Mac Jones is caught in a pickle.
If his Patriots teammates are to “not count him out” for this Sunday at Green Bay, as the quarterback reportedly said on Thursday, then the question becomes how was the second-year kid ready to return eight days after it looked like someone had just removed his spleen with nothing but a spork?
Which was two weeks after it seemed Jones’s back might have locked into an upright position.
That’s not to question Jones’s “toughness.” I think we all saw Thursday night why any medical diagnosis in the NFL should come with some level of doubt.