MIAMI GARDENS, FLORIDA - JANUARY 11: Slade Bolden #18 of the Alabama Crimson Tide celebrates a five yard touchdown with Mac Jones #10 during the third quarter of the College Football Playoff National Championship game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Hard Rock Stadium on January 11, 2021 in Miami Gardens, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)While he doesn’t have the fanfare of Trevor Lawrence or Zach Wilson, Alabama quarterback Mac Jones seems to be moving up draft boards.
There’s been talk among draftniks that Jones will be a first round pick come April. That’s an impressive one-year rise for a kid who had only started a couple of games before this season.
Senior Bowl director and former NFL scout Jim Nagy got to observe Jones up close in Mobile back in January. While the Crimson Tide standout did not play in the Senior Bowl itself, he did have a strong week of practices and workouts leading up to it.
In an appearance on SportsCenter this morning, Nagy provided two reasons why he believes Jones can be a quality quarterback at the next level.
“The usual two talking points with Mac Jones … it was great to see him up close, and that’s his intelligence and his accuracy,” Nagy said, via 247Sports. “So you talk about those two things, what’s going to make Mac a really good NFL starting quarterback is his ability to process information and take an NFL playbook — which he did in Mobile. That’s difficult for a lot of quarterbacks, to come down here and spit out the verbiage, do all the things they need to do.
“But Mac is an old-school gym rat. We caught him a couple nights in the convention center studying tape after midnight, and the important thing is that carried over onto the field. He got on the field, he knew where to go with the ball and, most importantly, he put it where he needed to put it. I think those are the things that are going to make Mac a really good NFL starting quarterback.”
Jones completed 77.4 percent of his passes this past season, throwing for 4,500 yards, 41 touchdowns and four interceptions in leading Alabama to another national title.
In doing so, he earned the respect of star wideouts DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle, both of whom gave strong public endorsements of Jones recently.
