I could look Coach Belichick in the face and say, ‘If you need him to throw five 60-yarders this game, he can do it for you.’”
Asking Jones to throw 60-yarders a lot probably isn’t in the Patriots’ plans — just imagine how long those things would hang in the air — but you get the idea. Contrary to what some believe, the young quarterback can indeed strengthen his arm and does have room to grow physically with a whole NFL offseason ahead of him.
Depending on how much you buy into this cryptic tweet, House might well be part of the plan to usher in a new version of Mac Jones in 2022.
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